What is "can!jani"

was a Japanese TV variety that aired every Saturday on TV Asahi. The show ran from October 4, 2008 to September 26, 2009 for a total of 49 episodes. It had suffered from frequent time changes before settling for the 3:00pm time slot. The show was created after the high success of their two previous television specials that aired on TV Asahi, Dadaiyaman and Dadaiyaman Z. Its slogan first was, " For the world's sake, for the people's sake! " but it changed to " Can We Do It? Yes We Can! ", a play on the show's title as well as on Barack Obama's campaign slogan after he had won the U.S. presidential election (Episode 10).

Can! Jani, as it is commonly referred to, is a show in which Kanjani Eight were given assignments from Command Can to help better assist and save the planet earth. Each assignment, given to the show by its viewers, ranged from hiking in the woods to downtown Tokyo apartment guides. At the end of each episode Command Can would then give his score to the unit he sent out to complete the task, which, usually depending on the circumstances, always was a decent score.

The majority of the episodes opened up with a conversation between Command Can and Kanjani8. Command Can was an animated puppet on the show designed to look like a yellow can wearing a blue hat. He was extremely sarcastic, always taking the opportunity to berate the members of Kanjani8 and thoroughly embarrass them on TV. During the first half of the show, You Yokoyama would bicker with the character almost every week—Usually trying to one up the can which would always then backfire on him.