A listing of tonight’s television highlights reports that a Thanksgiving eating contest will be held for the models on tonight’s episode of “Deal or No Deal” (NBC, 8pm eastern)

A trailer of the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food has been embedded on the program’s home page. An interview with show host Adam Richman is also available.

A trailer for the web series Quest for the Golden Hot Dog can be viewed on youtube. The 60Frames production will be a parody of the world of competitive eating. A clip from the series of an interview with two hot dog girls (Bunettes) is also available.

TubeFilter.tv has more on the series including a cast of some of the characters:

In the trailer, the competitors are introduced as they all ram hot dogs. There’s the novice rookie played by Jeff Sloniker. There’s the Asian natural (likely a nod to Kobayashi himself), but played by a woman, Micki Ann Maddox. Armen Weitzman plays the role of the sitting legacy. Jeff Davis is the Hungry, Hungry Hipster And Demorge Brown is the Black Bomber, and he’s well, black.

A live blog is currently being conducted for tonight’s screening of the 2005 Wing Bowl documentary “Swallow Your Pride”. At least two (and possibly three) of the six protagonists of the film are in attendance.

(From Kevin Ross email) A web page has been set up for the Travel Channel series Man vs. Food. The program will feature Adam Richman traveling around the country to attempt restaurants’ eating challenges. The first two episodes will be televised on December 3 and the locations will be Amarillo, Texas (Big Texan Steak Ranch) and Memphis (The Big Foot Lodge). A list of all locations is available on the website.

Earlier this year, a producer placed a casting call on eatfeats for a host for the show.

The Heart Attack Grill’s web site has set up a news page which says that a segment will be recorded on Saturday to be televised on CBS News Sunday Morning. It does not say if the segment will be broadcast on November 9 or later. The Grill will also appear on HDNet’s Deadline on November 20.

The online “Wall of Fame” listing the fastest finishers of the Quadruple Bypass Burger appears to have been dropped.

• Video of Pat Bertoletti drinking beer with the help of a steak knife
• Jill Stoler and Jo Gavonne attend the Village Halloween Parade as the Chapmans (bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman and his wife Beth, that is) More pictures are on Jill’s myspace
• Competitive eating themed “Beetle Bailey” comic strip (from Paul Barlow)
• Americus, GA hot dog eating contest report

The video clip of the roundtable meeting of E:60 reporters and producers on ESPN.com is considerably longer (8:37) than the segment that was televised. The meeting consists mainly of a discussion on whether competitive eating is a sport. Jeremey Schaap cites competitive eating on the Versus network (which has never televised eating contests, as far as I am aware) as evidence of its popularity. He also says he has never seen such passion as he saw at last month’s cannoli contest and was genuinely moved by Brad Sciullo’s crying at the end of that competition.

According to the comments in an R Suzuki blog entry, the Japanese version of the Major League Eating Wiiware game was not released on the announced date of October 14 and no official new release date has been made public. The game does not appear in the list of Japanese WiiWare titles on Wikipedia.

I will teleblog the competitive eating segment on the E:60 episode currently being broadcast. It appears the competitive eating segment will be the last to air and start around 7:40-7:45 pm eastern.

The episode will be rerun on ESPN2 at: 10/23 8:00 PM, 10/27 3:00 PM and 10/27 11:00 PM (all times eastern), but the segment will be available on e60.com.

update The competitive eating segment and the reporter roundtable are now available on ESPN.com. There is a also a page where viewers can submit videos to comment on the episode.

The teleblog is available after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

ESPNMediaZone has a press release about Tuesday’s E:60 that will be televised on ESPN at 7pm eastern which will have a segment about competitive eating:

In a sport replete with colorful personalities, E:60 correspondent Jeremy Schaap takes an in-depth look at competitive eating and addresses some of the sport’s salient health and social issues. Highlights include interviews with some of the greatest “eaters” in the world such as Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Juliet Lee, “Crazy Legs” Conti and Tim “Eater X” Janus.

Cookie Jarvis’ home page announces that he will be on WBAB between 6am and 10am on October 17. The radio station has on-line streaming of its programming.

Steakbellie announces that he will appear on BBC Radio 2 on Friday at 1:45 pm eastern to talk about setting the haggis record last week. The station can be listened to online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/.

Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with news of her trip to New York City to compete in the Famous Famiglia pizza eating contest and record her appearance on Guy Fieri’s “Big Show” on the Food Network.

Juliet also recorded a segment for ESPN’s E:60 news magazine program, which is expected to be televised on October 21.

(From Crawfish comment) The Glutton Bowl will be rerun on the Fox Reality Channel tonight at 10pm and 1am eastern. The show duration is two hours. Five hours of competitive eating programming on various channels is probably a record for one 24 hour period.

• Ex-”Monster Garage” star Jesse James (Sanda Bullock’s husband) won a pie-eating contest at the Tennessee Valley Fair. The contest might be seen on James’ Spike TV show
• More on the Japanese version of the MLE video game
• Phillip Jones, who cancelled the University of Iowa 2007 corn eating contest, is fired
• The Bottle Inn, host of the nettle eating championship, will close but its contest might outlast it
• Minnesota State cheese stick eating contest
• $50/hour available for a woman willing to vomit on camera during an eating contest
• Hot dogs at the Philadelphia Phillies ballpark are responsible for a bomb scare The packages of hot dogs were detonated.

Zap2It.com has broadcast information about the Krystal Square Off finals. It does not appear that the program will be rerun in the immediate future, but it will not be preceded by live programming that could pre-empt it.

The La Contena “Feel the Heat” jalapeno eating contest in Chicago yesterday was listed at #7 in the Sportscenter top 10 plays of the weekend.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps appeared on last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live and starred in a fake ad promoting his diet which featured items such as a pitcher of hollandaise sauce. Jared Fogle from the Subway commercials makes a cameo.

Megamunch has a blog entry reporting that the ABC show is seeking a competitive eater for an upcoming episode of “Wife Swap”. The families of Badlands Booker and boxer Jennifer Alcorn appeared in a 2006 episode.

Route 66 News reports that a book titled “Story of the Free 72-oz. Steak” about the Big Texan Steak Ranch’s signature meal has been published. The book contains a list of a challenge finishers since 1990. (Records before that year have been lost)
The book is available through mail order.

This week’s episode of “Hurl” on the G4 network, “That’s Bull”, will have only females competing according to the episode list. The program will air at 7 and 10:30 pm eastern. This will be the first women-only competitive eating program broadcast on American television to the best of my knowledge.

G4’s website has an interview with one of the competitors, Cassie Jenkins.

A press release announces the Japanese launch of the Major League Eating Wiiware video game which will be available on October 14. Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Hatsuyo “the Witch” Sugawara have been added to the game, apparently replacing Rich LeFevre and Juliet Lee.

update TokyoMango has an English blog entry about the release

In a forum thread on bodybuilding.com, “Furious” Pete Czerwinski reports that he is going to Los Angeles today to record a competitive eating themed episode of “Sport Science” which appears on the Fox Sports Network. This is the second competitive eating program announced for Fox Sports; the Krystal Square Off finals will be televised on Fox Sports South.

A press release on Krystalist reports that the finals of this year’s Krystal Square Off will be televised on Fox Sports Net South. The previous two finals appeared on ESPN. FSN South is televised in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Weekly updates about the qualifiers will also be aired on the network.