Panic Face

When I was a kid in America I used to watch a TV show called “Candid Camera“.
This show put ordinary people in awkward or funny situations and filmed the results with a hidden camera.
After the victim’s humorous reaction, the host would reveal the prank with the show’s tagline “Smile, you’re on candid camera”.

Japan has a similar program that I enjoyed watching that was titled 「パニックフェイス」 (“Panic Face), but has been renamed 「パワフルフェイス」 (“Powerful Face“).

Americans like TV variety shows and game shows that have ordinary people as contestants or guests but in Japan, having established celebrities on the shows is more popular.

So, “Panic Face” (“Powerful Face”) has a celebrity (usually a comedian) as an unsuspecting victim and the point of the show is to see the victim’s “Panic Face”…or shocked expression.

Here are a few funny episodes that I watched on TV when they originally aired here in Japan…

This one has a celebrity in his dressing room preparing for his appearance on TV…when “ghosts” appear in his mirror and room:

This next on has two “magicians” mimicking two actual famous Japanese magicians who appear in the dressing room of a comedian and demonstrate a few of their “tricks”:

And this one has a “police officer” doing a “Jack Bauer” and commandeers the private cars (bicycle) of three comedians: