Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Volume 2, Number 36: Lil' Gordon Ramsay's EZ-Bake Cupcake Oven

(Note: I originally posted this entry in late October 2007 to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog.)

Of all the new TV shows to debut this fall, the only I've been watching on a regular basis is Kitchen Nightmares. I have enjoyed seeing Gordon Ramsay rip into idiots, ego-maniacs, lazy-asses and dirty pigs. I didn't like him nearly as much on Hell's Kitchen because he was ripping into good people who are relatively decent cooks (plus I have to admit, the first time I heard of Hell's Kitchen, I was hoping would be an American-style adaptation of the British sitcom, Chef! starring Lenny Henry, and was disappointed when I found it was not).

Anyway, I just came up with an idea for a Saturday Night Live-type commercial spoof that would be hilarious on a number of levels: Lil' Gordon Ramsay's EZ-Bake Cupcake Oven. I don't have a full script for it yet, but the commercial would start off by attacking the stereotype that cooking is for girls (by contrast, the old Holly Hobbie cupcake oven reinforced that stereotype), and that at last, here's a toy oven that boys can use:

NARRATOR: "Boys who want to learn how to cook, can't because all the cooking-related toys on the market today are for girls... UNTIL NOW! Introducing Lil' Gordon Ramsay's EZ-Bake Cupcake Oven!"

There's a twist to this oven, though. At random points during the baking process, the oven "talks" with such Gordon Ramsay sound bites including (but not limited to) "YOU DONKEY!", and when the timer runs out, the oven quotes one of Ramsay's disparaging remarks about bad food he's eaten, like "It looks like an oil slick," "It's good... as far as rabbit food goes," and my personal favorite, "I'd rather eat poodle (expletive) than put that in my mouth."

It's funny on at least four levels: One, attacking the "cooking is for girls" stereotype; two, Gordon Ramsay putting his name on some stupid toy "appliance" would be absolutely absurd; three, the juxtaposition of a children's toy with Ramsay's dirty language and acid tongue; finally, seeing as the "cupcakes" that came out of the old Holly Hobbie oven were probably crappy enough that adults would never eat them, but their relatively mindless children would, it makes sense that Ramsay would make disparaging remarks about the "final product."

Speaking of kitchen nightmares: I'm getting a new fridge later this month. I discovered that the one I've had since I moved into my house in 2000--and incidentally, it's probably even older than Chef Ramsay himself--has a freezer problem (every so often, it partially defrosts and then re-freezes frozen food, leading to freezer burn). And as I said in my previous blog entry, it is probably an Energy Hog.

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