Nightline did a long segment on Iron Chef America yesterday, and although the segment was more promo than exposé, there were some good tidbits along the way that the show’s many fans might not be aware of.
• Mark Dacascos, the diminutive martial-arts actor who portrays the presiding “chairman” on the show, insists on being called “The Chairman” at all times. (Or, at least, he did that day.)
• The chefs are constantly cutting themselves (accidents that are then, presumably, edited out). “Sous-chefs do most of the work in restaurants, so they have the best knife skills,” host Alton Brown tells Nightline. “Chefs get a little sloppy on the knife skills.”
• When the Iron Chef is selected, the shadowed figures to his left and right are stand-ins. Only one Iron Chef comes in at a time.
Nightline approached the show the right way — as drama, rather than documentary, as opposed to skeptics like Robert Sietsema, who did his own inside investigation earlier this year.
‘Iron Chef’ Secrets Revealed [ABC]
Related: Sietsema Says ‘Iron Chef’ Less Than Transparent
