About

Matrix Ping Pong is a viral video clip based on a Kasou Taishou comedy skit about an over-the-top Ping Pong game, parodying the 2002 film Ping Pong.. The skit employs a group of kurokus (黒子), or traditional stagehands entirely dressed in black, to coordinate the movements of actors and stage props, thus creating the illusion of slow motion sequence reminiscent to the trademark scene from The Matrix.

Origin

Kasou Taishou (欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の全日本仮装大賞) is a semi-annual amateur talent show organized by NTV, featuring a rotation of about 30 skits performed by amateur individuals and groups. At the end of each skit, a panel of 10 judges vote on how much they liked it, with a passing score at 15 above and maximum score at 20.

On March 30, 2003, the 28th contestant group led by team captain Hideki Kajiwara (梶原比出樹) won the competition with a highly creative skit combining a game of ping pong and physics-defying moves in the style of The Matrix. While the scene begins like a normal round of ping pong, the complexity of choreography intensifies throughout the skit with a series of stage-hand assisted, otherwise impossible movements.

Online Origins

The earliest online copy of the video was hosted on the NTV website in downloadable form, referenced as early as July 1, 2003. After it was re-uploaded to multiple video-sharing sites (prior to the launch of YouTube in 2005), the clip became the most famous skit to be aired on Kasou Taishou and eventually spread beyond the Japanese web.

• Original Link (404'd)
• Web Archives

Spread

• F-cking Cool Sh-t (older than Jul 7, 2003)
• Milk and Cookies (Jul 9, 2003)
• Werty (Jul 11, 2003)
• Swoj (Jul 20, 2003)
• Spike (Jul 23, 2003)
• Eatmail.tv (older than Jul 26, 2003)
• Ebaums World (Aug 10, 2003)
• Albino Blacksheep (older than Sep 16, 2003)

Re-enactments

On Television

• Big Brother 9 Table Tennis/ Ping Pong [embedding disabled]

Talent Shows

References

^[1] Matrix Ping Pong – Famous Pictures Magazine