Trading Spaces, Naked Chef on Sat. Night Live
God help me. Last night I discovered quite possibly the most ridiculously addicting show on cable (well, besides The Osbournes) - TLC's Trading Spaces.
For those who haven't seen it, the premise goes like this. Find two families without a lick of interior design talent. Toss in a couple of professional interior designers to help both groups redesign a room in their house or apartment. Give each group a $1000 (and no more) for materials. Then, switch the groups so that one family is working in the other family's house, and vice versa. By the end of the show, two complete interior overhauls are completed without either party seeing their own home.
The show is intriguing on two levels. One, watching rooms be turned completely upside down for a paltry thousand bucks. Two, the schism between the sophisticated, artsy interior designers and their clients with Walmart design sense. Things can go well, or get ugly. And last night, they got ugly.
One family had a room that they used mostly for watching television. The designer, for whatever reason, decided that was his que to turn their room into a full blown home theater. He ripped out all the carpet, painted the floor, walls, and ceiling deep chocolate brown, and covered all the windows with heavy drapes. Then he created stadium style seating - three raised platforms, each with matching pairs of art deco steel mesh chairs. The couple assisting the designer knew the home owners, and felt the idea was totally wrong. The designer ignored their interjections, and forced his grand vision all the way through to completion.
Now, just imagine something like this happening in your house. All floorspace had vanished thanks to the stadium risers. The room was as dark as a tomb. And to make matters worse, they only owned a 17" television set with no stereo or DVD player. Hardly a proper setup for the room's intended purpose.
In the end, the home owners were shocked. Not happy, or upset. Just stunned. The host kept prodding them to say something...anything, and all they could do was stare in quasi-horror.
...And in other boob tube mind sucking...
To my wild surprise, Jimmy Fallon impersonated Jamie Oliver, the host from one of my other fave TV shows, The Naked Chef last night on Saturday Night Live. For the record, Fallon was spot-on. And for weeks I thought I was one of the only people in America who watched that young bloke chop up onions and cook snapper on the beach for his beer drinking mates. Easy peasy.
Comments
I happened to catch SNL last night as well. Fallon did do a great job as Oliver. Pucka!
Posted by: jkottke at April 7, 2002 4:34 PM
The Naked Chef cracks me up...I love how his wife or girlfriend or friend is in the background asking him questions.
He does move rather quickly though, but it's fun to watch...I remember seeing him make hot chocolate in about 20 seconds. I liked how on SNL they kept throwing things on the floor...muahaha great stuff
Posted by: m.huang at April 7, 2002 4:40 PM
i watch trading spaces all the time. ever see the one where they turned a living room into a theater, complete with aisle lights and curtains?
Posted by: circles at April 7, 2002 6:18 PM
Trading Spaces is hilarious. I would hate to be one of those people, searching for words when all you can do is stare in horror at this new unwanted decor.
Posted by: Wendy at April 7, 2002 10:20 PM
My girlfriend and I also try to catch The Naked Chef whenever we can. We figured if he gets to cook and hang out with Jay Kay from Jamiroquai he can't be all bad. Jimmy Fallon was spot on though as Oliver.
Posted by: apeiam at April 8, 2002 3:00 AM
Australia and England have a show much like trading spaces, but it is called "changing rooms", in England they are given 500 pounds in each house and a professional designed and handy man to do the job. Nine times out of ten the designers make all of the decisions and the "house swappers" just do a lot of the labor and occasionally give some input.
Posted by: Tarsh at April 8, 2002 3:42 AM
Ah. Changing Rooms. You might want to read up on this story
Posted by: metabe at April 8, 2002 5:20 AM
My wife and I have watched Trading Spaces since it's inception, and I have noticed a few things:
1. No matter what, if a homeowner makes a request such as, don't paint the fireplace, don't remove my ceiling fan, don't paint it orange, you can bet the first thing that designer is going to do is do exactly what you don't want.
2. If you watch real close, the only designer who really does anything (read as: work) is Frank, who actually does the bulk of the labor. Everyone else just sits back and makes the decisions.
3. Trading Spaces has an airtight "Escape Clause". Every homeowner has to sign a release form that basically says, "Hey, if you don't like it, you shouldn't have called us."
4. If you ever get the chance to appear on the show, plead, grovel, bribe, do anything to make sure you don't get the following designers - Doug, Hilde, or Des (even though I think Des has been kicked).
Just my $.02.
Posted by: Doug H. at April 8, 2002 8:17 AM
metable: wow...
Posted by: Tarsh at April 8, 2002 11:17 AM
It should be noted that thanks to his omnipresence on British TV, the Naked Chef has inspired a lot of young people to do good rather than evil. This fact is celebrated at http://www.hairytongue.com/gallery/fattongue/
and you can download your own Jamie Oliver appreciation game from
http://www.hairytongue.com/news/jamieolivermustdie.exe
Posted by: Adam at April 8, 2002 1:22 PM
If you happened to read metabe's link here is an actual look at the room.
Posted by: Doug H. at April 8, 2002 1:50 PM
I love Trading Spaces as well! I think Vern Yip does a lot of labor too, not just Frank. If I had to pick a designer it would be either Vern, Lori or Genevieve. Glad Des isn't destroying any more rooms with her funky style, ugly lamps and garage sale fabrics. Keep watching the reruns and see if they actually rerun a recent show where the homeowner hated the room so much she started bawling and had to go off camera! Can't remember which designer did that room. Some people shouldn't do the show because you can tell right away they aren't open to new ideas or change.
Posted by: Lauri at April 8, 2002 9:37 PM
To answer the question who did the room where the home owner went off camera in tears, yes of course that again was Doug. He must be the laziest, rudest man I have ever NOT had the "pleasure" to run into.
LOVE the show and watch it every day @ 4pm.
I would personally invite Vern or Frank into my home any day, I think they do great work and most of all they listen to what the neighbors think.
And to my last remark, get rid of Paige Davis she is an annoying trouble maker, if the home owners don't already hate what has been done to their room, then to the rescue, miss Page Davis, ... yes, but did you notice that they removed the ceiling fan, or I thought you said you would hate it if they painted it this color, are you sure you just don't hate it?
Can't wait till it is 4pm again! ;-)
Posted by: Tina S at April 9, 2002 3:05 AM
mmmm I used to think James was alright until he sold his soul to Sainbury's - a big supermarket chain over here in the UK. Now that his grinning face and cheeky mockney ways on on every single day four or more times a hour - you start developing a somewhat pathological hatred of him. Be warned...
Posted by: groc at April 9, 2002 9:28 AM
har har. Let's not overlook the brilliant impersonation of Nigella Watson, either (of the FoodTV program Nigella Bites) - she goes out, gets drunk with posh chattering types and comes back and cooks for them. She has (sorry, it must be said) really, really scary looking children which she insists on flaunting all the time too.
I went to the UK with my wife for our honeymoon this past December (yes...good travel planning, that) and most people think they are both extremely punchable people. I concur.
On another topic, did anyone see the Morimoto RAW special that was on? (Masuhiro Morimoto, otherwise known as Iron Chef Japanese). A 2-hour special on the design and build-up to the opening of his new restaurant in Philadelphia -design by Karim Rashid, no less. Good website, too: www.morimoto.com.
Posted by: AJ Kandy at April 9, 2002 10:15 AM
I love love love Trading Spaces and the Nake Chef! I saw the home theater one too and you're right the design didn't make sense for the couple at all. od course Doug is the worest designer. I'd love to go on and work with Vern. he is so nice and he often stays late to help with 'homework" or comes in with something he did over night for day two.
Posted by: rachel at April 10, 2002 3:32 PM
Yes- Trading Spaces is an amazingly addictive show.
Posted by: Kyle at April 10, 2002 7:08 PM
FoodTV is a recent addiction. It's disturbing my work patterns, cutting down on my pulbic radio listening.
I liked the Naked Chef episode at a british school. The adolescent kids' reacted like they were suddenly exposed to porn: disbelief, horror, intrigue, amusement. Seeing someone playing with food...
I'm partial to Iron Chef. American Gladiators meets Galloping Gourmet. Used to watch it in Japanese with English subtitles. John Madden would be proud.
Mexico: One Plate at a Time surprises me. I've lived in California most of my life, and thought I'd been exposed to most foods of this hemisphere. I was wrong. http://www.fronterakitchens.com/
I'm eagerly anticipating their Couch Potato Weekend, where all of their shows will include spuds. Reminds me of how Marvel used to have all their characters do crossovers in a season.
OK, I'm getting hungry now.
Where's the Weight Watcher's Channel?
Posted by: Phil Wolff at April 14, 2002 10:11 PM
I told you we were getting sick of Jamie Oliver now the BBC have dropped him. Expect him to be going over there to plague your tv screens now.
link: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/showbiz/newsid_1929000/1929444.stm)
Posted by: groc at April 15, 2002 8:32 PM
i *love* trading spaces. it is so incredibly, wierdly, wonderfully addicting. i hate hilde with a passion that will never, never die. she is the one who most often does whatever the frack she wants even, no *especially* when she knows the homeowners will hate it.
i saw an ep the other day where she went $500 dollars over budget. yep. 50% overbudget. *smacks forehead, shakes head*
but somehow, much like a trainwreck, i just can't look away...
Posted by: nessa at April 16, 2002 12:36 AM
