Between Guy’s Grocery Games, Tournament of Champions, and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy Fieri is one of Food Network’s busiest stars. Guy’s Grocery Games is particularly popular because of its, shall we say, zaniness. Seeing talented chefs show off their skills while having to work around bizarre and unexpected challenges. Everyone from the viewers to the chefs to the judges, and of course Guy Fieri himself, has a great time and somehow amazing meals still get made. Some fans have belated realized that Triple G is similar to another eccentric Food Network cooking competition: Cutthroat Kitchen.
Guy Fieri has a big personality that people either love or hate. But at the end of the day, he seems to be a guy with a big heart. Viewers have seen him get choked up at times on his show when a chef shares touching moments. During COVID, Fieri raised $20 million dollars for restaurant owners and employees who were struggling financially because of the pandemic. Fieri had to permanently close at least one of his restaurants, but he was the first to say that he could afford it and wanted the focus to be on people who couldn’t. He’s always used his career to support the hole-in-the-wall places.
Cutthroat Kitchen and Guys Grocery Games both premiered on the Food Network in 2013. Both took chefs from the serious world of gourmet cooking into the wacky world of an anything-goes cooking competition. Triple G host Guy Fieri and Cutthroat Kitchen host Alton Brown delight in throwing unexpected twists at chefs to make cooking a great meal challenging. The shows weren’t about laughing at the chefs, but laughing with them, which is where shows like Cakealikes have gone wrong. Making fun of chefs for not being able to meet impossible challenges is not what fans want to watch. Cutthroat Kitchen and Triple G found the right mix of ridiculous twists while still being good-natured fun.
Besides the wacky twists and some of the same chefs competing on both shows, Triple G and Cutthroat Kitchen have some differences. Triple G usually messes with all the competitors equally, and usually hinders the chefs before they start cooking. Challenges include things like having to cook with only five pounds of ingredients, include pre-selected ingredients like cheese puffs, or only cook with ingredients that all start with the letter P. The sabotages on Cutthroat Kitchen were only applied to one chef and usually changed the prep and cooking process. Some of the memorable sabotages included having to do prep work on a hammock, having a potato masher taped to one hand, or having to make chocolate chip cookies with cookie dough fished out of cookie dough ice cream.
In 2017, Cutthroat Kitchen came to an end. While Alton Brown clearly had a good time making the show, he missed getting to do the cooking himself. Apparently, Food Network didn’t think they could do the show without him, so they brought it to an end instead. On the other hand, Guy Fieri seems to still be loving serving as maniacal host of Guys Grocery Games, having found a way for chefs to compete from the safety of their own homes. Viewers can watch old and new episodes of Guys Grocery Games on Food Network and can find Cutthroat Kitchen on many streaming platforms, including Hulu and Discovery+.
Source: Reddit