“Vermilion Pleasure Night” (2000) was a Japanese late night variety show incorporating live-action and animated skits that run the gamut from surreal, sexy, profane, disturbing and satirical. Director Yoshimasa Ishibashi is an acclaimed artist whose installations have been featured at New York’s MOMA and London’s Tate Modern.

This premiere episode provides a sample of the recurring vignettes featured throughout the series including the Fuccon family (a dysfunctional family of smiling mannequins), Starship Residence (chronicling the misadventures of an alien bachelor and his neighbors), One Point English Lessons (a satire of English language learning programs), Midnight Cooking (a macabre musical cooking show), Cathy’s House (a live action skit evoking the setting and aesthetics typical of Barbie dolls), and random short scenes directed in the style of David Lynch films.