Title: 笑点 Title (romaji): Shōten Also known as: Shouten Genre: Owarai (お笑い) Episodes: > 2440 Broadcast network: NTV Broadcast period: 15 May 1966 - present Air time: Sunday, 16:00 (24 min)
Shōten (笑点 means smile point or "jokes for points") is a Japanese TV comedy program, continuously broadcast on Sunday evenings on Nippon TV since 15 May 1966, it's the second-longest running TV show in Japan. The show gathers a group of six Japanese rakugoka (storyteller) wearing variously coloured kimono sitting in a row, who compete to tell the best jokes on topics announced by the host. The comedians are judged on their wit and their ability to respond quickly. Rakugo stories typically end with an unexpected turn of events or a play on words. Rakugoka use only two simple props, a folded paper fan and a facecloth (a tenugui), to draw their audiences through a time-slip of sorts into scenes of life from Edo. The story of a rakugo performer is typically filled with laughter and tears: it emotionally rouses the audience to help them better absorb the human lesson or moral of the story. The most important skill for rakugoka is how to use “Ma”, which means appropriate timing for telling funny descriptions. If they don’t have the skill for “Ma”, they definitely cannot amuse the audience . The person judged to be the most funny by the host gains more and more zabuton (Japanese cushions), until he may be sitting on a stack five, six, or higher. Rakugoka whose jokes are judged to be not funny, or whose responses are not quick enough, may have one or more zabuton removed and end up sitting on the floor. The zabutons used are supposedly extra-heavy ones weighing 4 kg (9 pounds), so even a stack of ten or more will not topple. When a person gains 10 zabutons, he wins a special prize (see Shōten #2359 of 14th of April 2013). The prize is usually related to a famous quote, such as 'Boys Be Ambitious'. Since the emcee judges the one who has close to 10 zabutons very hard, the stack of 10 zabutons can only be seen once or twice a year. According to Yahoo! Japan's TV Guide ratings, this show was the country's second most viewed program in February 2010, bested only by the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.