curious now about the real Dave Spector

[den4]

Anybody have an actual Bio on this fella?
Where did he come from?
How did he get to be the gaijin tarento and last on the rung on the popularity vote?

curious

den4

[Taro Toporific]

Anybody have an actual Bio on this fella?
Where did he come from?
How did he get to be the gaijin tarento and last on the rung on the popularity vote?

Ok. Since I'm met Dave a few times and from what I have read about the guy in the late-great Tokyo Journalinterview of him (circa 1989?) which is no longer online...

From my fading jiji memory, Dave came to Japan in 1981 on the JAW-TETSB Program (Just Another Wannabe --Teaching English to Scrape By)---which is to say he islike me and a lot of other FG here. He had some production experience and hell of a lot of ZUZUSHI---brazen chutzpa. Paraphrasing from memory what he described as his big start in Japanese TV in his Tokyo Journal interview:

"After working a couple of years a production go-for in Japanese---I just knew seeing those gaijin tarento monkeys on TV, I just puke. So I broke onto a TV set filming a talento monkey show and challenged them in my loudest fastest Japanese, 'I can do better'. And those bozos. hired me. I been working every since."

---------------------------

DAVID SPECTOR -- the unapproved BIO


Born: Chicago Northside, 5/5/1954

Appearance: 5ft 5in, 140 lbs soaking wet*, blond-dyed BIGhair held firm with hard jell snot [it's as real as blond hair can be on a Jewish guy], blue contact lens in his brown eyes, always shoulder pads in his undershirt, bad teeth, left handed, and a BIG mouth.

See Dave and his sister Penny on his left noting her hair color.

Present home: In a Japanese TV interview two years ago, Dave showed that he lives in a trashed room in the Shinjuku Keiyo Plaza. He said has, "only lived in hotels for the past 20 years."

School: BA in LA, Hard Knocks Unv.]Dr. [/b]Dave Spector
Television Celebrity & Journalist


Work: College/public access TV, he "claims" to have worked at Second City and National Lampoon (my friends at both places say, 'no fvcking way').

Co-writer"for Airport '77 (1977) and co-author of the paperback AIRPORT '77. Pan, 1977, ("Now a major motion picture from Universal").

In a TV interview,

Dave Spector, who had landed in Japan as a segment producer for "Ripley's Believe it or Not".
The thing that Japanese have on their minds about Americans is that they're blond and blue-eyed and they're wearing sweatshirts and stuff like that. But of course, I'm not like that at all. I'm from Chicago originally and I decided to look more 'American'. I would change my hair a little bit, you know? And it looks very strange, you know, I feel weird when I go back to Los Angeles. People think I'm in a heavy metal group or something like that, and I also have like, you know, the blue contacts. And all of a sudden, 'Wow! Look how American he looks. We can use him much better now.'

BEST OF THE WORST Fox TV, 1991-92

GHOST SOUP(Japanese TV Drama, 1992) Cast: Ran Ran Suzuki, Dave Spector.
The Iwai version of "Christmas Miracle" -- a comical look at the strange events of one Christmas eve.

'Spector 21', 2000, See Spector do the Space Crab bikini dance photo

directed by Hideyuki Tanaka (starring: Dave Spector, Pierre Taki, Senri Yamazaki, Prof. Otsuki, Kiyoshi Beat, Shie Kohinata and others)
The future TV shopping program entitled 'Spector 21' has the lowest audience rating because it deals in worthless items like Space kitchen knife, Space crab and Space scourer. The MC Dave Spector's jokes are really boring and both the producer and director are worried about how to raise the audience rating.

Iron Chef--US version, 2001, Japanese color commentator, Dave Spector

Present gig: Spector is listed as a stringer for ABC TV on his regular appearance on the "Sunday Japon" TBS 10:0Oam (ch6)

_________________more info_________________________

*Dave does not look like this Dave Spector or this guy that offers, " My resume photo. I look like Dave Spector, an American who lives in Japan."

More Spector interview quotes from an educational video called "The Japanese Version",:

"Gaijin Tarentos
As embodied by Kent Gilbert and Dave Spector, both profiled in "The Japanese Version", the concept of the gaijin tarento, or "foreign talent", has no real equivalent in the United States. These are men, American-born, whose fluency in Japanese and ability to fit themselves into a perceived stereotype of American behavior have yielded them lucrative TV careers in Japan as professional Americans. Gilbert, the clean-cut Utah man, and Spector, the artificially blonde energetic urbanite, are often presented as "typical Americans", and their opinions sought on a variety of subjects that they do not necessarily have any expertise in. There are two or three more gaijin tarento on TV, including a Sri Lankan and an American bodybuilder, and their friendly demeanor helps soften the edges of what many Japanese think is an aggressive American culture. They are domesticated, tamed "pandas", reassuring to the home viewer. Perhaps this is an essential process in a culture which is essentially non-confrontational.

[Dave Spector: Making foreigners cuter takes away the threat of foreigners being more powerful, or having more know-how, or more sophistication. So definitely, they use that in a way to make themselves more comfortable. So I've done things on Japanese TV that are totally silly, or ridiculous. I mean like jumping rope with French poodles. Doing things like the lowest Bozo, circus kind of stuff. But it doesn't bother me at all. A lot of times the foreigners on TV, models and what-not, are compared to pandas. They use that term here--pandas-- because they're cuddly, you can go and have fun with them, and throw a marshmallow and that's about it. And you don't get involved any more deeper than that. But...since I'm making half a million dollars a year, I'm very happy to be a panda. I'd be a much lower animal. I'd be like a sloth, or something, or a hedgehog, you know, for that money. So it doesn't bother me at all.
[Narrator]: It was one thing to cut the foreigner down to acceptable size on TV. But the Japanese know that America is not a nation filled with pandas.

[Taro Toporific]

Anybody have an actual Bio on this fella?
Where did he come from?

I just found this moreOfficial Biowhich the highlights include:

Born: Chicago, Illinois
When: 1:24 am [[5/5/1954]]
...He also serves as an advisor to the Tokyo Chapter of the New York-based Guardian Angels and is active in crime prevention...
...Dave would like to put his chopsticks down long enough to thank 5th grade classmate Michael Sugano who-despite the promximity to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field-took the time to introduce him to the world of his birthplace, Japan.

[Taro Toporific]

Anybody have an actual Bio on this fella?
Where did he come from?

[kamome]

Dave Spector is indeed one of the worst among gaitare scum. I actually saw that educational film, "The Japanese Version", in my college Japanese class. I hated Dave as soon as I heard him say that, in effect, that he would sink to any level--dye his hair, exploit the gaijin stereotypes, act like a jackass, etc.--to make the kind of money he gets in Japan.

[GomiGirl]

Did anyone see the panel show on Sunday night featuring numerous FG with their Japanese spouses discussing the issues of a cross-cultural marriages in Japan?

Dave baby and my other least fave tarento "Kyra" (spelling?) sans brightly coloured wig in the front seats. She was fairly quiet for a change - but then how is her marriage??

I only watched a bit of it and it was amazing how the show just wanted to perpetuate the stereotypes and deepen the cultural divide.

But the FG who were on the panel had excellent Japanese and were quite well informed and this alone was the only redeeming feature of an otherwise sensationalist show. Dave had a stupid look on his face the whole time - I think his contacts were hurting...

The interviews with the 100 Shibyua girls and the 100 salary men were the most disturbing.

One chick said that she didn't want to date an american cos all they ate was hamburgers and drank coke. Another suggested that foreigners don't know how to use the bath. But mostly these chicks just wanted to meet foreigners but didn't want to marry them. Priceless.

A few salary men had some interesting comments - some more enlightened than others. One comment was on the difficulty for "double" children but wasn't offering any solutions.

Did anyone else see it? Was about 7:30 last Sunday forgot which station.

[Taro Toporific]

Did anyone see the panel show on Sunday night featuring numerous FG with their Japanese spouses discussing the issues of a cross-cultural marriages in Japan?

Dave baby and my other least fave tarento "Kyra" (spelling?) sans brightly coloured wig in the front seats. She was fairly quiet for a change - but then how is her marriage??

Did anyone else see it? Was about 7:30 last Sunday forgot which station.

Caiya Kawasaki and Last Sunday's "international Marriages" show, oh puke.


Caiya appears in homemade outfits and garish pink wigs. Sometimes she appears with her husband, Mayo Kawasaki abuses him for fun. SHe's the commentator for the Japanese Jerry Springer show.


Metropolis maginzine did this puff piece on her....

After her husband, Japanese actor Mayo Kawasaki, admitted to having an affair a few years ago, Caiya publicly berated him, forcing him to apologize at a news conference.

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[den4]

Maybe it'll pop up on one of the local video rental places on tape.....but then again, it's doesn't sound worth renting...just to see good ol' Dave looking stupid.....

What would be funny is getting a compilation of all the commercials and media bytes Dave has been in, and perhaps with the other gaijin tarentos and putting it to the music vid of All Your Base are Belong to US....

as a social commentary....

den4

[Gaisaradatsuraku!]

No matter what you think, Dave ain't stupid.... I think you are all jealous of his fame and facility with the Japanese language. He has achieved what you guys want but can't have.

[den4]

but you are right...he ain't stupid....can't be stupid and do all the stuff he does....
love the way you stir things up, though, in this forums page.....

[Taro Toporific]

Did anyone see the panel show on Sunday night featuring numerous FG with their Japanese spouses discussing the issues of a cross-cultural marriages in Japan?... Was about 7:30 last Sunday forgot which station.

Sunday Big Variety, TV Tokyo (ch 8 ) from 7:30 to 8:54pm! Dang that was one hour and fifty-four minutes of pure natto!

The joys and frustrations of international marriage...common problem of chauvenist husbands who refuse to help out with housework and fault-finding mothers-in-law."

--from the Japan Times TV guide listing last Sunday

[gomichild]

The joys and frustrations of international marriage...common problem of chauvenist husbands who refuse to help out with housework and fault-finding mothers-in-law."

--from the Japan Times TV guide listing last Sunday

Maybe they should ask some real people for a change - my J-hubby isn't like this and his Mum has nothing but praise for me...

But I guess that doesn't make for good telly ne...

[tokyojoe]

Regarding Caiya, I saw her on TV around New Years. She was with her son and the announcer asked her what she wanted for the new year. She replied, `happiness for my family`. Then her kid belts out, `No you don`t, mommy. You said you want money. ` She was mortified, it was awesome. From the mouth of babes!

[Taro Toporific]