Heaven Help Us: Rachael Ray & Guy Fieri's Celebrity Smackdown
Guy and Rachael at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival
Why is this happening? First, Alton Brown peaces out, then the Food Network decides to rub salt in the wound with the announcement of its latest juggernaut, which is poised to become the most catchphrase-packed show in television history. It's called Guy vs. Rachael's Celebrity Smackdown, and if that name alone doesn't tell you everything need to know, the video explains it more.
As star Rachael Ray describes it, the show is basically "the cooking equivalent of Dancing With The Stars." While Ray and Fieri provide no indication that the show will include sparkly hot pants and jazz hands (fingers crossed!), they do explain that each episode will feature two teams of "celebrities," who are not professional chefs (duh, and since when do "celebrities" care about "food," anyway?), dueling it out for kitchen glory. No release date for the show has been made official, though in the video, Ray says it will premiere this summer. It will join several other new shows on the network in coming months, including Halloween Wars, about "people who compete against each other to carve pumpkins" and a cooking show with country singer Trisha Yearwood.
Fieri describes the show as a "battle royale," and while we're guessing this isn't what he had in mind, we will actually watch it if it looks anything like this:
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Its almost safe to say TV has overproduced too many food/cooking shows. But, they are so cheap and easy to make, I wouldn't be willing to bet any real money.
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