Hey kids, who likes Emeril? Well now, you shouldn't. I'm on the disabled list this week due to excessive smoking and a cold, but I was in good enough shape to make some salsa and watch some TV.
Famed pop-culture chef Emeril Lagasse now stars in what is possibly the worst sitcom on the tube. What kind of trouble could America's favorite chef get into? The hilarious kind, you say? Wrong.
EssentialsEmerilNBC 7 p.m. Tuesdays (out of 5) Overall * Food * Atmosphere * Service * Dateability *** Purely stylistic Zany |
I saw a commercial a while back for the show, addressing the possibility of making his chef-wear more eye-catching and frilly. I really wish that was the plot, but those damnable TV execs tried to change something else about Emeril instead: His penchant for paunch-inducing calories! Needless to say, this doesn't go over well with Emeril's chubby staff, especially Cass (Lisa Ann Walter, a heavyset former member of B.E.T.'s 'Oh Drama!'). She's nonplussed by the idea of going on a diet, until she finds out about a large cash prize for the most significant weight loss.
Whale jokes and food-smelling hijinks ensue. Also, believe it or not, the audience doesn't like Emeril's new recipes, including boiled chicken and tomato-water sauce. Double believe it or not, the Emeril staff wins the competition through Emeril's quick thinking and learns that food is more important than diets or money.
In all seriousness, there was not one truly funny joke throughout the entire show, although I did laugh when Emeril's wife drank malt liquor for its natural diuretic and buzz-inducing properties. It's good to see that Robert Urich no longer has to do dog food commercials to stay on TV, but his agent character is a piss-poor version of Dan Laroquette's character on 'Nightcourt,' always looking at the ladies' chests.
Along the same lines was a joke that was based on the misguided notion that a bald head makes a person look like a sperm.
Thankfully, there was little-to-no racial humor on the show: only one mention of smothered pork chops by Cass, a dish that every fat person on the show presumably likes anyway. This marks a real step ahead for NBC (remember the one black guy on 'Veronica's Closet' and how different he was from those six or seven white guys on the show?).
There was plenty of food on the show, but nothing about how any of it was made. Where that pile of turkey wings came from, we may never know. Those expecting a 'Larry Sanders'-style spoof of foods are crying in their buttermilk right now, but those people are morons anyway. This show is pure NBC pap, written by pap-ists for pap-ists.
