Emeril ran from September until December 2001 on NBC.
Real-life super chef Emeril Lagasse, cooking star of the Food Network, made the odd transition to sitcom in this cooking comedy. The setting was a fictional show on " The Food Channel," which looked a lot like his real show except for the nutty crew. Cassandra ( Lisa Ann Walker), was the brassy blonde producer, Melva ( Sherri Shepherd ), the hefty wisecracking stage manager, B.D. ( Carrie Preston), the flighty assistant chef, Trish ( Tricia O'Kelley), the overbearing network executive and Jerry ( Robert Urich in his final tv role)-the only other man around-his rather dense agent. Less often seen were his neglected wife Nora ( Mary Page Keller), and their 3 kids, James ( an interrn on the show played by James Lafferty), Halo ( Alexis Della Ripa), and Charlie ( Joey Roberts Mercado).
Lagasse seemed to shamble through the plots-except for the cooking sequences, where he came alive with his trademark energy ( " kick it up a notch!" " Bam"). There was a good deal of physical comedy, including throwing food around, and at the end usually a big, raucous meal.
A Review from The New York Times
NEW TV SEASON IN REVIEW; Hamming It Up In Another Category
By NEIL GENZLINGER
Published: September 25, 2001
'Emeril'
NBC, tonight at 8
(Channel 4 in New York
Paging Dr. Heimlich. The television chef Emeril Lagasse tries the sitcom format in ''Emeril'' tonight on NBC, and the result, judging from the first episode, is a hacking, sputtering mess.
Mr. Lagasse plays, essentially, himself, a chef with a popular cooking show. Given the high mortality rate among sitcoms, it wasn't a bad idea: find someone who already has an audience from another niche and see if it follows him to prime time. (Imagine the rejected concepts: Tom Brokaw is a misfit newscaster in ''Brokaw''; Jerry Falwell stars as a hapless television evangelist in ''Jerry.'') Unfortunately Mr. Lagasse is not an actor, and his delivery shows it.
The crew surrounding him is desperately wacky in a way that hasn't been funny since ''Gilligan's Island.'' Blame the writers, graduates of the Overkill School.
The opening joke, from a character named B. D. (Carrie Preston), is illustrative. ''I can't look in the paper,'' she tells co-workers, ''because I might accidentally see who won Miss America. Thank goodness I recorded it. Remember, I don't want anybody to tell me.'' Her fluff-headedness is established, a small laugh obtained; end of joke. But no: Mr. Lagasse has to whack us with a two-by-four. ''Right, honey, we get it,'' he chimes in. ''For you it's like the playoffs.'' And so it goes for half an hour.
A Review From The Knight Ridder Tribune
Emeril sitcom seems a recipe for disaster despite Emeril's fame
Charlie McCollum
Knight Ridder Tribune
Not much has gone wrong in the life of Emeril Lagasse, at least until now.
At 42, the burly Lagasse is arguably the most famous chef in America. He is a two-time winner of a James Beard Foundation award. He presides over a $65 million food empire that includes six restaurants in New Orleans, Las Vegas and Orlando. His cable TV shows, Emeril Live and The Essence of Emeril, anchor the Food Network's lineup. He has produced five cookbooks that have sold over 2 million copies; a sixth, Prime Time Emeril, is out this month.
So why is Lagasse trying to make the leap from the comfort of the food world to the quicksand of the television sitcom, where even such veteran funny people as Bette Midler and Michael Richards have failed famously in recent years?
Why not? replies Lagasse with a hearty laugh. You know, I see myself as a guy who really just has a great perspective about life. ... I love people, I love food, and I think that comes across.
The restaurant business ... I don't know if it's as risky as television, but it's pretty close. You know, there's something about that challenge, I guess, that drives the engine a little bit.
Lagasse is going to need that great perspective on life. His new comedy, Emeril (8 p.m. ET Tuesdays, NBC), does not even make its debut until September 25 but it has already taken a year's worth of pounding, basting and roasting from critics and TV insiders. Every year there is one comedy that is ridiculed months before it reaches the airwaves. Last year, it was The Michael Richards Show, which lasted less than a month. This year, it is Emeril.
The original pilot for the series, in which Lagasse essentially plays himself as TV chef, was considered so off the mark that it was scrapped. The show's producers, Linda Bloodworth and Harry Thomason of Designing Women, retooled the concept to focus almost solely on the fictional cooking show, cutting out home life scenes. Recipes and cooking tips were added.
Cast members, including TV veteran Robert Urich as Lagasse's agent, were brought in. And much of the comedy is now carried by such experienced comics as Lisa Ann Walter and Sherri Shepherd of The Jamie Foxx Show, who play Lagasse's producer and stage manager.
So far, Lagasse and the others involved in Emeril are taking the criticism in stride although, occasionally, a touch of defensiveness breaks through the joviality.
Before I ever opened my first restaurant, I faced a lot of critics, says Lagasse. And everybody has an opinion about how things should be from the silverware on up. And it's the same with television.
I was a little bit shocked at the negative response before anyone had seen it,and adds Bloodworth, best known in recent years for her close friendship with Bill and Hillary Clinton. If you know anything about Emeril, you know he has never failed at anything. And Harry and I have a pretty good record. People need to give us a chance instead of declaring us dead on arrival.
Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC'S entertainment division and the network's biggest supporter of Emeril, brushes aside the critical beating the series has already taken.
I think some people (critics) maybe underestimate Emeril's appeal, he says.
Walter, Lagasse's co-star, insists that Lagasse's lack of an acting background, painfully obvious in the pilot, would not hinder the series success: People have been asking me in interviews, `Well, how is he going to succeed? He's not an actor....Well, neither are the kids on Dawson's Creek, but, you know, people are watching them.
Lagasse says he is dedicated to learning on the job, but adds with a smile that it's pretty easy playing yourself ...
Linda and I are really getting to know each other, and the writers, and the more that continues, the more Emeril it will be, he adds. I'm real. I'm not trying to be anybody else. I'm just me. And I think people feel that.
Last week, NBC sent out the retooled opening episode to critics. If anything, the show was less funny than the first try. Lagasse has been reduced to straight man for Bob Urich, and the writing generates about two laughs in a half hour. One critic has already opined that after watching it I'm reminded of the great TV chef Julia Child. `You can fix almost anything, she once said, `except a fallen souffle.
She forgot to add, `and a really lousy sitcom.
If viewers react to Emeril as a failed comic recipe, Lagasse says that at least the cast and crew will go out with a smile on their faces and good food in their stomachs.
We will be the best-fed sitcom that has ever been seen, he says.
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