Must Watch: Animal Games

Hi, all. I’ve just noticed this listing in today’s TV log. Sorry this is such short notice, but maybe some of you will be able to see or tape this terrific BBC animal program at noon today on the Animal Planet channel. (It has also popped up on other channels.)

“Animal Games” is a (simulated) Olympic Games for the animal kingdom. They have animals from five different groups — the Mammals, the “Herpetiles”, the Birds, the Fish, the Insects) competing in five or six different events (long jump, high jump, weight-lifting, etc.) on an even basis.

The “even basis” is arrived at by using a fixed measure for human height and the highest level (for example, 10 meters) ever attained by a human in that event. Then they scale up or scale down the challenge to the individual animal. For example, a human’s greatest weight-lift achievement was something like 544 lbs, so the challenger for the stag beetle was 544,000 lbs!

The graphics are outstanding; everything looks so real! And the sports results — reported by two excited announcers in typical sports style, with background info as well — are really astounding.

By all means, try to catch and/or tape this show! It’s really sensational!

(If you miss the show, you might be able to order it from the BBC website, but I am not sure about whether they will ship to Japan, or whether you would be able to watch it on your Japanese DVD.)

Saturday’s Kitty

In addition to its daily segment about dogs, Fuji TV runs a short segment about cats on Saturdays around 8:20am. The segment is called “doyoubi no nyanko”, or “Saturday’s Kitty”.

They also made a movie called “nyanko the movie” which was based on some of the cats that were featured in these segments. I would like to watch the movie, but I remember seeing a preview and thinking that I probably couldn’t make it through the sad parts (and since it is a movie about pets, I’m sure there are sad parts). If anyone has seen it, please tell us whether we should watch it!

Today’s Doggie

Fuji TV (known in Japanese as “Fuji Terebi”) has a short segment every morning introducing “Today’s Doggie” (kyou no wanko). The segment starts at 7:54am on weekdays and only lasts about one minute. They usually show the dog at home with its owners and tell you something special about the pet. Sometimes the stories are so touching they bring tears to your eyes, while others are quite funny.

On the website for the show, you can see today’s doggie and go back to see pictures and an introduction of doggies from past months.