Good Eats: Difference between revisions

* [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]: Paul in "Mission: Poachable".

* [[Brand X]]: With few exceptions, episodes made after AB's own company took over production in 2001 have brand names obscured or replaced with a nonsense or joke name, even though the label designs can give away the stores where the products were purchased. Older episodes (Seasons 1-4) don't bother. Subverted in that whatever grocery store AB's shopping in (Kroger in the early episodes, Whole Foods in the later ones) will always be named on-screen; they've since built a grocery-store set to avoid this.

* [[Brick Joke]]: These tend to crop up a ''lot''. For instance: When talking about guacamole in a dip show, Alton tosses his food processor out the window stating that it's too powerful to make good guacamole. Later on in the same show, he needs to blend some livers and turns to his food processor...which he threw out earlier, and hence begins to look sad. Thing brings back the food processor and Alton gets happy.

* [[Butt Monkey]]: Alton's assistant Paul is usually on the rough side of things, however the actor playing him gets his own back as other characters...like '''[[Large Ham|LACTOSE MAN]]!'''

* [[Catch Phrase]]: Several.

** Alton's exasperated "Oh bother!" This also counts as a [[Shout-Out]], as Alton explained in the commentary from the "A Tale of Two Roasts" DVD:

** "It couldn't get any easier than this" was one that popped up frequently in the first season

** "Walk away. Just walk away." (when warning the audience not to fiddle with cooking steps that would seem to invite fiddling. Often paired with:

** Subverted in one episode, where scrolling text at the bottom of the screen says "''Do'' try this at home...but be careful, won't you?"

** In the Season 11 episode "Pretzel Logic", Alton's lawyers stopped him from using lye to brown his pretzels, because lye is ''poisonous and extremely caustic'' if handled improperly.

* [[Doom Doors]]: The show uses both the door sound effect and the imp dying noise. Yeah, in a cooking show.

* [[Drop in Character]]: Alton's annoying TV sister Marsha, as well as several real-life experts on food science, nutrition, and nutritional anthropology. The experts show up when needed; Marsha just drops in to force Alton to make her cookies, donuts, soup, etc. Alton also plays some of these characters, such as his [[Evil Twin]].

** One [[Running Gag]] is that the nutritional anthropologist will [[Speak of the Devil|appear out of nowhere]] whenever her title is mentioned, leading Alton to joke about how he's [[Stalker with a Crush|being stalked]] ("...she's back there, isn't she?..."). In later episodes, he'll have an obviously negative reaction to saying the title, and in one case hesitates to say it...but she shows up anyway and ''says it herself''.

*** After a while she started to just show up unannounced, and Alton will grumble that he doesn't even have to say it anymore.

*** Alton actually found a very good-looking replacement N.A. for the "substitutions" episode whom he had no problems sharing the screen with, only for the incumbent to shuffle her off the show.

* [[Dutch Angle]]: All. The. ''Time.''

* [[Identity Amnesia]]: The basis for the plot of the seventh season episode ''Ill Gotten Grains''.

* [[The Idiot From Osaka]]: Played with in the Japanese cuisine segment.

'''Alton''': "I didn't catch that. (''to camera'') Must be from Osaka." }}

* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: During the pizza special, Alton is insulted by the "Mad French Chef" for not blooming his yeast gently in warm sugar water. When Alton explains how instant yeast doesn't need to be pampered, the Mad French Chef crushes his paper hat on Alton's head and storms off [[Angrish|muttering angrily to himself]] leading Alton to look at the camera and say "I guess he didn't care for my [[Squick|yeast inflection]]."

** Alton himself is pretty hammy in front of and behind the camera; just watch ''Feasting on Asphalt''.

* [[Larynx Dissonance]]: In the Season 1 episode "Romancing the Bird", Alton argues with his Aunt Verna about the temperature of the oven. Aunt Verna says in a deep masculine voice "I never liked you anyway!" and storms off.

* [[Leitmotif]]: Marsha has one, as does W (a [[The Jimmy Hart Version|Jimmy Hart version]] of Bond's theme song) and Alton's [[Evil Twin]]; Alton's show neighbors (Chuck and Mr. McGregor) share one as well.

* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]: In the cracker episode, the inventor of the Graham cracker condemns the newfangled picture-box where "you can watch lascivious meals being prepared every hour of the day." Alton responds: "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that..."

* [[Running Gag]]: People taking Alton's food.

** Played Straight here:

** Another [[Running Gag]]: "Go wash those (nasty) [fill in the blank] hands!!"

* [[Seppuku]]:

** "Tamale Never Dies" is a play at James Bond, and during the episode Alton's fridge has Alton himself drawn as Bond, complete with stylized title. The episode, however, contains a parody of ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]''. "Raising the Bar" featured an appearance by James Bond in "person", where Alton took his signature drink order ("Vodka martini, shaken, not stirred") then proceeded to make the drink with gin and stirred it (with reasons for both steps). "Bond" loved the drink.

** The "King and I" episode features a segment where Alton is offering free samples of hot sauce to the boyfriend of a passing couple (to provide an example of a study conducted that showed the eating of spicy food had connections to mating rituals). The girlfriend first calls her bravado-filled boyfriend "Pumpkin", which seems relatively normal. After he rushes off to find sour cream and Alton explains why the boyfriend downed the hot sauce, the following dialogue ensues:

'''Girlfriend''' (''chasing after boyfriend''): [[Pulp Fiction|Pumpkin! Honey Bunny!]] I'm gonna come make it all better! }}

** The entire scallop episode is a parody of ''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]''.

** "Ill Gotten Grains" and "This Spud's for You Too" are [[Whole-Plot Reference|Whole Plot References]] to [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Misery]]'', with the [[Loony Fan]] even resembling Kathy Bates' portrayal of Annie Wilkes.

* [[Space Whale Aesop]]: In "Tortillas Again", the lesson learned is:

* [[Spin-Off]]: ''Feasting on Asphalt'' featured Alton and his camera crew [[Walking the Earth|crossing America by motorcycle]] and trying different foods from different places. Season 3, titled ''Feasting On Waves'', moved to the Caribbean and switched out the bikes for boats.

* [[Start My Own]]: How the show came about. Alton was dissatisfied with other popular cooking programs mostly because they never tell you ''why'' you should do certain things and take certain steps when preparing food. His wife then challenged him to make his own show.

** He's carried a whole nutmeg around with him in his pocket, ''for years'', so that he can make freshly-grated nutmeg whenever and wherever he needs it.

* [[Up to Eleven]]: Courtesy of Alton's toaster-fanboy assistant Paul in the episode "Behind the Bird":

'''Alton''': Okay, hey! You know what, Paul? Time out! Time out! (''sends Paul to the corner'') }}

* [[Viewers are Morons]]: A rare case of this being [[Tropes Are Tools|a good thing]], and in a way the point of the show. Alton almost never assumes the viewer knows anything, even things that have been demonstrated in previous episodes, and carefully explains how and why to do every step of a recipe.

** Alton says this almost word-for-word in "American Classics 7: Don't Be Chicken of Dumplings", when the actors who play his lawyers Itchy and Twitchy turn up a couple of minutes later as [[Robin Hood]] and Wilfred of [[Ivanhoe]].

** He does say it word for word several times, in the popcorn show, and the souffle to the oven salesman (the same actor that plays Coco Carl)

* [[You Wanna Get Sued?]]:

** When referring to Ritz crackers, Alton explains he has to avoid using the trademark but instead holds up the cracker.

** He performs a similar tactic for moon pies in the Season 11 episode "Puff The Magic Mallow".

(''two hands pop up in the background, one holding a picture of the moon, the other holding a pie'') }}

** The ''[[Myth Busters]]'' gag under [[It's Been Done]].