Some spectator sports exist that I can’t spectate when they appear on television. Golf is one example. Tennis is another. Actually, not a whole lot of sports which are televised do much for me. I like to watch football or baseball or occasionally hockey. And that is only when a team I am interested in plays.
So it would seem no big surprise that I have less than zero interest in watching “Celebrity Chef Showdown” which is running each night this week on NBC.
Now I happen to like cooking. And I like cooking shows if they are entertaining and helpful. I loved Julia Childs. Jamie Oliver is a definite hoot. Emeril, well, a little Emeril goes a long ways. But I never really got into The Food Channel’s “Iron Chef,” which often seemed at times as if some of the chefs were going to drop what they were doing and start Sumo wrestling, but as far as I know that didn’t happen.
I have been to oodles of cooking competitions — cook-offs. I hosted a chili cook-off for several years when I was in college. Although, that was more about keg dynamics than cooking. What is the attraction of competitive cooking is the tasting and eating. I’m not really interested in technique or showmanship. And since I can’t taste what is being cooked on TV, I just can’t work up any actual zeal for a show that features celebrities such as Patti LaBelle or Naomi Campbell strutting their stuff in the kitchen.
Television executives have found it’s cheaper to put on the type of drivel as a celebrity chef show than to have something that was written and thought out and acted in by real actors. How about celebrity house-cleaning? Celebrity roofing? Celebrity plumbing? I’m sure one of those would be a show someone would want to see. Just don’t mention these ideas too loudly. Some network executives might be listening.