Bonchi Osamu and Satomi Masato of the manzai duo "The Bonchi," who have been performing for 55 years, appeared on Kuroyanagi Tetsuko's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi), which aired on November 18th. They looked back on the time when they were forced to disband as the manzai boom came to an end.
The Bonchi were all the rage during the manzai boom of the early 1980s, becoming the darlings of the era. Their debut single, "Koi no Bonchi Seat" (released in 1981), was a huge hit, but they disbanded in 1986. Still, they never lost their passion for comedy, and reformed when they were 50 years old. This year, they made it to the top eight of "THE SECOND," a manzai competition open to comedians who have been together for 16 years or more, and are once again attracting attention, even though they are in their 70s.
Regarding the end of the manzai boom, Masato recalled, "The boom really faded away all at once. Simply put, it was like burnout syndrome, and the world went from being wildly popular wherever we went to being normal, with nothing happening. That was around 1983-84." Osamu also said, "The manzai boom lasted exactly three years."
Masato was the one to bring the show to a close. "I could tell the audience was looking at us with expressions that said, 'These guys were amazing. You've worked so hard,' so I immediately said to Osamu, 'Let's take a break for a bit,' and he immediately replied, 'Yeah, that's right,'" he recalled.
After the breakup, Osamu had work as a reporter and as an actor in the TV drama "Hagure Keiji Junjoha" (TV Asahi). Meanwhile, Masato was shocked at how little work he had. "Even at his worst, I was making several million yen a month, but that went down to around 70,000 yen a month. For a little over two years, I was living off my wife, two children and the four of us," he candidly revealed.
When asked by Tetsuko about his wife's condition at the time, Masato laughed and said, "For the time being, she didn't say anything about work, but she did say that she needed money (laughs). It was a difficult situation."
