One of the longest-running game shows on Japanese TV is "Tokyo Friend Park" (TBS, Monday, 6:55 p.m.), where veteran announcer Hiroshi Sekiguchi sets a team of celebrities unusual physical challenges.
This week's team is made up of four members of "Hoshino Japan," the national baseball squad made up of professionals who will compete in next summer's Olympic games.
Tsuyoshi Nishioka of the Chiba Lotte Marines is so confident of his abilities that he tells Sekiguchi he will quit baseball if he cannot reach the highest level of the "Wall Crash" challenge, in which contestants wearing velcro-augmented jumpsuits bounce off a minitrampoline and try to affix themselves as high as possible onto a specially treated wall. The players also adapt their batting skills to "Chuchu Busters," a variant of the arcade game "Whack-a-Mole" in which they strike at mechanical mice that pop up out of holes at random. Hiroyuki Kobayashi, also of Lotte, is criticized for a swing that is "too wide," and Koji Uehara of the Yomiuri Giants becomes noticeably angry when he is booed by the audience.