La Prova del Cuoco

I was channel surfing yesterday when I ran across some Italian TV towards the top of the dial. And not just any Italian TV, but La Prova del Cuoco ("The Test of the Cook"). It's an Italian version of Ready Steady Cook, a daytime BBC cooking show where two celebrity chefs battle to cook meals in 30 minutes with 5 pounds worth of surprise ingredients, in front of a live audience. But that's not the good part of the Italian version. The feel of La Prova del Cuoco is not merely a cross between a game show, Emeril Live, and Rachel Ray (the host is the busty blonde in the photo), it also has live audience dancing.

Periodically in the first half of the show, before the cooking competition, the host and someone else makes a dish in front of the audience. But, well, that's boring, so every few minutes disco music (e.g., I Will Survive) starts playing and the live studio audience starts dancing. There's a guy standing in front of the audience demonstrating how to do horribly cheesy dance moves. Of course, the audience is middle-aged couples, tends towards chubby by Italian standards, and can't dance, except for the guys with stylish haircuts and pink shirts... The crew dances when the camera points at them, including the guys running the cameras and mixing the sound. There are animated dancing critters overlaid on the screen, a little like the Whammies on Press Your Luck, but dancing instead of stealing your money. It's hilarious; it's awful. And it's in Italian.

Unfortunately I can't find any video of the audience dancing on You Tube (but here's some other video from the show), so instead I will share this Babelfished translation of an Italian blog's comment about the show:

Sure, it must also observe that the test of the cook has introduced the happy innovation of the old ones that dances YMCA following scoordinatissime the indications of the coreografo behind the television camera: also this has a its weight, in the economy of the trash.

I couldn't agree more.