Anthony Bourdain - Ambush by Video Blog

Maybe it’s just me, but this seems a little less like good foodie journalism than it does “how to serve chickenshit”.

Granted, Anthony Bourdain has been plenty vocal in his criticism of Food TV, but to catch him when he’s obviously “in his cups”, shoot a video, and THEN not have the guts to run it unbleeped, is just a little sad.

He’s not saying anything here he hasn’t said plenty before — this is just a little opportunity for them to make him look like a fool (while they’re still making money on the back of reruns of his show from back in the day) to whatever handful of people there are that don’t know Tony tends to party a bit hard at times. I’m sure the rest of us don’t much care — it hasn’t yet kept him from making good television or great books.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing just a bit more from Tony about Food TV after this.

Meanwhile, if I hadn’t expected better from Food TV, I really would have from Adam Roberts. I guess he knows where his bread is buttered these days.

(Update 03/25)

Adam shares with us the “bleeped” comments:

• on Next Food Network star: “it’s sort of like watching German anal porn, I can’t turn away… it’s horrifying, but I’m learning something about Germany while I’m watching it.”
• on Sandra Lee: “She should be taken to Guantanamo and waterboarded.”
• any final words: “Watch Travel Channel…it’s so much better than Food Network.”

I agree with him, the bleeping makes it sound worse than it otherwise would have been.

He also puts the blame squarely on “the higher-ups”, but I can’t help but think it would have been better just to eschew the opportunity, or at least not turn the footage over for ammunition publication.

Ah well. Food TV gets 3 minutes of video, Tony gets juice for another 3 years of taking shots at them; I can’t imagine they’ll have gotten the better end of the stick when it’s all said and done.