What's going on
Detective! Knight Scoop is a late-night comedy show from Osaka that has been running for more than thirty years. Ordinary viewers write in with problems, mysteries and odd wishes, and a team of comedians play "detectives" who try to deal with them, usually by the least efficient and most entertaining route available.
This episode's request came from a 46-year-old man in Chiba Prefecture who plays on a local volleyball team. A month earlier, during a match, an opposing player's sharp spike hit one of his teammates on the head, and the ball shot straight up and wedged itself in the gym ceiling. When a second ball thrown up to knock it loose got stuck as well, the team's supply of balls started running thin. He asked the show to get them down.
Anyone who played school sports in Japan will know the sight: balls lodged in a gym ceiling are close to a rite of passage. The detectives bring in a drone pilot, a PET-bottle rocket enthusiast, a falconer and a juggling performer, with results the comments describe well enough.
Comments
30+ years on the air and they still take requests that sound like it’s month one of the show…
番組始まって30年以上経つのに放送1ヶ月目みたいな依頼を請けることもあるんだな…
That’s exactly why it’s lasted 30 years.
だからこそ30年も続けられるんやで
Footage of a drone getting attacked by a hawk is pretty rare too, I’d say.
鷹に襲われるドローンの映像もなかなかレアだと思う
I assumed they had a plan to get it down in the end, and it just ends unsolved?
最後にはちゃんと回収する段取りしてると思ってたら未解決で終わりかい。
Every gym has this, but people try to knock the stuck one down by throwing another ball at it, so you usually end up with 2 or 3 clumped together.
どこの体育館にもあるけど、一回挟まったのを当てて取ろうとするからだいたい2,3個固まってあるんだよな
Textbook case of the mummy hunter becoming the mummy. (A Japanese idiom for someone who goes to retrieve something and ends up in the same fix.)
まさにミイラ取りがミイラってやつですね
A cherry picker or scaffolding would solve it, sure, but the fun is watching Knight Scoop take it on with its years of hard-earned know-how.
高所作業車や足場で解決するやろうけど、ナイトスクープの長年培ったノウハウでチャレンジするのがオモロイんよな
If it came down easily it wouldn’t be a segment. Besides, there’s a ceiling light right there, so you just call the guys who maintain the lighting and it’s over in a second. It’s funny because they try all these ridiculous schemes.
簡単に取れたら番組のコーナーにならんしね そもそも天井照明がある時点で照明設備の点検、交換を頼んでる業者呼んだら即終了だ あれこれ馬鹿みたいな作戦実行するから面白い
Apparently there’s no business that specializes in this. The usual way is to ask the lighting contractor to grab them while they’re up there anyway.
専門でやってる業者はないっぽくて照明交換の業者さんとかについでに取ってもらうのが一般的みたいですね
Glad I got to meet all these masters: a drone ace, PET-bottle rockets, a falconer, a juggling performer.
ドローンの達人、ペットボトルロケット、鷹匠、ジャグリングパフォーマー、色んな達人を知れて良かったよ。
That is NOT a ‘cha-cha-chan, the end’ kind of ending www (‘Cha-cha-chan’ is the sound effect Japanese TV uses to tie a story off neatly.)
チャンチャンチャンやあれへんwww
This is literally that scene from Hot Spot lol A company that replaces light bulbs could’ve done it 😂 (Hot Spot is a 2025 TV drama with a ball-stuck-in-a-gym-ceiling scene, and an alien character named Takahashi.)
まさにホットスポットのやつだ笑 電球交換する会社ならできましたね😂
The gym at the elementary school I went to had balls stuck up like this too lol
通ってた小学校の体育館にもこんな感じで挟まったボールあったなw
They’ll lose air eventually and come down on their own. Except for the baseball at the end…
いつかエア抜けして自然に落ちてくるさ。最後の野球のボール以外は。。。
If Director Kamioka were here he’d be furious: ‘So what did you even go there to do? You haven’t solved a thing!’ (Ryutaro Kamioka was the show’s original studio ‘director,’ a stern chairman-like figure known for scolding half-finished investigations.)
上岡局長だったら「君は結局何をしに行ったの？なんにも解決してへんやないか！」って怒ると思う。
Maybe it’s just because I work in logistics, but Okui-gumi is a pretty well-known company in Saitama. (Okui-gumi is a transport company whose staff appear in the episode.)
自分が物流関係だからかもしれないけど、奥井組は埼玉県内でけっこう知名度ある会社だね。
‘Rockets are just like that.’ I love this so much wwwwwwwwwwww
「ロケットはそういうもんです」めっちゃ好きwwwwwwwwwwww
You could probably do it with a crane truck or scaffolding, but this frantic flailing around is what Knight Scoop is.
クレーン車用意したり足場作ったりすればいけそうではあるけど こうやってわちゃわちゃしてるのがナイトスクープなんよね。
So they rip up the entire floor to support the crane truck’s weight. Got it.
クレーン車の荷重を支持するために床材全部引っ剥がすんですねわかります
Answer: ‘Hmm, but still, we’ve got no choice but to call in the professionals, right?’ (Cure Answer is the lead of the anime Detective Precure!, who sat in the studio as a guest ‘director’ for this broadcast.)
アンサー「う〜ん でも やっぱり業者さんを呼ぶしかないでしょう」
One of the all-time great lines in Detective Precure.
名探偵プリキュア屈指の名言
A request like this gets picked and mine never does. I’m going to send in another one asking them to solve that mystery.
こんな依頼は採用されるのに私の依頼は採用されない謎を解いてほしいからまた依頼する
Probably because so many people feel that way, the show still gets 4,500 requests a month after 30+ years.
たぶんそう思う人が多いから番組始まって30年以上なのに毎月4.500通の依頼が届くんだろうね
You’d think with today’s technology someone could build a gym with a roof where balls don’t get stuck lol
今の技術なら挟まらない屋根の体育館作ることできそうなもんですがw
Naive. There are realms beyond human understanding, my child.
甘いな、人智の及ばぬ世界というものがあるのじゃよ。
If you’re going to spend money on that, just jam balls into every groove in the ceiling. Then there’d be no spots left for balls to get stuck in.
そんなことに金かけるなら天井の溝に全部ボールはめてしまえばええねん。そうすりゃもうハマるボールはでなくなるんやし
Once the air leaks out they come down on their own lol
空気抜けてきたら勝手に落ちてくるよ笑
One fell during a school assembly and it turned into a disaster.
全校集会の時に落ちてきて大変なことになったで
One landed right on top of a girl from the next class over and an ambulance had to come.
隣のクラスの女子の真上に落ちてきて救急車や
I know! Just throw a smaller ball! …It gets stuck too?!
そうだ！小さいボールを投げればいいんだ！…………それもハマるんかい！
Let’s get Takahashi the alien to grab it.
宇宙人の高橋さんに取ってもらおう。
Ball price « labor cost, so leaving it up there feels like the right answer.
ボールの値段＜＜作業費 なので、放置が正解な気がする
Once you say that, it’s all over 😇
それ言っちゃおしまいよ😇
‘Volleyball stuck in the gym ceiling’ comes up all the time as a relatable joke, but now that I think about it, I may never have actually seen it happen.
体育館の天井に挟まったバレーボールってあるあるネタでよく聞くけど 思い返してみると実際には一度も見たことがないかもしれない
Honestly I always wondered how a ball even gets stuck that high up, but it turns out it’s that easy. Footage of one getting stuck by accident is really valuable footage, personally lol
正直あんな高いとこに何をどうすれば挟まるんだって ずっと思ってたけどこんな簡単に挟まるんだな 実際意図せず挟まった映像は個人的にすごく貴重映像ｗ
Nobody notices, but each time Okui-san almost slips around in his socks, the staff have added a modest little edit: ‘Are your socks okay?’
誰にも気づかれないけど毎回靴下で滑りそうになってる奥井さんへの靴下大丈夫ですかというスタッフのささやかな編集
Since it’s Knight Scoop, I was expecting them to call in a ‘kunoichi’ as a last resort, hit the ball with a blowgun dart, and have it deflate and drop. Detective quality has really gone down lately. (A kunoichi is a female ninja.)
探偵ナイトスクープだから、最終手段として「くのいち」を呼び、吹き矢を当て空気が抜けて落ちる展開を予想したのに 最近は探偵の質が落ちたな
I think it’s a good wrap-up that a fresh ball gets properly stuck at the very end ww
最後しっかり新しくボール挟まるいい締めだと思いますww
The moment a falconer shows up, you know they’re not actually trying to get it down 😅
鷹匠が出て来た時点で取る気ないやん😅
From the school’s side, they can now say ‘We beat Knight Scoop at its own game and sent it packing.’ Quite the feather in their cap.
学校側としては、「あのナイトスクープを返り討ちにして退けた」という箔がついた訳やネ。
My take
Something tells me the same scene is playing out in gymnasiums all over the world.
Source & translation note
Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.
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