Japan TV questions

Ok my wife and i just got back from a couple of weeks in Japan. We enjoyed watching the tv shows even though we didnt understand what was going on most of the time. But we have a couple of questions
What is the name and the story behind the comedian who likes to dance in public in his underwear.
What was with the big dancing peanut thingy

Paul,

What is the name and the story behind the comedian who likes to dance in public in his underwear.

Probably Yoshio Kojima, a one-act flash-in-the-pan who will hopefully disappear from the screen shortly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshio_Kojima

What was with the big dancing peanut thingy

Dancing peanut? No idea... :-o

Cheers yep thats him. We couldnt for the life of us work him out

The peanut thing was a guy dressed in a big peanut suit with his face showing in the mouth. He seemed to dance with kids at schools and also be on late night tv. There was a shop full of the little peanuts at Narita airport

Paul,

Could that "dancing peanut" have been the infamous "oshirikajirimushi" (bottom-biting bug)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3m8Qje1e8Q
This was a kids' show character that became a bizarre nationwide hit late last year.

I like Yoshio Kojima! He's a lot better than Nai-nai or all that kind of comedy junk. And I'd translate "Sonna no kankei nee" as "I don't give a damn!".

The charm of this guy is that, dispite his outfit and the rough-sounding "Sonna no kankei nee" phrase, he is quite polite and humble when he is not dancing but is appearing on TV. Similarly, in his performance he starts off singing (rapping?) about various weekness or goofiness that he encounters (in which a lot of people can relate to) and then shoots off the "But I don't give a damn!" phrase which sort of blows the stress off of all who is watching, and THEN I think the secret of his performance is that it ends with "Oppappii!" which is just a silly word that doesn't make sense at all, but blows away the anger of "I don't give a damn".

He is also known to have graduated Wasada, one of the top universities in Japan proud for its long tradition - which doesn't make a difference but is funny when you think about it.

haha thanks Dave thats him. My wife and i are ROFL now that we know what it was. All that time we thought it was just a peanut and its actually a famous Bottom Biting Bug