Iron Chef America - They're going to make more!

[GhostMachine]

I found out from the alt.fan.ironchef newsgroup that Food Network is planning on doing more episodes of Iron Chef America.

I don't know if Marc Decascos will be back as the Chairman or not, but Alton Brown will be back as the host. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like they're going to give him anyone to be his sidekick or co-commentator, which is something he really needed during the episodes they already did.

The good news?

Well, one of the Iron Chefs isn't coming back.

Mario Batalli and Bobby Flay are returning, but Wolfgang Puck isn't. (And considering his pastry chef did more of the cooking that he did last time out, I'm glad)

His replacement?

Wait for it....

Iron Chef Japanese Masaharu Morimoto!!!!

And one of the opponents they have lined up is Ming Tsai, who used to have two different shows on Food Network.

They've also got some southwestern style chef lined up, but I forget his name. However, some people have commented that if he goes up against Bobby Flay, then Flay is gonna get schooled! :thumbsup:

And I hope they fired the dumb-ass who asked Vincent Pastorelli to be a judge....

[Cactus Drags]

What's iron chef? Some sort of culinary battle to the death?

[Hellfire]

What's iron chef? Some sort of culinary battle to the death?

[Cactus Drags]

Sounds like Can't Cook, Won't Cook to me.

[Miami Vice]

When is it starting?

[Guest Mr McFarlane]

Sweet ass,

Alton doesn't need no co-host. He's so sexy on his own.

Morimoto makes me a happy puppy :'(

[GhostMachine]

*edit* Went back and checked, and apparently they're filming 10 episodes next week, but they won't air until January.

As for those who don't know about Iron Chef.....

Iron Chef was a show in Japan (it went off the air as a series in `99 over there, but they still do specials every once in a while) where they had 3 to 4 chefs called Iron Chefs. At first, they had Iron Chef Japanese, Iron Chef Chinese, and Iron Chef French. Later, they added an Iron Chef Italian. Each one specializes in the style of cooking that's in their name.

Each week, a challenger came in to face one of the Iron Chefs, and then a theme ingredient would be unveiled. The two chefs would then compete against each other, making dishes that used the theme ingredient, and only had 1 hour to cook. Then a panel of judges would eat the food and decide the winner.

Food Network, which runs the episodes of Iron Chef (with most of the voices dubbed - Chairman Kaga, the host, wasn't dubbed until recently, because he sounds cool speaking in Japanese, so they subtitled him), eventually decided to do some Iron Chef America episodes, with Bobby Flay (Southwestern) , Mario Batalli (Italian), and Wolfgang Puck (No idea wtf he was supposed to be, because his pastry chef did most of the cooking) as the American Iron Chefs. And two of the REAL Iron Chefs, Sakai (French) and Morimoto (Japanese III) were competitors.

There were also a couple of episodes of an Americanized version called Iron Chef USA done for UPN, but the less said about those, the better. William Shatner was the chairman and was given completely silly dialog to say, instead of being allowed to ad-lib, all the judges were morons, and the battles were definitely rigged.

For those who DO watch Iron Chef, I wonder if they had to film separate sequences with Marc Decascos for the airing in Japan, to use instead of the sequences aired here....

*SPOILER SPACE EXPLAINING WHY*

Most Japanese either can speak English or can at least understand it, so subtitling wouldn't do any good. The Chairman for Iron Chef America is supposed to be Kaga's nephew, but talked about him like he was alive. He isn't.

The ACTOR Takashi Kaga is still alive, but the CHARACTER isn't. He decided to leave Iron Chef, so when they did a special back in 2001 or 2002, they opened with the announcement that Kaga was dead, and the new chairman was a former rock star turned actor (or something like that) whose character was supposed to be Kaga's nephew and looked like a total idiot (he dressed like an even more...flamboyant....version of Kaga and had possibly the worst hairstyle I've ever seen). Chairman Kaga died from eating improperly prepared Fugu (Puffer Fish), which is deadly if not fixed properly by a chef who has to be specially trained and licensed to prepare it.

Incidentally, the cooking in the special sucked, so I doubt it will ever be aired over here. And considering it had a Kandagawa vs. Sakai battle, its hard to see why the cooking sucked, but it did.

*End Spoilers*

Edited October 2, 2004 by GhostMachine

[K]

Futurama does an awesome Iron Chef parody.

[Guest Mr McFarlane]

I saw that

"THAT SWORD COST 500 DOLARUUUUU"