Hagimoto Kinichi
Hagimoto Kinichi was born on May 7, 1941. He is called by his fans as Kin-chan and rose to stardom during the 70s and the 80s. He was a pioneer in owarai and created many of the predecessors of modern television variety shows. His comedy uses more bodily movement to gain the audiences laughter unlike many of the earlier comedy acts based on dialogues and is konto-centered. At one point, he was called the 100% man by the media because the sum of the viewing rates of his shows for one week was 100%. His shows were so influential that some of the commonly used owarai vocabulary such as ukeru and tennen-boke spread to the general population through his shows. He disappeared from the scene for a short time. There are many speculations about his motive for taking time off. Some says that he was tired from the sudden fame and attention he received; some says that he could not agree with the ad-lib based konto programs such as Hyokin-zoku. While he took time off, the media took him off the BIG 3 and replaced him with Akashiya Sanma.
Akashiya Sanma
Akashiya Sanma was born on July 1, 1955 as Sugimoto Takafumi. He was given the name Sanma (pacific saury, a type of fish) because his parents ran a seafood processing company. Sanma belongs to Yoshimoto and is one of the highest paid personnels in the company. He is known to be happy 24/7 and known to not sleep. His lack of sleep has been investigated in a show where people were asked to send him photos of him sleeping in return for monetary reward; only one picture from 13 years ago came to the show. Even his daughter claims that she has never seen him sleep. Beat Takeshi has stated that he falls asleep and wakes up very quickly, and once he is awake, Sanma is always happy. His happy character can be seen even outside of television shows as he, unlike other geinin, interacts openly with fans that he randomly encounters. His logic behind this is: "If a dog bites your hand, you forcefully push toward the dog, and the dog will let go. I go talk to the fans before they come to talk to me; so that in the end, they go away." He is well perceived by viewers and is one of the busiest television show host in the Japanese entertainment industry. Among the geinin, he is known to be very critical, but many admire his skills in making a joke out of anything. His ability to talk nonstop, even at the expense of the guests on his shows and possibly due to his love for himself, gives him the title "Owarai Monster".
Beat Takeshi
Beat Takeshi was born on January 18, 1947. Internationally, he is known by his real name Kitano Takeshi and recognized as a film director/actor. His career in comedy took off as he formed a manzai duo called two beat along with Beat Kiyoshi. two beat was known for their manzai that picked up on scandalous/taboo topics and was not well received by critics at first. However, they soon encountered the Manzai Boom and saw huge success in the 1980s. The boom soon ended, and by that time, Beat Takeshi was known for his solo work as a television show host. He then starred in Oretachi Hyokin-zoku and furthered his fame as a comedian; the show is one of the main contributor to the onset of the 2nd Generation Owarai Boom. He was one of the brains behind the show, and his creativity carried over to his film-making career later. While he remains equally as scandalous in his comments and continues to disguise himself in humorous costumes, he is a internationally recognized film director and a regular invitee of the Cannes International Film Festival.
Tamori
Tamori (real name: Morita Kazuyoshi) was born on August 22, 1945. He is known by his sunglasses and has the longest running television show hosted by the same person (current record holder on the Guinness Book of World Records). This show called It's All Right to Laugh (Waratte Iitomo) is aired live every weekday noon and has continued for over 20 years. He has only missed few days of the show and continues to be the face of the hour in Japan. Every resident of Japan most likely has seen the show at least once. He also has another long-running midnight television show called Tamori Club which started in 1982 and continues today. Tamori is known as a multi-talented comedian, demonstrating skills in cooking and music and showing his wide knowledge of history, art, geography, and trains.
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