I wasn’t aware of this until I saw the Korea Times story linked on Baseball Think Factory, but there was some controversy at the Doosan/Lotte game in Busan Friday night. I was in Incheon at the SK/Woori game and didn’t see anything but a single highlight of the game ending home run on the news.
Apparently members of the “comedy” program “One night-two days” were filming on location at Busan’s Sajik Stadium. The show reserved 50 seats in the stands (the game was Lotte’s 18th sell out of the year), but ended up taking an entire section. Here’s a photo:
Nothing like filming on location where you really mix it up with the fans, eh? I’m sure they had big ideas, trying to come off as big Lotte fans, capitalizing on the team’s popularity to meet their own egoic desires. But look at the photo. Not a real fan within 20 feet.
The article says the seats takenstolen from fans were on the firstbase side. I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing this was smack in the middle of the Lotte fan section behind the team’s dugout. The area is normally the epicenter of Lotte’s rabid fan base, this must have put a big hole in that.
Then, during the 5th inning stretch/field cleanup, the crew went on the field to preform some of their ha-ha-funny comedy. Better hold onto something. You’re going to fall out of your chair laughing…
My guess is these guys were supposed to have performed for five minutes tops. The article says they were on the field for ten. I bet it was even more than that. The players, who normally keep loose during the break by stretching and playing catch on the field, had to remain in the dugout while fans were treated to this:
After the break, Lotte starter Song Seung-jin, who’d thrown five scoreless innings in the game, promptly gave up three runs. According to the article Doosan starter Kim Sun-woo also struggled with his command in the bottom half of the inning. A long layoff will do that to a pitcher.
Unfortunately, I’m well-versed in these jerks. The leader of the show (photo at top) is Kang Ho-dong, whose persona is largely based on the fact that he’s from the Gyeongsang region of Korea that Lotte hails from, hence his attempt at joining in the Lotte playoff frenzy. He’s also known for his large head and makes a lot of jokes about that. He got married a year or two ago, so he’s moved into a more mature role, where he dresses up in formal traditional clothes, interviews celebs in a tea room and pretends to be a sensitive older brother. However, recently I’ve seen him on a new, more active, comedy program (probably “One night-two days”).
The show also features MC Mong, the dork with the glasses, who is also in my Top 3 Most Hated Korean Celebrities list. When I first moved to Korea I remember he caused a slight stir when he said he thought all gay people should be shot with a gun. He later apologized and said he was trying to be funny.
One of the announcers broadcasting the game had this to say:
“Fans should be put above everything in a stadium, but Friday night, the tables were turned. It is fine for entertainers to come to the stadium and enjoy baseball together, but they seemed to take advantage of baseball’s current popularity.”
Ya think? I’m sure two years ago these guys were hamming it up at a K-League soccer game. I don’t know if it’s fair to bash Korean entertainers anymore than other kind of entertainer, although I think in Korea, where people often strive to be of the same opinion and taste, entertainers end up aiming even lower than their American counterparts.
So with that in mind…fuck these guys, specifically.
Lotte ended up losing the game in extra innings and were swept in the series. With just one week left in the season the Giants are now two games behind Doosan for the No. 2 seed in the playoffs and will likely play Samsung in the first round instead of getting a bye and playing the winner of Doosan/Samsung. This was a big game. This kind of crap shouldn’t have been happening. It’s too bad a drunk foreigner (or Karim Garcia) didn’t run on the field and blindside one of these guys.
Hopefully fans how ridiculous this was and boycott these idiots.
20 responses so far ↓
1 DJ // Sep 23, 2008 at 9:04 am
I never heard of these guys. But after looking at those pictures, I feel a seething rage. “Move to Korea” has just shot to the bottom of my To-Do list.
Question: What do you mean by the dig at the K-League? Is soccer down in the dumps in SK?
2 Shinsano // Sep 23, 2008 at 9:11 am
Well, no one really ever went to the K-league games anyway, but soccer had been riding high in Korea after the 2002 World Cup. But now the national team is terrible and the baseball team won the gold. Throw in the breakout of Choo Shin-soo, the increase in KBO attendance, and I think it’s fair to say baseball is back on top.
3 DJ // Sep 23, 2008 at 11:10 am
I’m not much for soccer, so that all strikes me as good news.
In case I didn’t make it clear before, I don’t think I’ve seen such utter douchery in my life as those so-called “comics”. Hate.
4 Brian // Sep 23, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Stupid. But I don’t get it. When I first read this I thought it was intentional, filming something at the stadium in order to disrupt momentum and kill the atmosphere. But if that guy’s from Gyeongnam, I’m guessing he didn’t want to mess up the Busan team. So instead of being calculating and clever, he was just being thoughtless.
5 Shinsano // Sep 23, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I might have layed the sarcasm a little thick so I changed the headline. Not intentional. He’s just trying to show everyone what a big fan he is now that the team is in the playoffs for the first time in nearly two decades.
It was thoughtless. They acted as if they were bigger than the game. I’m sure they tried to downplay the appearance…oh, we only need 50 seats, we’ll go on the field for 5 minutes, but then they seized the moment and said “screw it,” it’s all about us.
6 baekgom84 // Sep 23, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Wow. So much hate. Actually, although I’m aware of Kang Ho-dong and the rest of his crew, I’ve hardly ever watched the show. What I saw of it was mildly amusing, unsophisticated slapstick - nothing particularly offensive but nothing that would warrant a place in my regular viewing slot. I had no idea M.C. Mong made those kind of comments. That’s quite… disturbing.
I guess it really doesn’t matter where you go then: popular TV is always rubbish.
7 Joel // Sep 23, 2008 at 2:49 pm
MC Mong said that right as I was leaving Korea. He really tried to back off it but it ticked a few people off. I think that’s what always bothered me most about Korean celebs……Charlie Sheen is a dirtbag but at least he doesn’t try to hide it. Korean celebs have to maintain a squeeky clean image no matter what. It feels even more fake than most celebrities.
8 Joel // Sep 23, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Plus the humor aims SO low.
9 Tom K. // Sep 23, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I guess I’m not making the connection either. How did they affect the outcome?
PS: Don’t know much about baseball.
10 Shinsano // Sep 24, 2008 at 5:23 am
Ah, I see. In Korea, after the fifth inning, when the grounds crew comes onto the field to prep the field, players usually stretch and the starting pitchers play catch…to keep the muscles in their arm loose. Part of this is psychological and part is physiological. It’s quite possible the pitchers in this game had their routines thrown off. I’m sure if you asked them that’s what they’d say happened.
11 brent // Sep 24, 2008 at 7:57 am
I actually like Park Myung Soo. I don’t know if he was with them there (not in any photos). He’s the only one who I think is funny. The rest of the gag men could just go away quietly.
12 Whitey // Sep 24, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Hmm, your “Top 3 Most Hated Korean Celebrities list.” Interesting. See mine below. I’d like to see yours, too.
1. ë…¸ whatever his name is. The comedian with the bleached blond hair. Loud and stupid.
2. Andre Kim. Simply impossible to look at.
3. Any “rapper” who wears a baseball hat on an interview show on TV. Take off your hats indoors, gentlemen.
13 Shinsano // Sep 24, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I’d probably put MC Mong at the top of the list actually, but a close second would be Jung June-ha, who I wrote about here. He got busted for owning a bar in Gangnam where girls were working as prostitutes and then denied he had any idea. There was some video of him walking into a police station looking like a hurricane had hit him…it made me sick.
The other spot is rotating. I don’t like Kang above, and I don’t like the blonde guy you mention, but they’ve bothered me less recently. I can’t stand Crown J, Suh In-young’s boyfriend, and the group Shinee makes me want to puke.
I kind of like Andre Kim. He’s genuinely very very weird. Like Michael Jackson weird. I like celebrities like that.
14 PR // Sep 24, 2008 at 4:03 pm
No Korean celebrity anti-fan list can be complete without Grasshopper (메뚜기).
That guy is on every freakin’ show in Korea. The go to host for any occasion. Boring, souless…a void.
15 Bong Bong // Sep 26, 2008 at 12:42 am
Wow, I’ve never been to Korea, know nothing about Korean media of celebs, I’ve never of heard of any of these guys, and don’t pay that much attention to the KBO–and yet just seeing these pictures fills me with a certain sense of rage I can’t explain.
16 Korea Beat › Most-Read Naver Stories of the Week — September 28, 2008 // Sep 28, 2008 at 10:47 am
[...] 5. The comedians who made fools of themselves at a Lotte Giants game have publicly apologized. See the East Wind-up Chronicle for more. [...]
17 seouldout // Sep 28, 2008 at 12:37 pm
@Bong Bong -
Classic.
18 Bong Bong // Sep 28, 2008 at 7:30 pm
19 baekgom84 // Sep 28, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Heard on Korea Beat that these guys ended up making a formal apology for their hilarious antics.
20 Ryan // Sep 29, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’ve seen the guys on this show parade 9-13 year old girls on stage with mini skirts, low cut tops and way too much make up. They then sexy dance in a sex simulation manner and then begin pouting like a princess agashi during the interview. That was totally sick. Do these guys and the parents of these kids have no self respect?
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