The tone of laughter and the strangely warm comedy of Hagimoto Kin'ichi

Abstract

Featuring the comedian Hagimoto Kin'ichi as on-screen father, the hybrid drama-variety show Kinchan no doko made yaru no! (How far will Kinchan go! 1976–1986) won a loyal following of viewers and critics who praised the ‘warmth’ of its parodic television family, describing it as affectively more real and compelling than depictions of the family in traditional dramatic portrayals. Through close readings of scenes from the show and the critical discourse surrounding it, I consider how the show created a consensus that its laughter was tonally warm, and thus well fitted to the domestic space in which television would be viewed. Further, I argue that the show's producers created this impression by inserting the show and Hagimoto's public persona within contemporary discourses on laughter, domesticity, and normative femininity. In doing so, my analysis highlights the ascendant role commercial television played in shaping and harnessing these discourses, and re-assesses, through the lens of the affective experience of 1970s and ’80s media culture, the cultural shifts taking place in Japan during these decades.