On December 17th, Fuji TV's music program "HEY! HEY! HEY!" on which the comedian duo Downtown served as the host, live broadcast their final episode with the title "Konna ni Waraeta Ongaku Bangumi wa Nakatta ze! Saigo no HEY! HEY! HEY! MUSIC CHAMP", and it was revealed the average audience rating reached 14.3% (in Kanto region according to Video Research).

The music program started back in 1994, and aired a total of 745 episodes.

For the 2-hour long final episode, total 10 groups of artists (45 people in total), such as EXILE, Porno Graffitti, Every Little Thing, T.M. Revolution, GACKT, AKB48, TRF�Komuro Tetsuya, SMAP (Inagaki Goro was absent), Okuda Tamio, and Hamasaki Ayumi, made appearances.

The live broadcast started with the performance of "Ashita ga Aru sa" (released in 2001) sang by Re: Japan, which consists of Yoshimoto Kogyo's comedians including Downtown, along with more performances of�masterpieces�that were related to the program one after another, as well as some footages from the past.

Arashi, Kahala Tomomi, Inoue Yosui, and PUFFY appeared through video messages and actress Shinohara Ryoko, who has co-starred with Downtown in "Downtown no Gottsu Ee Kanji", also visited the program with a bouquet.

For the finale of the show, Makihara Noriyuki showed up, and all the guests and even the staff members performed a song "Chicken�Rice", which is Makihara and Hamada Masatoshi's collaboration song, and written by Matsumoto Hitoshi. During the performance, Hamada commented, "Thank you for the past 18 years."

"HEY! HEY! HEY!" has gained popularity and has become one of �Fuji TV's longest running programs.�The highest rating they reached was on June 21, 1999 with 28.5% when Utada Hikaru made her first appearance on the program, however, it has taken a fall in ratings as of late. The guest who appeared most on the show was Amuro Namie with 56 appearances.

Source: Sponichi Annex

Image: Sanspo