Especially you, Chris Santos. You don't have to be so smug.
That being said, I have no idea where these producers find the people that end up on the show. Maybe my experience in kitchens is limited, but every chef cannot possibly be the absurd Kurt Vonnegut characters that they manage to bring on. Most of them are outwardly intolerable. If you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about.
Allow me to set it up for you:
(Man with jet black hair formed into a impeccable, greased back undercut with horn rim glasses, and a well trimmed moustache slowly crosses his arms with a meat cleaver in one arm while he smirks with one corner of his mouth. He walks past the chopped doors and you notice he is actually pretty out of shape.)
"My name is Trey and I'm the executive chef and owner of The Sloppy Beaver Microbewbus and Community Eatery. I've always been a little bit of a rebel so coming into the restaurant industry I wanted to shake things up."
(Cut to trey riding a motorcycle)
"I already know I can cook and I'm just here to prove to myself I'm better than the competition. I'll probably spend the money on opening my cocktail bar in Brooklyn. The space used to be a formaldehyde processing factory so I'm gonna call it the The Dump. I really love the industrial/manufacturing vibe. Watch out Chopped, I'm coming for you"
And just like that you hate him.
There are also the more humble types who are equally as unlikable;the kind that when they present their dish give some lame trope such as:
"Judges, for you today I present a saffron and cumin seared sea bass with pickled radish and olive tapenade atop a bed of seasonal greens. Growing up, my cat got run over by the bus driver and I really want to honor his memory with this sea bass because Rustles really loved fish. I want to inspire everyone who has ever had their cat run over by a school bus and know what it's like to live in fear of the school bus everyday."
You want them to lose too. I'm sure most of the personalities are either entirely fabricated or exaggerated to the point absurdity, but I get sucked in every time. I get attached to the chef I hate the least and he becomes my warrior and I his patron.
It's even worse with the "Chopped: Teens Edition" I think I'm a terrible person because these episodes are even easier to rip on for me. Again, I do not know where they find these kids. The chopped producers must scourge every Manhattan prep school to find the one kid that not only knows every choreographed move to the musical "Cats!" , but also bakes and can speak 3 different languages. I love my parents, but if at any point growing up I told them I wanted to study dance and be a chef, they would have scoffed and said "Do your math homework".
Even though the coliseum lost it's physical foundation, I like to think it still exist in some way. The barbarian slave that was fighting off tigers and lions has been replaced by some dorky kid from Chicago with scoliosis tasked with making a cake out of lobster shells, chicken livers and candy cigarettes. The outcome is almost inevitably theatrical failure but we love it just as much.
It says something about what we are as humans and where we have come from. Human beings are about extremes. We love and almost bask in the total failure and absolute successes of others, in the same way we seem to be drawn or disgusted by the dynamic and absurd personalities presented on Chopped. I'm probably over thinking it, but it shows progress! Humans will probably always love conflict, but instead of watching gladiators get their heads chopped off, we revel in Kimmy from Des Moines burning the shit out of Duck L'Orange as she gets sent packing.
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