Last Sunday, on the Fuji-TV show "Warau Inu no Hakken," two comic teams, Neptune and Uchan-Nanchan, attempted to "spread Japanese comedy" to the rest of the world. At a pre-World Cup exhibition match between the Russian national team and Shimizu S-Pulse held in Shizuoka, the five comedians who comprise the two groups dressed up in stupid costumes, mostly parodies of Japanese stereotypes such as a buck-toothed salarymen and baseball fans, and walked by the foreign TV crews in a bid to attract interviews.

An entire afternoon of this eventually resulted in something like eight seconds of footage (and no interview) within a short report about the game on Russia's public broadcasting network. The comedians feigned pride in their accomplishment, but in the end the joke came down to how inconsequential their little escapade was.

Inconsequential, in fact, is an apt description of Japanese TV humor in general. Neptune, who are probably one of the most talented comic acts in Japan and whose peculiar skills are ideal for TV, have few opportunities to show off those talents, despite the fact that, right now, the trio -- Taizo Harada, Jun Nagura and Ken Horiuchi -- star in at least four regular TV series. Of these only "Warau" could be called a straightforward comedy program. The three also host a generic shiroto (average people) variety show called "Chikara no Kagiri Go Go Go" (Wed., 7 p.m.), exploit the ever-exploitable charms of young Japanese women on TV Asahi's "Channepu" (Mon., 11:15 p.m.), and provide the requisite celebrity element for Japan's poorly rated version of "Survivor" (TBS, Tue., 6:55 p.m.).