Not to be confused with Dave Specter

Dave Specter

Dave Specter is an American Chicago blues and jazz guitarist.-Biography:Hailing from Chicago's Northwest side, Specter began to learn to play the guitar at the age of 18. His teacher was Steve Freund, who taught Specter between the latter's duties at Jazz Record Mart, and Delmark Records...

.

Dave Spector is a gaijin tarento (foreign TV personality) in Japan.

Spector, a Jewish American

American Jews

American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...

, was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. He studied abroad at Sophia University

Sophia University

There are several rankings below related to Sophia University.-General Rankings:The university was ranked 61st in 2010 in the ranking Truly Strong Universities by Toyo Keizai...

 in 1972. He has lived in Japan since 1983. He appears regularly as a commentator on several different Japanese television programmes (such as Sunday Japon, Tokudane, Miyane-ya, Wide Scramble, Yajiuma Plus 'Soko made itte, iinkai'). He writes columns for Shukan Bunshun magazine and Tokyo Sports Shimbun and has written several books.

He speaks fluent Japanese. He states that he became a TV celebrity when he was to be cast in a one time, non-speaking role on a show, but protested in Japanese about the way he was to be used. He believes his ability to stand up for himself impressed the producers enough to make him a regular speaking “talent”

Tarento

is a Japanese rendering of the English word "talent" and is used as a catch-all term for mass media personalities who regularly appear on television. Detractors of the phenomenon have referred to it in an English sense as "famous just for being famous" because many that fall into this career line...

. In a documentary titled, The Japanese Version, he points out the novelty of foreigners to Japanese in Japan, likening the relationship to a panda (the foreigner) and an animal watcher at a zoo (the Japanese). The meaning of his analogy is that he believes the Japanese think foreigners are cute and out of the ordinary and will toss them treats if they do something cute, but that's as far as they want to be involved. Spector goes on to say this about his involvement in the Japanese “tarento” scene:

Making foreigners cuter takes away the threat of foreigners being more powerful, or having more know-how, or more sophistication. So definitely, they use that in a way to make themselves more comfortable. So I've done things on Japanese TV that are totally silly, or ridiculous. I mean like jumping rope with French poodles. Doing things like the lowest Bozo, circus kind of stuff. But it doesn't bother me at all. A lot of times the foreigners on TV, models and what-not, are compared to pandas. They use that term here--pandas-- because they're cuddly, you can go and have fun with them, and throw a marshmallow and that's about it. And you don't get involved any more deeper than that. But...since I'm making half a million dollars a year, I'm very happy to be a panda. I'd be a much lower animal. I'd be like a sloth, or something, or a hedgehog, you know, for that money. So it doesn't bother me at all.

In the United States, Spector has appeared on The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

and Iron Chef

Iron Chef

is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1992, is a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle built around a specific theme ingredient. The series ended...

, among other programs.

In 1989, Spector told the Los Angeles times: "A lot of the Americans who come here really didn't do anything back home at all. Nothing. They worked at a Fava shoe store if they were lucky. But I was trailblazing away at the very moment I was sent over here. I had no intention of rooting myself here. I was totally set on making it in Los Angeles, in the television industry."

He was subsequently hired by NBC to provide some commentary for the 1998 Winter Olympics

1998 Winter Olympics

The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 7 to 22 February 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Seventy-two nations and 2,176 participans contested in seven sports and 72 events at 15 venues. The games saw the introduction of Women's ice...

 in Nagano, Japan and has appeared regularly on Japanese TV since then, as many as 8 or 9 times each week.

Spector also scouts other non-Japanese talent for the Japanese media such as fitness guru Billy Blanks

Billy Blanks

Billy Wayne Blanks is an American fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the inventor of the Tae Bo exercise program.-Career:Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of eleven and practices Karate and Taekwondo...

 who currently enjoys success in Japan through the sale of his videos.

External links

• Transcript of The Japanese Version can be found at the Center for New American Media website
• Dave Spector: in the public eye at Japan Today
• Corkill, Edan, "Spontaneous Japanese TV keeps Dave Spector on his toes", Japan Times, August 4, 2009, p. 13.