2002mar19. Mail from Misterpants.
I think the contestants are actually dressed as hamsters. I see the katakana for “hamu” in the screengrab you have on your site, and also their coloring makes me think hamsters. but i could be wrong.
No, that’s right ... that’s why I was staring at one of the animated graphics, thinking “something’s not right” – it looked more like a hamster than a mouse. Also, “HAMU” appears at the top of the house. The “M” was a little flakey ((a) probably on purpose and/or (b) horrible reception), so I thought it was “HANU” and never got around to looking it up ... Not that I would have figured out “HAMU.”"Ham"? I think also the giant evil cat at the end (and in the beginning animation) sort of stitched it up for the mouse theory. The part of the animation in which the costumed people are playing with the woman’s underwear, that, that could have been mice or hamsters, conceptually.
Non-dancing hamster research:
Hamster!
Hamster wheel metaphor
Hamsters rocking out, sacking out, etc
