The 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four was recently celebrated in some awesome ways and some horrible ways. One of the more questionable anniversary celebrations came in cake form as one of comics' oldest super teams was immortalized in fondant in an episode of Food Network's Last Cake Standing.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like cake. (I do. Really.) And it's not even that I don't like Last Cake Standing. It's a great Sunday afternoon distraction while you wait for whatever is coming on HBO later that evening.
The artisans who compete generally produce some amazing confectionery creations but this episode's fare was a little difficult to digest. I guess it's as hard to adapt the Fantastic Four into the medium of cake as it is to adapt them into the medium of film.
If it seems like I was a little disappointed in the FF cakes then, congratulations! You have reading comprehension skills! So instead of taking you through the painstaking process of making crappy Fantastic Four cakes we'll just skip to the end and take a look at the results.
Let's start with "Team Jason" (by the way they split up in teams for this challenge):
Sadly, this is the best of the bunch. It was complimented by the judges for including 5 figures but all I can see is four: Reed, the Super Skrull, a very tiny Ben (barely visible under Reed) and below the Skrull is Sue with this expression:
I choose to believe that she is just really, really surprised about something. I assume the flames are coming from the Skrull but I guess that could be Johnny. Let's see what the judges had to say about Team Jason's second cake.
Holy crap! Is that Tom Brevoort?!? He's one of the judges for this week's competition! That's kind of cool!
Anyway, back to the horrible cakes...I don't know if anyone saw a shoddily sculpted Sliver Surfer flying around but he must have been there somewhere to herald the coming of...Galactus!
It's hard to have that menacing, apocalyptic feeling when the city Galactus is about to eat looks like a set piece from "Cats." Also, hey look, the Silver Surfer IS there! He's not quite as well hidden as the Thing was on the previous cake but but he's definitely easy to miss. Someone get him a red and white striped shirt and a walking stick.
"The Devourer of Worlds" or just a "Grumpy Gus"? It also looks like his funky hat is broken.
So it looks like "Team Richard" (that's the other team) has it all wrapped up, right? They'd have to essentially just puke in a baking pan in order to lose, right? Right?
I really don't mean to be overly harsh. I know making cakes is difficult and so is sculpting. My question is: if you want to do an homage to the Fantastic Four then why not include the Fantastic Four? Sure we all like the Hulk (I assume that's the Hulk...or maybe Shrek) and the Hulk v. Thing fight is very iconic but very often the Hulk is more trouble than he's worth.
In the comics he constantly causes problems and it seems that in the real world he's also a headache. You can see why in this clip:
Oh, Hulk...you minx. Not only are you falling down on the job you are also making unwanted(?) advances on your opponent:
Maybe it was just a good luck kiss. That sounds like something the Hulk would do. I wish the rest of the FF could be here to see this. Well I'm sure they'll all be on the next cake.
Nevermind. It's just the Thing punching Dr. Doom. And it looks like the thing's head is also on top of that black box thing. In a blog entry full of assumptions I'm also just going to assume that that is a very specific comic reference. If it's not, don't tell me. If it is, don't tell me.
Man, Team Richard LOVES the Thing. And they love it when he punches people. Either that or they just don't have a lot of ideas.
Anyhoo, skip to the end and the winner was...Team Jason!
Yea? I guess?
Well, as they say on "The Next Iron Chef," even great chefs can have bad days. I'm hoping that by the FF's next monumental anniversary the world's cake making technology and techniques will have advanced enough to truly do the World's Greatest Comic Magazine justice.
(By the way, all images are property of Food Network)
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like cake. (I do. Really.) And it's not even that I don't like Last Cake Standing. It's a great Sunday afternoon distraction while you wait for whatever is coming on HBO later that evening.The artisans who compete generally produce some amazing confectionery creations but this episode's fare was a little difficult to digest. I guess it's as hard to adapt the Fantastic Four into the medium of cake as it is to adapt them into the medium of film.
If it seems like I was a little disappointed in the FF cakes then, congratulations! You have reading comprehension skills! So instead of taking you through the painstaking process of making crappy Fantastic Four cakes we'll just skip to the end and take a look at the results.
Let's start with "Team Jason" (by the way they split up in teams for this challenge):
Sadly, this is the best of the bunch. It was complimented by the judges for including 5 figures but all I can see is four: Reed, the Super Skrull, a very tiny Ben (barely visible under Reed) and below the Skrull is Sue with this expression:
I choose to believe that she is just really, really surprised about something. I assume the flames are coming from the Skrull but I guess that could be Johnny. Let's see what the judges had to say about Team Jason's second cake.
Holy crap! Is that Tom Brevoort?!? He's one of the judges for this week's competition! That's kind of cool!
Anyway, back to the horrible cakes...I don't know if anyone saw a shoddily sculpted Sliver Surfer flying around but he must have been there somewhere to herald the coming of...Galactus!
It's hard to have that menacing, apocalyptic feeling when the city Galactus is about to eat looks like a set piece from "Cats." Also, hey look, the Silver Surfer IS there! He's not quite as well hidden as the Thing was on the previous cake but but he's definitely easy to miss. Someone get him a red and white striped shirt and a walking stick.
"The Devourer of Worlds" or just a "Grumpy Gus"? It also looks like his funky hat is broken.
So it looks like "Team Richard" (that's the other team) has it all wrapped up, right? They'd have to essentially just puke in a baking pan in order to lose, right? Right?
I really don't mean to be overly harsh. I know making cakes is difficult and so is sculpting. My question is: if you want to do an homage to the Fantastic Four then why not include the Fantastic Four? Sure we all like the Hulk (I assume that's the Hulk...or maybe Shrek) and the Hulk v. Thing fight is very iconic but very often the Hulk is more trouble than he's worth.
In the comics he constantly causes problems and it seems that in the real world he's also a headache. You can see why in this clip:
Oh, Hulk...you minx. Not only are you falling down on the job you are also making unwanted(?) advances on your opponent:
Maybe it was just a good luck kiss. That sounds like something the Hulk would do. I wish the rest of the FF could be here to see this. Well I'm sure they'll all be on the next cake.
Nevermind. It's just the Thing punching Dr. Doom. And it looks like the thing's head is also on top of that black box thing. In a blog entry full of assumptions I'm also just going to assume that that is a very specific comic reference. If it's not, don't tell me. If it is, don't tell me.
Man, Team Richard LOVES the Thing. And they love it when he punches people. Either that or they just don't have a lot of ideas.
Anyhoo, skip to the end and the winner was...Team Jason!
Yea? I guess?
Well, as they say on "The Next Iron Chef," even great chefs can have bad days. I'm hoping that by the FF's next monumental anniversary the world's cake making technology and techniques will have advanced enough to truly do the World's Greatest Comic Magazine justice.
(By the way, all images are property of Food Network)
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