The tabloid Tokyo Sports has reported that one of the longest-running shows on Japanese TV, "Waratte Ii to mo" ("It's OK to Laugh"), may go off the air next spring due to sagging ratings. Hosted by the sunglass-sporting comedian Tamori since its inception in 1982, the noontime show's mix of celebrity interview and mild comedy became stylistically moribund years ago, and Tamori announced at least once in the past that he was leaving the show, which airs live five days a week. But Fuji TV always managed to lure him back with bigger paychecks.

Tamori hardly needs the gig any more. He's one of the wealthiest men in show business and still hosts several other regular programs, including "Tamori Club," which after more than two decades remains one of the few truly inventive comedy shows on Japanese TV. Apropos its title, "Tamori Club," with its appealingly cheap production values, feels more like a hobby than a job, since it allows its host to explore anything he's interested in, regardless of how trivial or ridiculous. It also allows him to exploit his off-color wit to full effect because it is broadcast after midnight, the time slot where he made his name back in the 1980s. That's not true of his other regular jobs, where his sense of humor is usually in check because he's expected to be a raconteur of some sophistication. In any case, "Waratte," probably due to the available demographic (housewives), is more interested in guests (except for Takuya Kimura, at least one member of SMAP appears every day) than in Tamori's jokes.

Tamori himself isn't going to retire. In fact, rumor has it he will become the host of "Shoten," another popular long-running comedy show, though it could be one of Tamori's jokes. Shoten is a stuffy program featuring rakugo-ka (traditional comic storytellers) matching wits in an extremely rigid format. It represents the antithesis of Tamori's free-associative humor.