TBS' Dinner and a Movie is coming back for a second helping. The hybrid entertainment-cooking show, which had a successful sixteen-year run on the basic-cable superstation from 1995 to 2011, will soon return. Deadline reports that Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. Networks Group, announced the show's return at their upfront presentation in New York City.
The move comes at a time when networks are scrambling for low-budget, unscripted programming in the wake of the still-ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. It does appear, however, that hosted movies may be making a comeback. Of late, streaming channel Shudder has had great success reviving the hosted-movie format with the horror-themed The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, which recently began its fifth season; Briggs originally hosted the similarly-themed Monstervision in the '90s on TBS' sister station TNT. And, of course, movie-riffing mainstay Mystery Science Theater 3000 is now on its third revival, streaming on the proprietary Gizmoplex platform.
What Was 'Dinner and a Movie'?
Debuting in 1995, Dinner and a Movie ran on Friday nights on TBS, adding a little spice to the channel's regular rotation of Hollywood movies. The show was hosted by chef Claud Mann and comedian Paul Gilmartin (host of The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast) for all sixteen years of its original run; Annabelle Gurwitch (Mouse Hunt, Ambulance) cohosted from 1996 to 2002, when she was replaced by Lisa Kushell (MadTV, Cory in the House), who hosted until 2005, when Janet Varney (The Legend of Korra, You're the Worst) took her place, and continued to host until the show's cancelation in 2011. In addition to the witty commentary on the movie itself during interstitial segments, the show's hosts would prepare a dish based on the theme of the movie, typically with a groan-inducingly punny name. Highlights include "Snow Coens" during an airing of Fargo, "The Hippocratic Loaf" for the medical thriller Malice, and "Can't Go To School, I Falafel" (say it out loud) for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Many of the recipes found their way into Claud Mann's Dinner & A Movie Cookbook, which was published in 2003.
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Shows about cooking and food continue to be a comfort-TV mainstay, and many have been announced in just the past few weeks, likely prompted by networks attempting to weather the WGA's labor action. Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares has just been revived by Fox after a nine-year hiatus, and Drag Me to Dinner, a drag-centric spin on the cooking competition show, is in the works at Hulu.
