Fun_People Archive
31 Mar
Ugo Ugo Lhuga...

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 94 18:23:02 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Ugo Ugo Lhuga...

[Why can't we have cool shows like these?  This is what high-tech is
really good for... -psl]

Forwarded-by: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: jr@opal.com Thu Mar 31 14:44:18 1994
Forwarded-By: schmidt@pixar.com (Andrew Schmidt -Chers new boyfriend-)
From: andrew@pixar.com (Andrew Stanton)

Iwai's latest hit is a Japanese television show called Ugo Ugo Lhuga
(Go-Go Girl pronounced backwards - sort of). Ostensibly a children's
program, many of its fans are from the nightclub and art scenes who tune
in every day for a dose of psychedelic cartoon fun. In the show, which
incorporates surrealistic Amiga image files manipulated in real-time,
two children travel through virtual worlds with virtual characters
(whose lips are synched to live narrators via MIDI signals). The
soundtrack is also live, with some of Tokyo's hippest "rave" DJs doing
their thing.

Besides its atypical imagery - a "Mr. Feces" that rises out of the
toilet to share a daily piece of wisdom (no kidding!), a museum of
sounds of different animals mating, and a tomato on the verge of a
nervous breakdown - there are also interactive spots. Take "Voice Sumo"
for example. Kids from all over Japan draw monsters on postcards and
send them in. The drawings are scanned into the computer and put into
a cartoon sumo ring, poised for battle. Kids phone up the show, choose
a side, and scream as loud as they can into the phone. Whoever raises
the highest voltage over the phone pushes the opponent's creature out
of the sumo ring. Now that's interactivity.

© 1994 Peter Langston