Los Angeles-based TGC Global Entertainment (TGC GE), the international distribution company launched in 2023 by US format veteran Phil Gurin, has announced the global launch of comedy social-experiment format The Swap Project, co-developed and co-owned by TGC GE and Fuji Television Network, Inc. (Fuji TV) under their long-standing creative partnership.
The Swap Project launched in Japan on Fuji TV in February as a series of 60 mins episodes, The East-meets-West, fish-out-of-water format sees two people from different sides of the world but with the same occupation swap lives for a week. Not only do the participants exchange jobs and professional responsibilities, but they must also carry out each other’s domestic chores and family duties. From struggling to bridge the language divide to negotiating perplexing work and family dynamics, The Swap Project is a comical, moving and insightful look at the cultural norms that separate us — and the shared humanity that brings us together.
TGC GE and Fuji TV will share the distribution of The Swap Project, with Fuji Creative Corp, the distribution arm of Fuji TV, handling Asia and TGC GE representing the format in the rest of the world.
Phil Gurin said: “On one level, The Swap Project is a sweet, funny format that follows the experiences of two people doing the same job in two different worlds. But it’s also a front-line exploration of difference and otherness, and how these can be overcome if we focus on the things that unite rather than divide us. Most of all, however, The Swap Project is wonderful entertainment. Who doesn’t want to see how a Michelin-starred Japanese sushi chef copes with life in a chaotic family-run Mexican restaurant in Downtown LA — or how his Hispanic counterpart deals with living in a chef’s dormitory in Tokyo? Spoiler alert: hilariously!”
Takeru Kato, the Swap Project Director at Fuji TV said, ‘My background of living in both Japan and the USA was the initial motivation for coming up with The Swap Project. Whenever I come back home from a long stay in the US, my wipers will go off instead of the blinkers when making a turn, or I get irritated by the people who block the right lane on the escalator when I return to the US. We are all aware of our big differences: most of us speak a different language or look different, and have different faiths. I believe it’s the small differences like the wipers and escalators where we discover something new or that makes us laugh, and MOST importantly helps us realize that we have a lot in common. This episode is a SWAP between chefs from Japan and USA, but by changing the countries, changing the jobs, changing the cast… the possibilities for this show are infinite.’
The Gurin Company has been strengthening its creative ties in Asia over the last 12 months and already co-developed several formats with Fuji TV over the past years. In early March, The Gurin Company announced a ground-breaking creative collaboration with Titan Content, the first US-headquartered K-pop company, which was launched in late 2023 by K-Pop visionary Nikki Semin Han. The first project to flow from the new partnership is K-Pop Dreams (working title), which sets out to turn the world’s growing fascinating with all things ‘K’ into a 10-part talent-search format aimed at making “American K-pop dreams come true”.
