Dan Lamothe of Red Sox Monster writes periodically for us. Now that the NBA Finals are just about finished, we are about to embark on two months - save for Shark week - of having absolutely nothing to watch on TV. Fortunately, a whole slew of potentially funny Japanese game shows are coming to network TV.

If you’ve been watching the NBA Finals, you’ve heard by now: network television will go Japanese this summer.

That doesn’t mean Godzilla or Ichiro, though. It means a phenomenon that had been primarily relegated to high-number cable channels and the Internet will come front and center, as Japanese game shows are brought to the U.S. in all their bizarre and grisly glory.

The most blatant example is ABC’s new “I Survived a Japanese Game Show,” which is still new enough where the cast remains under wraps. There are others, though, including the forthcoming FOX show “Hole in the Wall” and ABC’s “Wipeout,” which has seen more awkward promotion than a blogger email blast during the playoffs.

In the dog days of summer, here’s betting this gimmick works, and here’s why: We foolish bloggers have proven that with the exception of perhaps scandal, women or scandal involving women, nothing draws traffic and outside links like a good, refreshing video of some poor slob meeting epic fail.

Think about it. Whether it’s watching people being turned into a life-sized game pieces, imitating horror movie characters or taking a colossal shot or three to the babymaker, viral videos of Japanese TV have become hot property on the Internet, spawning blogs like TV in Japan and message boards like J-Fan Friends.

Sports blogs have also furthered the craze. With Leather, for one, maintains a Japan tag that is populated mainly by whackjob videos. From experience, I can also say that one of my first “finds” blogging was the video of “the greatest baseball pitch invented in the history of mankind,” which can still can be seen here. And when all else fails, you can always try the ol’ Japanese Port-A-Potty trick. They just don’t make that kind of stuff stateside, man.

For those of you fearing the onslaught of grisly accidents and hysterical calamities, though, there’s also this: It looks like the creator of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” has made a play for “Masquerade,” a Japanese show that “finds contestants using costumes, props, and sets to create performances that trick the eye,” according to TV Squad.

If that’s not the Skip Bayless moment for this trend, I don’t know what is.