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The 3 Categories of TV Food Show, Part II

Culture, Politics / By

As Lagasse’s ratings grew, so did his personality.  His success would eventually balloon to the point that highly paid NBC executives thought it a good idea to give him a sitcom.  But while Lagasse’s dalliance with prime time comedy was an embarrassing disaster, his path to stardom revolutionized the upstart FoodTV channel.  His show put the small cable channel on the map with ratings that had been unheard of for a food show.  Latching onto that success, the network quickly embraced the Celebrity Chef model, de-emphasizing food in favor of people with star appeal.  And Lagasse himself made out like a bandit, using the show as the platform to craft an empire of restaurant chains, pre-packaged foods, and endorsements that by 2005 were estimated to be grossing $150,000,000 a year.

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Guest Blogger: Josh Wilker

Culture, Guest authors / By

Guest blogger Josh Wilker is the author of the excellent memoir Cardboard Gods: An All American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, which is recently available in paperback.  His very funny, smart, and heartfelt website is CardboardGods.net. I’m a friend of The Public Professor going back several years now.  When I first met him he had just crossed 8th Street in Manhattan and entered the liquor store where I was working, and he was wearing a fedora, jeans, and an unzipped army jacket showing that he had neglected to put on a shirt.  He also had a walking stick of some sort, which along with his scraggly goatee and shirtlessness lent him an air of vaguely lethargic malevolence.  My first thought was to reach for the Jeff Burroughs Louisville Slugger we kept hanging from two nails behind the counter, but I refrained from brandishing the weapon when it became apparent that he was in the

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