PUFFY -- MOTHER

Well, the above is quite a treat...not sure how long it will stay up, though. The show is "Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy", Ami and Yumi's own late-night variety show on TV Asahi that lasted for about 2.5 years. I distinctly remember where the stuttery title came from. It just happened to be when Puffy appeared on the old Fuji-TV music program "Hey Hey Hey Music Champ", and co-host Hitoshi Matsumoto（松本人志）of comedic duo Downtown was doing his usual riff at the guests' (cordial) expense. At one point, in a stream-of-consciousness moment, he just blurted out "Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy!" Not too long after, buoyed by Puffy's growing popularity, the quip became a title.

Oops...and I have digressed from the point of the first sentence, haven't I? Well, the guests on the show are none other than the current top guys on the Johnny's Entertainment mountaintop, Arashi（嵐）, just when they were starting out. Apparently, some hypnotist was playing around with them.

At around the same time, Puffy came out with their 5th single from December 1997, "MOTHER". Written and composed by their good friend, Tamio Okuda（奥田民生）, the song is a down-home relaxing guitar pop song about some buddies getting bored with life only to happily re-discover what it should be all about. I think the former lead singer of Unicorn probably cornered the market on making these happy-go-lucky guitar-driven tunes. Still not quite sure where the mother part comes in, though.

"MOTHER" peaked at No. 5 on Oricon. Although I heard it often on the music shows and commercials, there was also the fact that it was a theme song for a drama that I had tried to watch for a few episodes before giving up on it. It was titled "Eve -- Santa Claus Dreaming" starring then It Girl Riona Hazuki（葉月里緒奈）as a spoiled brat who starts growing up under an eccentric psychiatrist played by comely Toshiaki Karasawa（唐沢寿明）. Ironically, I think Hazuki made a bigger impression playing a wife/victim/host of life form in the sci-fi flick "Parasite Eve" which came out the same year.

The song was also part of Puffy's 2nd album, "Jet CD" which was released in April 1998 and hit No. 1 as a million-seller.