Halloween Wars

               

 

            This week as I was scrolling through the channels to find a show to write about I came across one that caught my eye. It’s a show called Halloween Wars which is a cooking show where teams compete to win $50,000. In Halloween Wars there are teams and on each team there is a professional pumpkin carver, candy maker, and cake artist, and these teams work together to create displays based on Halloween.

The episode that I watched aired in 2013 with the final four remaining teams. At the beginning they have a small challenge where they have 45 minutes to create a display, and this week they had to design a display based on a scary Greek mythology character. Teams created creatures such as Medusa, a Cyclopes, Griffin, and a Minitar. I thought that 45 minutes was not enough time, because as I was watching most teams had to hurry to finish what they were going to do. Each team I felt did a great job representing the character, but I felt the griffin which is half tiger half bird wasn’t scary even though the challenge said it was supposed to be. I wasn’t able to tell that it was half tiger half bird, and the creature was almost cute. In the end the team who created the Cyclopes won which I agreed with, because not only did they create a Cyclopes, but they  created a scenery around it showing the Cyclopes escaping which I thought was unique, and they had a lot of detail on the Cyclopes’ face. The team that won received an extra assistant in the next challenge which I felt would benefit the team.

              The next challenge called the “spine chiller” was the ultimate challenge, and the teams got five hours to complete it. They had to create a display based on a kid’s nursery rhyme, but give it a Halloween twist, and create a twist on a kid’s snack and put it somewhere in their display. I thought this challenge was cool, because it allowed the team to really show their creativity by creating a scary twist. One team was based on the rhyme Patty Cake, and instead of a bakers man they used a witch instead. I thought this was cool, but it seemed far from the traditional baker’s man story, because it had nothing that connected the two stories. Although they had that problem I felt their display had a lot of detail in it, and probably the most detail out of all the teams. Another team did Ms. Muffet, and the spider is killing her instead of befriending her. I didn’t really know the story of Ms. Muffet before this, but I thought it was a cool twist on the traditional story once I did learn what it was. Even though they did provide a cool twist their display was pretty simple compared to the other teams. The other teams included Three Blind Mice, and placed a Butcher’s wife instead of a farmer’s wife, and Mary Mary Quite Contrary, and instead of watering a garden she was watering a graveyard.

For the snack three out of the four teams did a twist on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which I thought was comic, because I felt that there are many other kid snacks that they could have made and incorporated it into their displays. Once the competition was over the winner of the show was Mary Mary Quite Contrary, and I agreed with this, because it showed the skills of all the team members. The losing team and the team that was eliminated was the team who created the Ms. Muffet display, and I agreed with the judges on this as well. Although there were some cool aspects such as the spider web that the candy maker made out of sugar, and the spider legs made of pumpkins it was simple, and didn’t have a backdrop or anything like that which I thought it should’ve.

                The next season is premiering tonight on the Food Network at 9/8c and I’m eager to see if the season will be a trick or a treat.