May 18, 2001

3:17 PM

I know what you've been thinking: "Yeah, Iron Chef is okay and all, but wouldn't it be a whole lot better with Captain Kirk presiding over it?" Fear no more, The mighty UPN is going to give you your wish.
posted by aaron (24 comments total)

Please, God, don't let Emeril be an Iron Chef.
posted by darukaru at 3:25 PM on May 18, 2001

Somehow I don't think this'll survive the translation. Most of the appeal, aside from the main concept (the battles with a single type of food), comes from the half-assed, bizarre mixture of subtitle and dubbing. And Shatner needs to be shot into the sun; he'd make a lousy Chairman.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 3:35 PM on May 18, 2001

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
posted by wantwit at 3:39 PM on May 18, 2001

This sounds . . . awful.
posted by Skot at 3:41 PM on May 18, 2001

I thought Shatner was a vegan? How could he join in the final meal? I can't wait to hear him ruin an otherwise good show:

"This... asparagus... is... terrific!"
posted by mathowie at 3:52 PM on May 18, 2001

Must we ruin everything good? What can the American version bring to the show, other than an audience and commercialism?
posted by hijinx at 3:54 PM on May 18, 2001

This IS. totally. AWWW some.
posted by stbalbach at 3:54 PM on May 18, 2001

(Clarification on "audience": I mean an actual "live studio" audience witnessing the show; I think it's a natural for UPN's style. Iron Chef certainly has found an audience in the greater sense of the word.)
posted by hijinx at 4:00 PM on May 18, 2001

Okay, add my voice to the chorus of "Nooooooooo!"s. I find that part of the appeal of Iron Chef, aside from the dubbing and whatnot mentioned above, is the dishes themselves.. where else am I going to see sea urchin ice cream garnished with sugared fish fins, dammit?
posted by jess at 4:19 PM on May 18, 2001

this will suck like nothing that has ever sucked before.
posted by jbelshaw at 4:19 PM on May 18, 2001

expecially?
posted by humboldt32 at 4:31 PM on May 18, 2001

I liked the Turkey Sashimi bit. Urp...
posted by Wizzle at 5:33 PM on May 18, 2001

The best thing about the original, I thought, was the sense of pomp and ceremony-- the chefs rising up on their daises, the host vamping it up, the arena-like atmosphere. Because Japan has a kind of cultural warrior tradition, there was a serious competitive aspect that the show then pumped up satirically in a really knowing, fun, ironic way.

I really can't see a U.S. version capturing that-- too bad.
posted by Zettai at 6:04 PM on May 18, 2001

...and which third-rate celebrities will be the judges? Do we have any celebrity fortune tellers? Just won't be the same...
posted by schmedeman at 6:05 PM on May 18, 2001

Okay, how about a pool: how many weeks until a WWF "star" makes an appearance?

I say 4 weeks.
posted by hijinx at 6:07 PM on May 18, 2001

Madam Cleo could be the fortune teller.

I can definitely picture The Rock tasting a dish and then raising an eyebrow.
posted by daveleck at 6:23 PM on May 18, 2001

I thought about doing a 'Trek Chef' parody a couple of months ago. Who knew it would come true?

Can you smell what The Rock is cookin'?
posted by dr. zoidberg at 6:28 PM on May 18, 2001

I can't imagine that anyone who watches Iron Chef would think the dubbing is half-assed or inept.
posted by sudama at 8:18 PM on May 18, 2001

Robot Wars is better than this is going to be.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:12 PM on May 18, 2001

It just won't be the same without the guy interrupting the commentator all the time yelling "Fukui-san!"
posted by zempf at 10:29 PM on May 18, 2001

I'll have you know the WWF folks have extensive culinary experience.
posted by owillis at 12:32 AM on May 19, 2001

If you have cable, try and track down a Japanese channel and watch a few of their gameshows; you don't have to speak japanese (I don't) to enjoy most of them because they're just so much fun. It's cultural, so I don't think the japanese game show experience can be bottled up and sold like so much teriyaki sauce. This is going to suck so bad.
posted by lia at 2:51 AM on May 19, 2001

I'm going to be a contrarian on this. It seems to me that the best way to maintain the bizarreness of Iron Chef in an American version is precisely to have someone like Shatner host it. It will be bizarre in a completely different way from the Japanese version, but that's inevitable. What is important is that it be equally bizarre.

And who knows, they might actually come up with something watchable. God knows I've never made it all the way through one of the Japanese versions, despite having had two friends tell me how great the show is. I just don't see it. As far as I'm concerned, they'd have to work pretty hard to make the American version less watchable.
posted by kindall at 11:35 AM on May 19, 2001