Human Tetris

About

Human Tetris is a nickname given to "Brain Wall" (Japanese: 脳カベ, Noukabe), a component of the Japanese TV comedy show Tonneruzu no Minasan no Okage deshita (とんねるずのみなさんのおかげで した) hosted by a Japanese comedy duo Tunnels.^[1] Led by unauthorized reprints on YouTube, this game had made huge successes in many other countries in late 2000s.

Origin

Originally from the japanese gameshow: no Minasan no Okage deshita (とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした) it depicts a contest where participants have to make a shape with their bodies in order to cross a wall that approaches to them with a hole. The estrange game gained notoriety through the internet where several clips were upload.

The clips were extremely popular since they contained some of the most common traits likely to the internet geek community: japanese culture, awkwardness and a resemblance to a popular videogame, making them a series, the most popular has 10 million views:

But there are more cases of videos with millions of views, this for instance has 8 million:

3 million video:

1 million:

On November 5 2007 a segment called: "Tru the wall or take a fall" on the Ellen Degeneres Show featured the game, the contest was repeated days later. This was done in the height of the internet popularity and before that the rights of the game were sold to western countries so Ellen did not had to pay royalties. It is most likely that the Ellen staff meet the game through the internet.

Relevance of the internet spreading the phenomena

The internet videos helped the format to be noticed by other networks very quickly

Seven million viewers tuned in to the premiere of Hole in the Wall on Fox last weekend, a respectable amount for a show that is essentially a human version of the video game Tetris (the show was adapted for the United States after the Japanese version became a YouTube hit).^[2]

The impulse of the format wouldn't be so quickly without its internet success, and its rights where bought by a british-australian production company called Freemantle Media that redistributed the show to 16 countries in just a few months, and later to 37:

Formats exported from Japan have risen steadily, doubling over the period to a total of 29 in three years. As of 2008, only one format had been imported by that market, but interest is growing. Hole in the Wall (Nokabe) is seen as a ground-breaking format out of Japan in terms of its success worldwide. Launched as a component of a game show on Fuji TV in July 2006, it gained popularity on You Tube. FremantleMedia distributed it to 16 countries just six months after its debut at MIPCOM 2007, and 37 versions were acknowledges as of August 2009. At the start of the decade, dating format Alternative Love from TBS, distributed by Bellon Entertaiment, was the most adapted format. NTV's Dragon's Den, distributed by Sony Pictures' 2waytraffic then became the most travelled format, before being overtaken by Hole in the Wall.^[3]

International remakes

After that the game was copied in several countries, but this could not happened so fast without the internet.

A case of a foreing remake is of the iItalian with bikini models:

Argentina – El muro infernal (the infernal wall)

Australia – Hole in the wall

Brazil – De cara no muro (face to the wall)

Chile – La muralla infernal (English: The Infernal Wall).

China – 动洞墙 (English: Moving Hole Wall; official name is still Hole in the Wall),

Croatia – "Pazi, zid!" (English: Look out, Wall!)

Colombia – Duro contra el muro (English: Hard against the wall)

Denmark – Hul i hovedet (English: Hole In The Head)

Estonia – Auk Seinas (English: Hole In the Wall)

Finland- Reikä seinässä (English: Hole in the wall)

France – "Le Mur Infernal" (English: The Infernal Wall)

Hungary- Kalandra Fal! (English: Wall for an adventure!)

Israel – "Rosh Bakir" (ראש בקיר, English: Head in the wall)

Greek Show:

Lithuania – Skylė sienoje

Mexico – ¡Aguas con el muro! (English: Beware of the wall!)

Norway – Ylvis møter veggen (English: Ylvis meets the wall).

Paraguay – El muro (English: The Wall)

United States – On Fox

Holand – Hole in the Wall

And the list of local game shows goes on and on…

Outcome

The huge popularity of the japanese clips impulse t.v. networks across the world in remaking the game localy. And thus ending the very thing that made it amazing is uniqueness as part of the japanese culture. At incorporating the idea into the local countries it lose popularity, nontheless the videos were very popular on 2007. The TV corporations burned out the amazing and extravagant idea very quickly, making of what was an adopted tv show by internet users into another washed out contest. The phenomena was popularized on the internet with a strong-WTF feeling, but was difficult to replicate without the resources of the TV networks. The japanese clips became very popular thanks to the internet, we could not know what would happen to the show internationally without it, but thanks to its world reach it made it reproduce to other countries faster.

In October 2009 an app for the iphone inspired in the game was developed: Crash!! The most stupid race By StormBASIC Games.

Xbox Live Hole In The Wall

In August 24th, 2011, the Xbox 360 Kinnect game Hole in the Wall was released in the Xbox Live.

External References