Tunnels (owarai)

Tunnels (とんねるず, "Tonneruzu"), an owarai duo with a long history, is composed of Tokyo born Takaaki Ishibashi (石橋貴明) and Noritake Kinashi (木梨憲武). Both of them attended Teikyō High School (帝京高等学校) where Ishibashi, the taller of the two, participated in baseball, and Kinashi participated in soccer.

They originated not as a manzai duo, so much as an ippatsu gag and monomane act. During the early 80's, they became immensely popular with young Japanese audiences, appearing in several television shows, but their popularity exploded with their show "Tunnels' Thanks to Everyone" (とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです, "Tonneruzu no mina-san no o-kage desu"). Many times they absorbed more than 30% of nationwide television viewers, a great feat for any television show. They then turned their attention to creating music, spawning a string of hit singles that also generated massive sales and attention.

They created many words and expressions that resonated with the youth of Japan included such as "moto-kare" (元カレ) and "moto-kano" (元カノ), which are abbreviations meaning "ex-boyfriend" and "ex-girlfriend". Both phrases are still in popular use today. Also, their tendency to use inside jokes that only the show's staff would understand and laugh at created a sur-like response from the audience, inciting nervous laughter from a confused audience, while the staff laughed loudly on-mike.

Interest in the group quickly mellowed in 1990, as Tunnels took a half year vacation from the show, and U-tchan Nan-chan suddenly replaced them. They returned later saying "We are sorry to have laid the burden on U-tchan Nan-chan," but were never really accepted back by the public. As groups such as Downtown and U-tchan Nan-chan become more and more popular with young audiences, Tunnels changed their focus to talk and interview-related shows.