[steven]

I think what was so great about it was the context in which he performed. Granted there were times when he got a little too close to little kids for my taste... anyways, from my perspective it was interesting to see how Japanese people were reacting to his craziness. That was the funny part to me when I first watched him years ago... the juxtaposition between him and what is basically a normal Japanese person.

I don't know why, but I stumbled upon his videos again a couple of months ago and watched them all with my wife. She said she'd kind of heard of him but hadn't seen him too much on TV. For me, knowing a little bit more about Japanese culture than when I first saw it, it was funnier on some levels and just really annoying on others. There are certain things that he did that are just unthinkable (like the kurohige one where he went to the boss's house and went through his fridge and hit on his daughters and stuff).

On the other hand though, I've heard rumors that he is actually extremely polite and apologises profusely after he pulls stunts like that.

I thought that he was certainly funny, but I agree with RickOShay that there's only so much you can take of stuff like that before it just gets really old. I'm sure he put a lot of time into his character and really thought out some of the crazy things he did.