is an American gaijin tarento, television producer, author, and actor based in Japan. Originally from Chicago, he moved to Japan in 1983 after visiting as a producer with the American television program Ripley's Believe It or Not!. He appears regularly as a commentator on several different Japanese television programs, including a Wednesday spot on Fuji TV's daily morning news program Tokudane!, He says that he first became interested in all things Japanese in the fifth grade at elementary school when he made friends with an immigrant classmate from Japan, Michael Sugano. As a gesture of friendship, he tried to speak Japanese to him by saying "Where is the post office?" in Japanese. His friend was impressed and moved by that gesture and particularly praised Dave's Japanese pronunciation. He soon became interested in Japanese manga which his friend owned. As he desired to understand Japanese manga, he began taking Japanese lessons once a week at the Japanese school his friend attended every Sunday. He stated in his autobiography that he learned 50 new Japanese words every day, eventually becoming capable of comprehending serialized Japanese manga such as Obake no Q-tarō and Ashita no Joe. before returning to America a year later. He described his work at the time as "[d]oing things like the lowest Bozo, circus kind of stuff. But it doesn't bother me at all. A lot of times the foreigners on TV, models and what-not, are compared to pandas. They use that term here—pandas—because they're cuddly, you can go and have fun with them, and throw a marshmallow and that's about it. And you don't get involved any more deeper than that. But ... since I'm making half a million dollars a year, I'm very happy to be a panda." Due to his fluency in Japanese, he also developed career as a serious commentator on Anglo-American culture and events. He became a regular commentator on foreign news and established the Tokyo-based Spector Communications in 1988, In reference to his success in Japan, he stated that "I set a goal early on to be different from other gaijin tarento [foreign TV personalities] by trying to compete with Japanese rather than with other foreigners." Spector also has worked as a contributor to National Lampoon.
Personal life
Spector is married to , a native of Chiba Prefecture, whom he met in the U.S.
Filmography
- Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu (2006)
- ' (2008)
- Tokudane! (Fuji TV, 1999 – present)
Publications
- (Shueisha, June 1986, )
- (Goma Shobo, September 1986, )
- (Heibonsha, November 1986, )
- (Shinchosha, April 1987, )
- (Shinchosha, December 1988, )
- (Goma Shobo, December 1988, )
- (Nesco, October 1989, )
- (Goma Shobo, November 1997, )
- (Dobunshoin, September 1998, )
- (Gentosha, June 2011, )
His wife, Kyoko, wrote the following book about him:
- (Tokyo Shoseki, July 2013, )