Good Eats Totally Explained

Everything about Good Eats totally explained

Good Eats is a television cooking show created and hosted by Alton Brown that airs in North America on Food Network. Likened to television science educators Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye, Brown explores the science and technique behind the cooking, the history of different foods, and the advantages of different kinds of cooking equipment. The show tends to focus on familiar dishes that can easily be made at home, and also features segments on choosing the right appliances, and getting the most out of inexpensive, multi-purpose tools. Each episode of Good Eats has a distinct theme, which is typically an ingredient or a certain cooking technique, but may also be a more general theme such as Thanksgiving, or "man food". His show also has many sight gags, or puns, that make for a kid friendly show, or even a comedy of sorts.

Format

The show has a distinctive visual style involving Dutch angles and shots from cameras placed inside and on various items in the kitchen, including the ovens, refrigerator, and microwave oven. In some episodes, Brown and other actors play various characters to tell the story of the food. For example, in the episode "The Big Chili," Brown played a cowboy trying to rustle up the ideal pot of chili. In the episode "Give Peas A Chance" (a parody of The Exorcist), Brown plays a Father Merrin-like character who tries to convince a "possessed" child to eat (and like) peas. In other episodes Brown is simply himself, but is surrounded by fictional characters such as his eggplant and tomato wielding neighbor Mr. McGregor, or a city councilman who refuses to eat fudge. He also uses various makeshift teaching aids to demonstrate scientific concepts.
Episodes of Good Eats typically begin with an introductory monologue that almost always either ends with or leads into the phrase "good eats." The show often closes with the phrase as well. For the first several seasons, Brown himself would say the words "good eats." More recently, however, Brown avoids saying "good eats" at the end of the intro, stopping just short and letting the theme music fill in the phrase.
Episodes usually take place primarily in the (fictional) kitchen of Brown's house. In Seasons 1–4, the episodes were shot in the actual home kitchen of Brown's mother-in-law in the Atlanta, Georgia area. In Season 5, taping moved to the new home of the show's Line Producer (Dana Popoff) and Director of Photography (Marion Laney), in which they built a much larger and more versatile kitchen for taping. A 7 ft. (2.1 m) section of the island was built for the show and placed on wheels, so it can be moved (or removed) for various shots, and a 12 sq. ft. (1.1 sq. m) grid of pipe was hung from the ceiling, for easier placement of cameras and microphones. The house was featured in Home Magazine in February 2003. Starting with Season 7, the show moved yet again, this time to an exact replica of the previous kitchen and surrounding areas of the home, built on a sound stage. In the "Behind the Scenes" special, Brown said that complaints by Popoff's neighbors prompted the move. The stove top and the sink are the only functioning pieces in this kitchen. Many of the other appliances have even had part of their backs removed, so shots of Brown can be taken from inside cabinets, ovens, and refrigerators. This change was generally not known until after Season 7 started airing when the house used in Season 5–6 was put on eBay for sale. It was then revealed that they'd moved. It is generally thought that in the "Q" episode on barbecue that was taped in Brown's Airstream trailer, when Brown says that they're "building the set for Good Eats: The Motion Picture" this is in reality a reference to the new house set. The set wasn't officially unveiled on the show as a set until the Avocado Experiment show. Incidental music during the show is typically a variation of the show's theme, which in turn was inspired by music from the film Get Shorty. (External Link

) There are dozens of variations of the theme played throughout, crossing all genres of music, including the keypad tones in "Mission: Poachable" and nearly every incidence where a countdown of ten seconds is used. New music is composed for each episode by Patrick Belden of Belden Music and Sound.
   Each episode also features text pieces containing trivia related to the food or cooking technique featured in the episode. These are always shown just before ad breaks, and are often shown between major transitions in location or cooking action. The information presented is usually notes about the history of the food or technique, helpful cooking hints, or technical or scientific information which would be too detailed or dry to include as part of the show's live content.
   During the show's first seasons, at the end of each episode Brown would give a summary of the important points covered during the episode; these points would be shown on the screen as he talked. Brown also traveled to food manufacturing facilities frequently in the first few seasons to talk with experts about the foods being featured.
   Beginning in Season 9, episodes have been filmed in high definition, and these episodes also appear on Food Network HD.

Cast and crew

A staple feature of Good Eats is the presence of several recurring characters who play important roles on the show, from Brown's relatives and neighbors to various . There is an unofficial rule on the Good Eats set that every crew member must appear in an episode in some fashion, at some point in their time working on the series.
A few members of Brown's real-life family have appeared on the show. His mother had a walk-on part; his daughter, Zoey, has appeared in several episodes; and his late grandmother, "Ma" Mae Skelton, co-hosted the biscuit episode, "The Dough Also Rises." Even his Basset Hound and iguana have shown up in a couple of episodes. However, his wife DeAnna (who is also the executive producer of Good Eats) has never been documented as having appeared on an episode.
Specialists who hold real-life positions commonly appear as themselves to provide Brown with useful information on the topic at hand.

Recurring characters

Fictional

Character	Played by:	Role on the show
"W" (Vicki Wong)	Vickie Eng	A parody of James Bond stories' Q, "W" is a manager at Bed Bath and Beyond (or any other store where Brown goes to find kitchen gear). "W" is antisocial, has a very sardonic sense of humor, and finds Brown particularly annoying. Brown realizes this, and intentionally fools with gadgets and acts silly to get a rise out of her. He also likes to sabotage her attempts to make sales. Even so, she's the most reliable source of equipment for Brown, as she knows everything about kitchen tools and appliances. Her appearances are accompanied by a theme that sounds similar to those heard in the James Bond movies. "W"'s full name is revealed in the episode "Salad Daze II: The Long Arm Of the Slaw." In later episodes, "W" began working in the "Good Eats Testing Lab". In real life, Vickie Eng is Brown's chiropractor. As of Episode twelve of season eleven "W" hasn't yet appeared in that season.
Marsha Brown-Brady	Merrilyn Crouch	Brown's older sister. Marsha is a constant source of annoyance to Brown (and, as revealed in some episodes, to members of the Good Eats production staff also). She often tricks Brown into cooking for her, which usually initiates the topic of that episode. For instance, in "Circle of Life," Marsha manages to talk Brown into making dozens of doughnuts for her Bunny Scout troop's bake sale, and then tricks him into buying them all back. She has been divorced more than once, as Brown referred to her ink not having dried on her LAST divorce "yet" in "Behind the Bird."
Elton Brown	John Herina	Marsha's son, hence Brown's nephew. Elton is often featured as Brown's assistant, learning the ways of cooking in the process. Brown treats Elton almost like his own son, despite his and Marsha's constant bickering. Herina, who looks strikingly similar to Brown, also plays a young Brown when necessary, as in the introduction to the roulade-centered episode "Fit to be Tied," and also appeared in the 1996 movie Nightjohn as the character Homer Waller.
B.A. Brown AKA "Anti-Alton"	Alton Brown	Brown's evil twin of sorts. Brown uses camera tricks to appear as himself on one side of the screen and as his "brother" on the other. B.A. Brown is often used in a manner similar to Goofus and Gallant to compare Brown's cooking techniques to B.A.'s techniques, which often fail or are inferior to Brown's (although sometimes they're merely different). In "American Pickle," for example, B.A. compares Brown's sweet pickled fruit to a recipe for extremely hot "Firecracker" carrots. B.A. could either stand for "Bad Alton" or be Brown's initials, reversed, or it could be a reference to Mr. T's character on the television series A-Team. As shown in the episode "Sub Standards," he's Brown's identical twin in the Good Eats universe and can imitate Brown perfectly when he wants to.
Colonel Bob Boatwright	Alton Brown	A white-clad Southern gentleman based on Colonel Sanders, Colonel Boatwright demonstrates traditional Southern recipes such as mint julep and upside-down cake.
Cousin Ray	Steve Rooney	Brown's cousin, who seems to be a bit of a redneck. Ray also appears to be either a con man or simply uneducated when it comes to food. In "Crustacean Nation," Ray claims that the shrimp he's selling are turning pink because they're happy to see Brown when actually, as Brown explains, they're cooking in their shells due to the heat. Steve Rooney also plays Brown's "Aunt Verna" who is seen at Brown's Thanksgiving dinner.
The Mad French Chef	Steve Rooney	Brown's arch-nemesis, who is stereotypically snobbish toward all forms of cooking not following the French ways, and often berates Brown for not using French techniques. Over the course of the series, the Chef seems to become more angry, as his title in different episodes changes to "Really Mad French Chef" and beyond. The Chef is currently voiced by Brown, as he's no longer seen on-screen except for one "appearance" as an oven mitt/puppet in the episode "Crepe Expectations."
Thing	unknown	Named after Thing from The Addams Family, Thing is a hand that appears in random locations to hand Brown ingredients and tools. Brown then replies, "Thank you, Thing." In "Behind the Eats," it was "revealed" that Brown's Thing is the son of the Addams Family Thing.
Paul	Paul Merchant	Paul is Brown's apprentice and intern. Paul is generally incompetent and quite often seems to stress out regarding food-related issues. Brown calls on him frequently for assistance, often as a human guinea pig for demonstrations, often because he's the only one available.
Lactose Man	Paul Merchant	While appearing to be a superhero, he's in fact a nemesis to Brown, who is lactose intolerant. Lactose Man usually appears in dairy product-based episodes. A variation of the Lactose Man character, Lever Man (albeit in the same costume) appeared in the episode "Shell Game", which is dedicated to oysters. Brown may or may not know the true identity of Lactose Man, as he identified Lever Man as being his apprentice, Paul. The Lever Man costume was revamped for use as Lactose Man. In real life, Alton Brown isn't lactose intolerant, which he revealed in "Breakfast Eats II".
Chuck	Daniel Pettrow	Chuck is Brown's "Butcher Neighbor." He has appeared in several episodes, such as "Bean Stalker", "Squid Pro Quo" and "A Chuck For Chuck". Chuck also appears in the episode "Romancing the Bird: A Good Eats Thanksgiving," where he drives a "Turkey Truck" and explains the difference between fresh, frozen, and refrigerated turkeys. In "Chops Ahoy," Chuck abducted Brown's charcoal grill 'Fireball' in order to convince Brown to buy a new propane grill.
Frances Andersen	Widdi Turner	Frances (a parody of Annie Wilkes from Misery) is Brown's self-proclaimed biggest fan. She has a collection of many of the show's props that she purchased from the internet. Brown first encountered Frances in "This Spud's For You Too" after his truck broke down, and she held Brown hostage in "Ill Gotten Grains" after he lost his memory in a fender-bender.
Farmer McGregor	unknown	An elderly man who has a farm near Brown's home, he prides himself on his home-grown produce and enters them regularly in county fair food contests. Brown used to pilfer from McGregor's prized tomato patch, but soon stopped when McGregor realized the tomato dishes Brown gave him were made with his own tomatoes. McGregor also has the skills to produce larger-than-average produce, making a potato that weighed 29 lbs. (13 kg), although it lost in the "Big Food" contest to Brown's modest olive. McGregor also appears in the eggplant episode and brings Brown too many eggplants to use, often using wheelbarrows and cardboard boxes as delivery methods. He is an obvious reference to farmer McGregor of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Koko Karl	Bart Hansard	Another of Brown's nemeses, Karl is the symbol of conglomerate chocolate manufacturers like Hershey. He is often seen peddling his products to people on the streets and does his best to force them down people's throats. Brown eventually walks by and becomes fed up with Carl's inferior products and then sets out to produce homemade versions of his own. Usually by the end of the episode, Carl ends up in jail for his "crimes," which Brown reads from a newspaper or sees on television. In "Power Trip," Brown visits Koko Karl in a solitary confinement cell in a scene that mirrors The Silence of the Lambs. In "Puddin' Head Blues," Karl is disguised as "Auntie Puddin'."
Sid Maxburg	Bart Hansard	Sid is a bombastic entertainment agent who is usually seen trying to revamp allegedly forgotten foods like vanilla ("My Pod"), sweet potatoes ("Potato, My Sweet"), and okra ("Okraphobia").
"Government Agents"	Brown, others	Stereotypical "Men in Black," mostly from the FDA or USDA, who usually give information about government standards for certain foods, speaking in a stereotypical loud, fast-paced, overly-serious tone. At times, they also claim that Brown's food doesn't meet government regulations, and as a consequence confiscate what he's cooked. Sometimes, Brown's aforementioned evil twin acts as a single "agent"; at other times, they show up as a group of three "agents," two men and one woman, and are generally played by members of the production crew. Brown always appears as one of the "Feds." In "School of Hard Nogs" they called themselves the "Food Police." In "Churn Baby Churn 2", Nic Sims of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a fan who got her kitchen made over by Brown in All Star Kitchen Makeover, played one of the "Agents," who were dressed as soda jerks. In an episode about pretzels, the government agents appeared as the show's lawyers, informing Alton not to use lye in order to give brown color to his pretzels.
The Dungeon Master	Lucky Yates	Brown's personal dungeon master (a parody of Igor and Smeagle), who appears in "Cubing A Round" and "Tort(illa) Reform." Brown usually disapproves of his loose grip on reality; for example, in "Cubing A Round" he spends $1,500 on a Swiss mechanical steak cuber using "the little plastic thing with the numbers on it" (a credit card).

Real

Name	Specialty	Role on the show
Shirley Corriher	Author, chef, self-labeled "mad" food scientist	Shirley appears on the show to help explain the scientific processes behind cooking. She is the author of CookWise, the Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, which won the 1998 James Beard Award for Food Reference and Technique. Whereas Brown tends to use comedy around the other experts, particularly Deborah Duchon, he generally plays straight with Corriher.
Deborah Duchon	Nutritional anthropologist	Duchon is from the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Georgia State University, and often appears on the show when Brown is exploring the history of a topic. She tends to appear out of nowhere, leading Brown to almost predict her presence as soon as he mentions "nutritional anthropologist." She is probably the most featured expert on Good Eats, appearing in many episodes since part of the show is normally dedicated to exploring the history of a food. Generally, Brown ends his scenes with Duchon by asking her, "how do you like your (food of the day)?" One fourth season episode ("Chile's Angels") featured a character called "Debbie Duchon" who was supposed to be Duchon's daughter. She was, in fact, a fictional creation of Brown's when Duchon wasn't available for filming, leading to a bemused reaction from Duchon when fans of the show asked her about her "daughter."
Caroline Connell	Nutritionist, dietitian	Connell (and other similar experts) tend to appear on episodes where Brown features a food that has positive health effects, and uses nutritionist's data as evidence. She appears many times in the first seasons, but now it seems that Brown retrieves his information from many specialists that only come on the show once or twice.
Carolyn O'Neil The Lady of the Refrigerator	Dietitian	O'Neil is a dietitian who occasionally shows up to discuss nutritional value of foods with Brown. She also plays The Lady of the Refrigerator (a parody of The Lady of the Lake), who occasionally appears in Brown's refrigerator to impart information about the food or cooking technique covered in the episode, and to tease and needle Brown.
"Ma" Mae Skelton	Brown's grandmother	In addition to being referenced by Brown in several episodes, she appeared in "The Dough Also Rises," and baked biscuits alongside Brown. She passed away in 2001.

Brown also plays other roles from time to time, which usually consist of him explaining something close to the camera while another Brown performs the information that's being presented behind him (similar to the technique used to present B.A. Brown). At the same time, he also acts out alone or with others on camera while providing a narrative quite often (to re-enact such topics as cavemen discovering cooking techniques). There are also scenes where Brown talks to a character played by himself, cutting away to the other after each one has said their line. This is mostly used when the "USDA agents" appear to give grades and regulations placed on meats and dairy products.

History

The pilot for Good Eats first aired on the Chicago, Illinois PBS affiliate WTTW in July 1998. The show was picked up in July 1999 by Food Network, which now owns exclusive rights to the show. As of July 9, 2007, two episodes air per weeknight, at 8:00 PM (with a 3:00 AM replay) and 11:00 PM (with a 2:00 AM replay) Eastern time, with a third episode airing Wednesday nights at 8:30 PM (and 3:30 AM). New episodes premiere on Monday nights. On Food Network Canada, the show generally airs on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The times it gets in Canada appears to change from week to week, but it tends to get sometime before 2:30 a.m. and/or after 7 p.m. on the aforementioned days.

Awards

Good Eats earned a Peabody Award in 2006. "Rarely has science been taught on TV in such an entertaining – and appetizing – manner as it's in Alton Brown's goofy, tirelessly inventive series."

Episode guide

Trivia

Rather than use cue cards or a teleprompter, Brown prerecords his monologue and then uses tiny earpieces to listen to it as he's on camera.
The clock seen in Good Eats is often set by the crew to a significant date such as a crew member's birthday, anniversary, etc.
In Season 9, the episode "Behind the Eats" offered a backstage look at the show's production and revealed the origin of several characters.
Whenever Brown mentions stuffing, someone holds up a sign that says "STUFFING IS EVIL." This is in reference to the Thanksgiving special, wherein Brown denigrated stuffing as increasing cooking time, being a harbinger of food poisoning, and not being good eats. However, he does make exceptions for when stuffing would be appropriate (particularly for stuffed pork), and he later recanted in Season 8 and agreed that stuffing, when done properly, is good eats (dedicating a whole show to the subject).
In episodes with Bigfoot, the sounds Bigfoot makes are the same noises demons make when dying in the computer game Doom.
The access codes for the Good Eats laboratory are: � *0851390555 in Mission: Poachable (EA1C13 - Season 3 Episode 11)

*180*745666 in Chile's Angles (EA1D01 - Season 4 Episode 13)
Most Food Network shows don't display name brand names of products used during cooking, and care is taken to create false labels for products in these shows. However, in early seasons of Good Eats, Brown occasionally referenced brand name products on the show (for example, a bottle of Karo corn syrup during the episode on cooking with sugar, mentioning Old Bay Seasoning by name). Currently, brand name product labels are altered, although the alterations generally consist of false names added to labels rather than entirely new labels (for example, "Kerry" brand Worcestershire sauce). When using crushed crackers in a recipe, Brown will usually say, "What kind? Well, I'm not going to tell you, but they look like this," and then hold up a Ritz cracker. In one episode, Brown tells viewers to get a packet of unsweetened drink; he says, "I can't tell you which one," and then a fake Kool-Aid man crashes through the wall. In another episode, while using baking powder, Brown refers to it as the brand "with the little girl on it" (Clabber Girl). However, on occasional shots taken from inside the freezer, frozen Publix brand vegetables can be seen. Kroger stores and products can also be spotted.
In several of the newer episodes, Brown is wearing a t-shirt or hat from his other show, Feasting on Asphalt. Additionally, in the episode "Pop Art", the marquee at the Majestic Movie theater advertises "Feasting on Asphalt IV."
Although it's his most prominent production, Brown says he makes no money from the broadcast of Good Eats. He spends the entire budget allocated by Food Network on producing the show and receives no residuals. Instead, all of his personal income comes from DVD sales, book royalties, speaking engagements, and corporate consulting.

Further Information

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