Bob Odenkirk had some doubts when he stepped onto the set of the long-running YouTube interview show “Hot Ones” last month. After all, he was 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, the even host, as the cameras rolled, but “I think I’m perfectly capable of talking without any part of my body gets hurt.”
Despite bombarding the interview with a few F-bombs, Odenkirk, the Emmy-nominated actor of “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad,” underwent a familiar shift: He had warmed up—emotionally. Especially after wing three, when Evans, citing a 1989 Chicago Tribune article, asked him about his one-man show, “Half My Face Is a Clown.”
“That was much more entertaining and fun than I thought it would be,” Odenkirk said in the closing credits through herb-induced cough.
“Hot Ones” — a groundbreaking pop culture phenomenon in which stars eat 10 increasingly fervent wings (or, increasingly, a vegan alternative) while being asked 10 thoroughly researched questions — has built itself into an online pillar, steadfast amid the changing 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 garnered millions of views. Guests on this 20th season include Pedro Pascal, Bryan Cranston, Jenna Ortega and Florence Pugh. In the early days of the show, the 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, starring Gordon Ramsay and Billie Eilish, both in 2019, have a combined 165 million views. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stopped by to discuss our place in the universe and his place in us.
Evans uses his affable, unassuming approach to his advantage, with his deep-seated questions disarming guests as the wings set them on fire. Often visibly suffering, the guests are quickly won over by Evans’ knowledge of their careers and his uncanny ability to keep conversations on track even when they get dangerously close to being sidetracked.
When he asked Josh Brolin why the Geva Theater Center in Rochester, NY, was special to him, Brolin replied, “Literally the best questions I’ve ever been asked. Serious. I’m blown away. I don’t know who works for you, but don’t fire them.’ (Turns out, it’s the little theater where he earned his stripes as an actor.)
In recent years, “Hot Ones” has pushed its way 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 permeated the many late night or online segments that challenge celebrities in one way or another: “Seth Meyers Goes Day Drinking” or Vanity Fair’s lie detector series.
Since the start, Evans said, “We’ve been through four different new media generations in that time, and we were able to ride those rocky waters in the smoothest way possible.
The show could easily have been pigeonholed as a novelty or gimmick, but Evans and Chris Schonberger, the creator and co-executive producer of “Hot Ones,” say its steady rise is a product of their dedication to the craft of interview and, perhaps unexpectedly, to linear TV: new 20-30 minute episodes drop on Thursday. “‘Hot Ones’ is kind of like an ’80s or ’90s sitcom,” Evans said, comparing its cozy viewing to “The Office” or “Friends.”
Schonberger calls “Hot Ones” a “true Venn diagram,” where today’s emphasis on viral formats overlaps with time-tested journalism. “It’s rooted in doing the research, trying to be factually accurate, trying to be broader than the gossip of the day,” he said. The North Star has always been about answering the classic question, “What would it be like to have a beer with that person?”
This is all so much more than Evans, 36, and Schonberger, 39, could have fathomed when the idea was born nearly a decade ago.
Founded by Complex Networks in 2012 and led by Schonberger, First We Feast struggled to catch up with old food brands like Gourmet or Bon Appétit magazine, with their thousands of recipes or restaurant listings. Then, in 2014, digital brands turned hard to video. “It was this amazing flattening of the landscape,” Schonberger said. “Suddenly we weren’t far behind the starting line, and we also had this brand that could credibly speak to pop culture and not just food.”
And with platforms like YouTube evolving, Schonberger said, “People were looking for something to pierce celebrity veneer — how interviews became more experiential and gamified.”
“‘Hot Ones’ was just the stupidest idea of all time,” Schonberger said, half jokingly. “How is it, philosophically speaking, that the dumbest idea is the best?”
“It’s like we can’t just let people get drunk or high,” he continued, “but I think we can get people to eat spicy food, which might be hilarious.”
Formally casting someone wasn’t in the budget, Schonberger said, so he started looking for onscreen talent “at the end of the hall.” And there was Evans, who had presented segments for Complex News, playing golf with Stephen Curry, for example, or eating Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson’s diet.
In the beginning, the show had a more controversial, unhinged quality (like a “Wild West UFC barroom,” as Schonberger put it). Publicists, Evans said, would bring in their client, “and half-apologise for it in front of us.” Conversations Evans had during Season 1 (which didn’t feature women) — like when he used numerous expletives during a question to Machine Gun Kelly about his relationship with Amber Rose — wouldn’t fly today.
In 2018, Charlize Theron’s episode kicked open the door for top-level female guests like Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry, who had previously been difficult to book, in part because of the show’s unconventional, unproven concept, which hadn’t quite broken through yet. . central box.
If you’ve imagined Evans absconding for a week before each interview to consume every part of his soon-to-be’s career, you wouldn’t be wrong. But he also gets a lot of help from his brother, Gavin Evans, the show’s researcher, who puts together a dossier on each celebrity that might be 50 pages long — not a magazine profile, podcast interview, IMDb entry, Wikipedia page, or archived local news story. is left unpolished.
Born in Chicago and raised admiring Howard Stern, David Letterman and Adam Carolla, Sean Evans proves to have a knack for demystifying celebrities. Near the end of his interview, Oscar nominee Austin Butler, who shared a touching story about riding rollercoasters with his late mother, hugged Evans and said, “I’ve made a new friend that I hope will be in my life for a long time.” to stay.” time.” The night after Grohl’s episode, in which the two drank an entire bottle of Crown Royal whiskey, Evans attended a friends and family Foo Fighters show.
Despite being consistently popular on YouTube, the show has managed to maintain a certain amount of underdog appeal. Maybe it’s that a team of about 10 people worked on it from the start. This includes a hot sauce curator: Noah Chaimberg, the founder of Brooklyn-based small hot sauce shop Heatonist. The lineup of sauces changes every season, but a mainstay is the brutal Da’ Bomb Beyond Insanity, a turning point in almost every interview. The last wing exceeds two million on the Scoville scale.
Or maybe it’s the unchanging bare set: an all-black liminal space that resembles the Looney Tunes void.
The set was “a by-product of us being broke,” Evans said, but it was a boon to the show. While it’s often filmed in New York or Los Angeles, “we can set that setup up anywhere,” Evans said, like when they traveled to Hawaii to interview Kevin Hart or London for Idris Elba. “The limitations of the show became a superpower,” Schonberger said.
Schonberger and Evans said cable networks and other platforms have shown interest in buying the “Hot Ones” brand, but have prioritized their control over it, sticking with YouTube and expanding their reach by making hot sauces and sell it (first conceived as a memento for superfans, then expanded exponentially to meet demand). They have had collaborations with Shake Shack, Reebok and Champion sportswear. And in 2021, Hot Ones began selling chicken bites in Walmart’s freezer aisles.
And while “Hot Ones” wasn’t made with social media in mind, it was “made for it,” Schonberger said, with each wing being its own two- to three-minute segment designed to have a beginning, middle, and to have an end. Then come the reaction GIFs and compilations, which garner millions of views on TikTok, along with videos of fans trying the sauces for themselves.
“We’ve just continued to focus on making the whole thing as good as possible and trusting that once it’s out in the world,” Schonberger said, “it belongs to the internet and they’ll find their ways to have fun.” to have.” with it and strengthen it.” For the duo, admittedly stubborn about their vision, the future will look a lot like the present.
“I don’t really have any of those world takeover plans or aspirations. I think I’m just happier being a duke or a baron in my little corner of the internet,” said Evans, who has eaten thousands of wings on screen. “Hopefully I can keep this up as long as my stomach allows.”
