Emeril's Sitcom | Forgotten Failures
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
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Written, Presented & Compiled by Joe Ramoni
/ joeramoni
/ hatsoffjoe
Major thanks to Vinnie Rattolle for uploading this series in full:
• Emeril sitcom #1 Pilot...
Please consider supporting me on Patreon:
/ hatsoffentertainment
This is definitely the kind of sitcom that could only exist in the early 2000s.
it shows the beginning of the no-effort turnkey-business mindset which has gone on to pervade basically every aspect of every enterprise. Nobody wants to do any work making things function, they just want to stick things-people-like together and hope money magically starts coming out. If there's an obvious burden of labor to turning the good ingredients into a gourmet meal, so to speak, they'll just leave it to some other chef. and if it fails, it's obviously not THEIR fault because they provided good _ingredients._
and I don't blame them for being so lazy. We're all just.. _so_ tired. We put maximum effort in on the way there, and once we've arrived, there's nothing left to give.
No sir I disagree, if someone told me this was made in the 80's or 90's I would've said dude I believe it, haha.
@@KingofCrusher an 80s sitcom would have been emeril having to room with a stuffy uptight englishman who is used to really bland cuisine
a 90s sitcom would have been _good._ or they would have cranked up the emotional-music moral-lesson stuff up to 11. one of those two.
@@KairuHakubi lol I agree, you make some good points, haha.
@@KingofCrusher It would have taken a very different direction. It certainly wouldn't have tried to include Emril himself. It would have used an expy actor.
Emeril wasn’t a thing in Australia, so I was surprised to learn that Elzar from Futurama was a parody of a specific TV chef (Elzar doesn’t even have a different catchphrase, he just says “Bam!”)
It made me love Elzar all the more.
So this is why Emeril felt familiar even if I never saw him before. Futurama had already introduced him to him.
“My daddy owned a restaurant, and it’s punks like you who kept him from going regional.” Loved the Futurama episodes with Elzar.
I don't know how big Emeril ever was, honestly. I didn't know anything about him until Futurama introduced me to him with Elzar.
I'm literally just learning that Elzar was a parody of a specific chef right now
This show seems like a "Home Improvement" cameo that got wildly out of hand.
So….’Buddies’ and/or ‘Soul Man’
Imagine 50% less of Tim and more focus on Al and the Neighbor... Would be really weird.
@@toidIllorTAmIWorse than that because people actually loved Al.
@@rayelgatubelo lol yeah but I bet they loved him because he was utilized just enough. He'd probably get annoying to some.
I remember my family watching this pilot. For some reason, the memory stuck with me all these years. I think 9/11 seared random things around that time into my brain.
Yeah, it did for us all! I remember most everything I was doing when 9/11 happened, but I do not remember this short-lived series.
Thank goodness for Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon for giving kids a distraction. Disney as well but you had to pay for that.
It seems to me like this could have been a halfway decent Jason Alexander vehicle.
Oh great point!
Watching this video made me the the concept is there; maybe base it on Emeril but cast it with a veteran sitcom actor and it could’ve been soemthing that went at least 2-3 seasons
Emeril doesn't appear to be that bad of an actor. If you didn't know he was a celebrity chef, he wouldn't seem that out of place.
In fairness, his character in the show seems fairly in line with his real personality.
Yeah, I agree. Like, they were going for a deadpan, always serious kind of angle and I think that would've worked even with his limited acting skills. It's just a bizarre concept for a show to begin with.
Yeah actually those snippets look good, waaaaay better than I expected
@@mikeledger2614Well like he said, he is an entertainer. It's not really surprising that he's comfortable in front of a camera and a decent actor.
@@BobLee-df4zh He has absolutely NO chemistry with his costars. That's the most jarring part.
That Sponsorship is on point😂
And yeah I agree with your point that this show suffered from staring Emeril himself and not a stand in. It really seems like the Producers were desperately trying to create wacky characters that could carry the comedy leaving Emeril the underused straight man in his own show.
12:08
somehow seeing Burt Reynolds made me smile, knowing that he sure loved to be in as many films and TV episodes as possible
He was a good man
Ah a truly hideous television experiment. It’s always fascinating to go back and watch pilots or short lived sitcoms and daytime talk series that were given to momentarily popular celebs of the day! Thank you for bringing this to us!
Totally agree
I remember we had “The Jeff Probst Show” for awhile lmao
@@TonyMichaels166 Man, I don't remember that. I just looked it up and despite the fact it only had one season, it lasted 170 episodes lol
@@heisensaul5538 yeah, I remember skipping school and always seeing it on. The network *really* wanted it to work for some reason.
@@TonyMichaels166 My guess would be that they had invested a lot of money in this project and decided to see it through good or bad.
I remember watching this as a kid with my mom and thinking it sucked, but she loved it and was upset it got cancelled.
She's a huge Emeril fan and still has those recipes from the show printed off and uses them for holiday dinners. Not a good show, but those recipes are great.
Well at least some good and delicious came out of this show for you.
I think if this show had good producers and writers, it would be somewhat more successful.
@@heisensaul5538it didn’t come from this show, they came from Emeril Live
@@thecatwrangler9448 Yeah and I said he got something good and delicious from his cooking show. I should have been more specific and said the cooking show :p
@@heisensaul5538 shit I was hoping you’d correct me and tell me no that the better recipes were saved for the sitcom 😢 now I have no reason to watch it… can you please ask your mom for one good reason to watch this program today? I enjoy the “bam!”, so I want to watch it but I need to have a positive review in order to know I’m not going to waste a movies worth of time watching a bad sitcom just for a single catchphrase.
This is dead serious I’m 25 years old I grew up loving that bam yelling chunky lil Italian meatball.
Even being a HUGE fan of his cooking shows, I remember seeing the ad for this at the time and going, “Well now, doesn’t that just look awful!”.
5:30 _kick it up a notch, BAM!_ Chef Emril IS the inspiration for Chef Elzar from Futurama!
From the actual Wikipedia for EMERIL:
"Those involved with the show blamed the continuous news coverage of the terrorist attacks as the reason the show was never able to find much of an audience. Others blamed its non-acting leading man and unfunny scripts."
Yeah airing after 9/11 was unfortunate, but if the sitcom were actually funny it would have developed an audience in the ensuing months as people sought a return to normalcy.
@@IsmailofeRegime For example, the enormous ratings on the new Night Court, which shows people still crave that nostalgic escape zone.
I remembered this show being considered lost media at one point (since it never got any official home video release). And since it became obscured by the September 11th attacks, many people speculated whether or not it existed (similar to Rapsittie Street Kids)
I dont remember that debate b/c I remember this show being a thing and not a crazy fever dream of some executive. I would say it has lost media in the sense it has 3 unaired episodes and 1 unaired pilot.
You folks remember My Big Fat Greek Life? Would love to see an episode on that blunder
Yes
Yay! I always look forward to Forgotten Failures!
"even those who tuned into it have little memory of it"
indeed.. this awoke a bizarrely hidden memory. I recall it existing, but that's it.
Emeril really is a good performer though, he was great on his guest appearance on Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast. One of the top 5 best ever.
You can't mention The Larry Sanders Show and not do a video on it lol. That's one of my favorite shows of all time and I would love to see you do a retrospective on it.
I honestly I had no idea this existed. One of many shows that led to NBC's decline. Maybe the Friends spinoff Joey could be a forgotten failure next? I'd be happy to donate season one
Joey really wasn’t a failure it just didn’t get the ratings of friends
I think NBC's decline is a more recent thing. They had the Office and that was very successful. They also had Parks and Rec.
Damn I really hate Friends.
@@heisensaul5538 yes and no. They eventually recovered somewhat at the end of the decade but the mid 2000s were a dark time for them to the point that it was a punchline even within their own network. People knew back then that once Friends was over they were pretty much fucked.
One sitcom from round this time that needs looking at is a show called Ladies Man with Alfred Molina, it lasted 2 seasons on CBS and it even had Betty White in it and the daughter was played by Kaley Cuoco who was brought on as a cast replacement for the 2nd season
I remember they basically wrote an episode of Disney's Hercules just so he could guest star. And let's not forget a parody caricature of him is a staple of Futurama. It can't be understated how popular he was back then. The problem was they made a sitcom instead of having him host a game show or syndicated Talk Show. Side note, did you know that Rachel Ray's talk show is still on the air? The show itself was painfully generic, not the worst I've ever seen by a country mile (and some of those got multiple seasons). But it wasn't a smart choice. You could put any non-entertainment celebrity in that generic series and it still would have been exactly the same. And to add insult to injury, this came out at a time when we really didn't know what we wanted out of sitcoms, let's be honest. The big hits of the 90's either ended or were in the process of ending, The Office was still a few years away, we were stuck between the Friends/Seinfeld years and the single camera, theatrical half hour series years. I hate to say this, but if NBC wanted to capitalize off of Emeril's popularity, they SHOULD have made (again, REALLY hate to say this) a ...choke... Reality Show hosted by him. Something like they'd currently have on Food Network or similar to one of Gordon Ramsey's shows. It would have at least done a full season.
This video tapped into my memories of waiting with anticipation and completely losing my mind whenever Emeril said "BAM!" when my parents would watch his cooking show(s) as a young kid
7:49!!!! those are seriously the funniest forgotten shows of that era! and I'm telling you: I literally save these on Roku or Pluto whenever I can.
can we get Drew Carey Show converted to DVD yet? that show is criminally underrated!
I remember NBC promoting this. I never watched it but even back then I knew it was just a bad idea. It'd be like giving Gordon Ramsay his own sitcom, it MIGHT sound good on paper but in reality, you'd just ask what they were thinking.
KITCHEN NIGHTMARES ISN'T A SITCOM???
@@doGInVain It just plays out like one
@Schweitzer-Man lol I was just joking I knew that. Classic show imo!
@@doGInVain I knew you were joking. But some of the episodes are almost like sitcoms.
@@schweitzer-man6227 that's why it's a classic!!! Hotel Hell was ehh though
My grandma reacting to Emeril ANYTIME (even his cooking show) was basically Jackie Gleason here. She's smiling on this epic roast of him.
Didn’t expect the guy’s seasoning I was using had a freaking tv sitcom, but I guess shouldn’t be too shocked.
wait til you hear about Paul Newman! 😆 alot of younger people like me (30 years old) knew him as the guy on many food products and condiments. But he had a whole ass acting career beforehand! lol i didnt know this til he died.
@@MsDudette21 Kind of Reminds me of how Jimmy Dean was a singer before using his brand to sell frozen breakfast products.
When I worked at a grocery store a few years ago, I once dropped a case of like 9 jars of Emeril brand pasta sauce. What I'm seeing here gives me similar vibes as cleaning that up.
I hope you at least yelled "BAM" immediately afterwards.
I feel like cleaning up that mess would have been more fun than watching this show lol
I actually remember one of the commercials they played to promote Emeril. It was Sherri Shepherd going in to the trash to eat the food Emeril just threw out. It reminded me of that Quizno's commercial where the woman ate a sandwich out of the trash.
That's an interesting metaphor I would think they'd want to stay away from in the ads lol
@@heisensaul5538 "Food that's SO GOOD, you'll eat it out of the trash!"
@@skiprockjr.6881 Well at least NBC thought so.
I had an idea for a fictional spinoff of a celebrity chef show once: an animated series based on Cake Boss where they'd be making cakes which were physically impossible. Looking at this, it's probably for the best that nothing came of my idea.
Team that up with Paul F. Tompkins’ Cake Boss character, and you’ve got something that Buddy Valastro’s lawyers would never license.
Hey your idea could work
@@dimitriwarchief301 I think that train has left the station, sadly.
I never knew Emeril had a sitcom. I’ve known about his food shows on that were on Food Network but I never heard of a sitcom starring Emeril Lagasse. Perhaps it’s a good thing I never heard of this show until now.
Me, too.
Great video as usual. Never new this existed. Keep up the great work. I would love to see a Forgotten Failures episode on the Pauly Shore sitcom called "Pauly".
I can't believe there were psychopaths that sadistic enough to make that a reality.
Pauly Shore had a sitcom???? Oh yeah, that was a genius idea!!! 🙄
I recall around this time, or maybe a few years afterwards, there was a Sex and the City style dramedy adaptation of Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, this was before Bourdain had become a popular TV personality in his own right so the Bourdain character was played by (IIRC) a young Bradley Cooper.
Speaks to Gleason's talent a lot in how funny completely out of context decades old Honeymooners scenes without actual words still are.
Speaks to your inexperience that that would be surprising to you.
I've never heard of Emeril before. I'm only just now realizing that the chef character on Futurama who goes "bam!" is a reference to this guy
Does anyone else remember the Ranco infomercial for this rotisserie thing? And the audience would always say, "Set it and forget it!" I love the cheesy infomercials from the early 2000s
I do recall requesting this one a while ago.
Emeril Hill Zone act 1
Lmao
I had no clue why this was so familiar to me until I realized this guy is exactly like Elzar from Futurama. They were referencing Emeril this entire time...
1) I'm super happy about the appropriate Hello Fresh sponsorship. Congrats on that, you deserve it.
2) I wonder what could have been done to get Emril into a scripted show format. I suppose his strength was his charisma while cooking, so why spoil a good thing? He probably could have done supporting roles or cameos if he really wanted to explore acting, but it definitely seems like an executive pushed this mess, and not Emril himself.
3) Holy shit, this video reminded me of how much of a cultural powerhouse that guy was when I was younger. He really was everywhere.
My granny loved his cooking show, so she was all in on this. After the first commercial break for the sitcom, she changed the channel and never put it back.
Also, hey, that's a young Melissa from Abbot Elementary!
This was one of Robert Urich's last TV shows; I think he held the record at the time for most TV pilots that went to air, or, he was at least close to it at that point. A lot of them were bad but boy, I remember thinking that he was really slumming it to be in this one. I mean this was Dan Tanna, and now he's on "Emeril". All of "Emeril" felt wrong, but that part always depressed me.
I forgot Robert was still alive at this point!
I have never heard of this man before so all im thinking is "Oh that's what the Futurama chef is referencing"
Watching at 7:48 I remembered that Michael J. Fox also had a sitcom loosely based on himself that went south.
Rest in Peace Robert Urich he was too great for this garage fire thank goodness this was not his final role.
The best parts of the first Emeril pilot were the jazzy acoustic guitar bridges. The desire to seem like another Just Shoot Me! or Suddenly Susan to the network executives was palpable
This show is only notable for being Robert Urich's final television role before his passing.
For someone who had a respectable acting career, it's a sad way to go out.
@@cityhawk That happens a lot, unfortunately. Raul Julia in Street Fighter. Sean Connery in Sir Billi. Orson Wells in The Transformers: The Movie. (I like that one, but Wells did not.)
@@KasumiKenshirou Actually, for Orson Welles, it was Moonlighting that was his last appearance outside of talk shows. At least he went out on a high note.
Emeril was the hottest thing going, people wanted to make a quick buck and when it failed, they kicked Emeril to the curb.
I saw an episode of the show and I thought it could have been really good. The idea of what celebrity chefs do outside of work wasn’t a bad idea, it was the writing that I put it down to. Write some actual good humor and then it might work
His fame must have been before Food Network began airing in the UK, as they've never shown him here. This is the first I've ever heard about him!
That purple alien chef from Futurama is based on him. The writers tell a story about him on one of the DVD commentary tracks. They went to one of his restaurants and he told them something like "I'll take care of everything". They thought that he meant that the meal was on the house, and were then surprised to get a bill at the end.
@@KasumiKenshirou as soon as he said "Bam" in the video, I reconised him from that. But, lol, yeah thats from the first season DVD isnt it?
He does air fryer infomercials now sadly.
So happy Joe is finally getting paid sponsorships. Although, I respected his resistance, you gotta make that dough.
yah top 10 highlights in your life
@@gordonlekfors2708 fuck is that supposed to mean?
The late night cooking show is actually a fun idea and it looks interesting. But wow that sitcom. lmao
I don't know what it is about failed sitcoms from the big three networks around the turn of the millennium that is so interesting...I could binge about 50 of these Forgotten Failures episodes on them!
Joe you are diabolical. I had forgotten witnessing this trainwreck of a show for years, and now it's all coming back 😱
I only have a passing knowledge of who Emeril is but the fact this exists at all is incredibly bizarre at face value.
This is the first Forgotten Failures that I actually watched as it aired. The only storyline I remember is the office weight loss challenge where Emeril and the manager shave their whole body. Oof
Might i suggest the short lived Dan Aykroyd sitcom SOUL MAN. About a cool single dad that drives a motorcycle and just so happens to be a preacher.
Oh yes, oh yeeeeeeeees.
Ah yes. Big Bird was on an episode. Hard not to forget that, but I remember it doing decently well. Not massively successful, but it had at least a couple seasons.
Two seasons isn't a failure, plus it had crossovers onto other shows. I remember it fondly.
@@Clay3613 Swore it had three. It really is a shame it took Anthony Clark just so many short lived shows before he had any kind of mainstream success with Yes Dear. There was something that took place in Boston that lasted only a few episodes I can't even remember the name of, and all I remember is a weird Ren and Stimpy "Happy Happy Joy Joy" reference. That, too, was on NBC. They really struggled with anything that wasn't Seinfeld, Fraisier, Friends, or Will and Grace around that time, didn't they?
I kinda remember seeing a couple of commercials for this show and thinking to myself that the only reason I'd probably tune in would be to watch the wonderfully talented and likable Robert Urich, who I used to love in Spenser for Hire. Really miss that guy.
6:00 Linda Bloodworth-Thompson loved that sappy music in dramatic scenes.
I like videos like this because i have never heard of anything involved at all and I feel like I’ve learned a lot by the end.
I thought about this randomly last week. Even as teenager I thought it was an odd concept for a sitcom. Even though Emeril was a big commodity then this was not a good idea.
If you see Emeril without the white chef's outfit, he looks like a completely random unrecognizable person.
Emeril was HUGE in the early 2000s.
I watched every episode of this with my family when it first aired. You've got to get around to doing an episode on The Knights of Prosperity or Carpoolers sometime.
Encore! Encore! next, please! I'd also accept NBC's Daddio starring Michael Chiklis.
I completely forgot about this show till your video! I don't recall ever watching it and it looks like I didn't miss anything. Thanks for reminding me of this humongous blunder!
At the time, I was one of the people that laughed at the idea of giving Emeril a sitcom. Today, particularly thanks to this video, I can see the logic behind the attempt. And the logic both for the initial family setting and the retooling to a workplace setting. Honestly, I can only feel the weak link was Emeril as an actor. They tried a basic "easy mode" format that they thought would accommodate an unskilled actor until he could gradually grow into the role, only for the pilot to fail so badly that they felt they had to completely change the show before he ever had the chance. So they switched to a popular ensemble format where everyone else could carry the show until Emeril eventually grew into the role, except Emeril never grew to match these stronger personalities and instead awkwardly stood around the edges. Then the show was cancelled.
Wow. I was never even aware of this at the time.
Congrats on the sponsorship, by the way. Nobody likes ads, but if I've got to see one, I'm glad it's supporting one of my favorite creators.
Emril Live was really popular in my house back in the day. I forgot he had a sitcom.
I remember being excited about this show, I loved his cooking show when I was a kid and it made me want to be a chef. I felt like Emeril was barely in it, he was nothing like the Emeril in his cooking show
That decade wherein NBC lost its damn mind. This sounds like a chef version of Home Improvement. Basically, you could do a whole FG series on Jeff Zucker alone.
Basically, it was the Jeff Zucker years. If you don't know who Jeff Zucker is, he was the entertainment president and later CEO of NBC. And it was under his watch during the 2000s, that NBC floundered in last place.
@@TMC1982Part2 I know. That is why I said he could do a series on him.
And it wouldn't be the first time they were dead last in the ratings, would it?
Definitely NEVER heard of this haha. Watching Emril Live with my dad is one of the things i remember fondly about my childhood. Same with the Munsters. But man, he loved Emril
It would have been interesting if they had somehow blended an actual cooking show, with actual dishes, with the "behind the scenes" type sitcom. Like, imagine if Tim from Tool Time actually taught you how to fix your toilet while doing the typical "family-based sitcom". Might have worked, maybe not, but it would have been new. EDIT: oh wait, they did that and it didn't work. lol.
Its like a gaming company that makes a bad game named after a movie. They want to cash in on the notoriety but don't really know what to do with it.
I honestly never knew where the got the idea of Elzaar on Futurama, thank you muchly
Please consider doing a video on "Fat Actress" the show's first episode was a big hit, but got cancelled after (I think) 8 episodes. I've never seen that for TV show before. Maybe you could explain why that was.
I miss Emeril's cooking show....
All we get nowadays are the competition type stuff and cooking shows in the day...
This Elzar-centered Futurama spinoff series was weirder than I expected
If this would've taken off it probably wouldn't have been all that crazy to see a drama biopic of george foremans rise from a boxer to the man behind the grill 😅
I did not remember Emeril's Sitcom existed, even with the knowledge of other shows that only made one season like Teen Angel.
Back when the network was desperately trying to milk "supernatural" sitcoms and had an entire block of them. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Teen Angel, and the one with the genie "You Wish"
@Owlly Mannstein the first 4 seasons of Sabrina are classic!
I loved Emeril Live. His house band rocked!
I like the idea of making a show featuring a character based on Emeril like Dave's World.
I like when a youtuber can even make the sponsor segment fun and enjoyable. Hats Off just has that style, in my opinion.
Another sad thing about this, it just reminded me that Robert Urich's been dead for 20 years.
As someone who as a kid when Emeril was relevant, I feel like Emeril was only famous because kids liked to say Bam! when they put on spices the way he did. I even had a Emeril cookbook for kids and it had lots of exclamation points. lol.
You should do a piece on the Wayne Brady 2001 variety show, which premiered a week before 9/11 and, to my knowledge, never aired another episode. I saw it when it aired and it was quite good. Whatever happened to Wayne Brady? (Just kidding) 😄
This some underrated content
Noooo! Nooooooooooooo! Not integrated ads!!! Now this whole video feels like it exists just to make content that compliments Hello Fresh.
Great video!
Would love to see your take on ABC's 2015 Muppets show!
I immediately thought of it at 7:51
Dude, that sounds like a perfect idea for a Forgotten Failures video!
Now I know where the alien chef from Futurama comes from😂❤ BAM
This is literally the first time I've ever heard of this guy. I was born in 1998 and I have literally never heard of him.
Wait... "bam"? Is this who Elzar from Futurama is based on?
I think Emeril did a great job
Personally I think the "we went campin'" gag ain't bad.
Have you done an episode on The Charmings? It was a sitcom where Snow White, Prince Charming, the evil queen, and one of the dwarfs end up in what was then the present. I liked that show when I was a little kid but haven't seen it since it went off the air, so I have no idea if it was actually any good.
Omg is that what that show was called? For decades now I thought that was some crazy fever dream.
I fucking love you're stuff keep up the good work. I watch everything you put out on my phone my wife's phone and my kids phone too!
I used to work at a restaurant and Emeril’s shoes are some of the best, in the kitchen!
You should do a special on all the Kelsey Grammar forgotten failures.
Even Emeril doesn’t remember this show.
I totally remember the NBC promos and a scathing review in Entertainment Weekly. But Maybe if Ermeril actually took sitcom acting CLASSES,cause he had the enthusiasm for it,but he didn't have a CHARACTER.
It's stuff like this that makes me love this channel. Keep up the good work 😁
I honestly forgot about the original cooking show! This man basically dominated my parents’ TV viewing back in the early 2000’s. I think he’s the reason why a lot of kids shows/movies in the early-mid 2000’s had weird cooking show host parodies, lol.
Honestly, from what I’ve seen here, he’s not that horrible of an actor here. Compared to a lot of celebrity-crossing-into-cinema/TV scenarios (i.e. Michael Jordan in Space Jam), I could *actually* see Emeril doing cameos, small acting gigs or even general voice acting if he wanted to.
It just seems to be the show that sucks.