This YouTube talk show’s premise is simple: Disarm celebrities with deep-cut questions and scorchingly spicy wings. Nearly 300 episodes later, the recipe still works.
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By Maya Salam
Bob Odenkirk was dubious when he walked onto the set of the long-running YouTube interview show “Hot Ones” last month. He was, after all, about to take on the “wings of death,” as the lineup of treacherously spicy chicken is called.
“I’ve heard such good things about the show,” Odenkirk told Sean Evans, its even-keeled host, once cameras were rolling, but “I think I’m perfectly capable of talking without having a part of my body injured.”
Despite peppering the interview with a couple of F-bombs, Odenkirk, the Emmy-nominated actor from “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad,” underwent a familiar shift: He’d warmed up — emotionally. Particularly after wing three, when Evans, quoting a 1989 Chicago Tribune article, asked him about his one-man show “Half My Face Is a Clown.”
“That was far more entertaining and fun than I thought it would be,” Odenkirk said in the closing credits through spice-induced coughs.
“Hot Ones” — a breakthrough pop-culture phenomenon in which stars eat 10 progressively fiery wings (or, increasingly, a vegan substitute) while being asked 10 deeply researched questions — has built itself into an online pillar, holding steady amid the shifting tides of digital media.
Since 2015, First We Feast, the food culture site that produces “Hot Ones,” has aired nearly 300 episodes, almost all of which have amassed millions of views. Guests this season, its 20th, include Pedro Pascal, Bryan Cranston, Jenna Ortega and Florence Pugh. In the early days of the show, guests were mostly rappers, comedians and athletes. Now Oscar winners like Viola Davis and Cate Blanchett often occupy the hot seat, as do headliners like Dave Grohl and Lizzo. The two most watched episodes, with Gordon Ramsay and Billie Eilish, both in 2019, have a combined 165 million views. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson popped in to discuss our place in the universe, and its place in us.
Evans uses his affable, unassuming approach to his advantage, with his deep-cut questions disarming guests, as the wings set them ablaze. Often visibly suffering, the guests are swiftly won over by Evans’s knowledge of their careers and his uncanny ability to keep conversations on track, even when they come dangerously close to going sideways.
When he asked Josh Brolin why the Geva Theater Center in Rochester, N.Y., was special to him, Brolin responded, “Literally the greatest questions I’ve ever been asked. Seriously. I’m blown away. I don’t know who’s working for you, but don’t fire them.” (Turns out, it’s the small theater where he earned his stripes as a character actor.)
In recent years, “Hot Ones” has edged itself into the big leagues: with spoofs on “The Simpsons” and “Saturday Night Live,” and Daytime Emmy nominations for Evans and the show. Its influence seems to have rippled down into the bevy of late-night or online segments that test celebrities one way or another: “Seth Meyers Goes Day Drinking” or Vanity Fair’s lie-detector series.
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