Guy's Grocery Games (often nicknamed Triple G) is an American reality-based cooking television game show hosted by Guy Fieri on Food Network. Each episode features four chefs competing in a three-round elimination contest, cooking food with ingredients found in a supermarket grocery store ("Flavortown Market") as Fieri poses unusual challenges to them. The winning chef can collect up to $20,000 in a shopping spree bonus round. The show often features chefs from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, another show hosted by Guy Fieri. The show Dessert Games was a short-lived spin-off.
Video Guy's Grocery Games
Episode Format
In each round, Fieri assigns a dish and issues one or more challenges/games that the chefs must fulfill. The chefs usually have 30 minutes to shop for ingredients from the market, prepare, and plate their dishes, unless one of Fieri's challenges shortens their time. The chefs must cook their dishes and complete four platings, one for each member of a three-judge panel and a fourth "beauty plate," before time runs out. At the end of each round, the judges taste and evaluate the dishes and select one chef to be "checked out" - eliminated from the game with no winnings. On occasion, the chefs compete through only two rounds instead of the usual three and/or face two eliminations at the end of a single round.
The last remaining chef advances to the bonus round, Guy's Shopping Spree, for a chance to win up to $20,000 in two minutes. Two different formats have been employed:
- Seasons 1-11: The chef must retrieve one named item from each of the market's 10 aisles, receiving $2,000 for each one placed in the shopping cart.
- Season 12 to Present: Fieri asks five questions, each of which can be answered with a particular item, and the chef receives $4,000 for each one placed in the cart.
On occasion, such as during tournaments or specially themed episodes, Guy's Shopping Spree is not played and Fieri awards the full $20,000 to the winner.
Maps Guy's Grocery Games
Challenges
A wide variety of challenges and games are used in the show with new games added as the series progresses (and some games tweaked or changed a little). Some of the following games have been played once or twice while others have become familiar game staples.
- 123 Game: Chefs must prepare a specified ingredient in two different ways and may only shop in three aisles.
- ABC Game: All ingredients must begin with the same randomly chosen letter of the alphabet.
- Aisle Down: Not announced until the contestants begin shopping; the aisle containing one or more key ingredients for their dish is blocked off by police tape so the chefs must quickly find an alternative.
- Budget Battle: The contestants are given a set amount of money to shop for ingredients, and may take advantage of coupons or price specials throughout the market.
- Cart/Station Swap: Used mainly in the final round, the chefs must trade shopping carts or cooking stations thus being forced to use each other's ingredients.
- Can Can: Contestants are only allowed to use canned food items in their dish.
- The Claw: Announced mid-round, contestants have to play a claw game and grab a little plastic ball with an ingredient label on it. Inside is an undesirable version of that ingredient, which must be used in the dish. (E.g. a ball labeled "corn" might contain candy corn.)
- Closing Time: Mid-shopping, an announcement is made that the store is closing, limiting the time the chefs can spend in the aisles.
- Express Lane: Chefs may use no more than a specified number of ingredients.
- Flip This Dish: Contestants must use ingredients for one type of dish to create a totally different type, such as dessert ingredients being used in a savory dish.
- Food Pyramid: Like the game "Plinko", a ball is dropped down a peg-covered pyramid to determine what ingredients, on three levels, must be featured in a dish.
- Food Wheel: One or two wheels are spun to determine the game restriction like mandatory ingredients, which aisles to use, and/or food budget. The most common variation is the High/Low Food Wheel, in which Fieri spins one wheel consisting of expensive ingredients and a second one of low-end items; the chefs must use both items in their dishes.
- Frozen Food Feud: The chefs are only allowed to use frozen items in their dishes.
- Grocery Bowl: Chefs roll melons toward soda bottles labeled with ingredients or aisle numbers, and must use whatever they leave standing or knock down, depending on Fieri's instructions.
- Grocery List: Each chef is given a list of items that must be incorporated into that round's dish (a mix of specific food items and more generic suggestions such as "something from aisle 6" or "something under $1.99"). A variation of this game is Emoji List, where the ingredients are represented by emojis.
- Jackpot Luck: Contestants pull a lever on a special slot machine and must use the three random ingredients that appear when the machine stops.
- Keep It Sample: The chefs must incorporate at least two ingredients from four different sample tables located throughout the store in their dish.
- Kiddie Carts: (Sometimes spelled "Kiddie Karts") The chefs must use child-size shopping carts to collect their ingredients in one trip through the market.
- Let It Roll: The chefs roll a set of dice to determine the constraints for the assigned dish such as required ingredients and equipment, budget, and shopping time.
- Lunch Rush/Dinner Rush: The chefs' shopping/prep/cook time is reduced from 30 minutes to 20 (or 15, on rare occasions).
- Meals From The Middle: Contestants can only use groceries from the middle aisles, composed of everything except for fresh produce and frozen food.
- Menu Magnet Madness: From three rows of refrigerator magnets, the contestants must each pick a flavor (sweet, sour, smoky etc.), a protein (chicken, tofu, fish etc.), and/or a style of dish (salad, stew, stir-fry etc.). Variations of this game include a player choosing a combination for their competitor, players secretly choosing one magnet each and then revealing them to form a theme that all of them must follow, or Fieri choosing the last magnet himself (usually something that clashes with the other chosen items).
- Musical Carts: A song plays during the shopping phase; when it stops, the chefs must abandon their own carts and find another one (usually an opponent's cart). Variations on this game include switching to abandoned carts with some undesirable ingredients.
- No Carts Allowed: Contestants may only use the ingredients they can collect in one trip, without using a cart. They are allowed to use large items as carrying vessels for smaller ones.
- Odd/Even: Based on a coin toss, the chefs may only shop in either the odd or even-numbered aisles. A variation is Over/Under, in which the toss determines whether the chefs must only use items higher or lower than a randomly chosen price.
- One Ingredient at a Time: Chefs may only get one ingredient per trip through the market, but may make as many trips as needed.
- One Ingredient Per Aisle: Contestants must use one ingredient from each of the store's 10 aisles beginning with Aisle 10 and ending with Aisle 1.
- Order Up Mash-Up: Played in the final round; contestants separately choose one of several dishes (presented on diner order tickets) and must combine them into a single dish.
- Out of Sight: Chefs are blindfolded and must choose an item from a large clearance cart that they will have to incorporate into their dish.
- Price Check: All ingredients used by the chefs must have prices that start (or sometimes end) with a number randomly chosen by Fieri.
- Red Light Special: During the round, one item in the store is marked with a sign and a flashing red light, and the chefs must get that item and incorporate it into their dish. The item is typically not associated with the assigned dish, such as beef jerky for a dessert.
- Scavenger Hunt: Contestants are given a clue and must find the item that corresponds to it. That item has a clue which will lead them to another one in turn. They must collect a total of four items in this manner and use all of them.
- Single Aisle Showdown: The chefs are only allowed to shop in one aisle specified by Fieri for the whole round.
- Sliders: A version of shuffleboard where contestants push a disk with a long stick and must use the ingredient corresponding to where it lands
- Special Delivery: A mid-round game in which the chefs receive an unusual ingredient that they must use in their dishes.
- Speed Shop or [blank]-Minute Shop: The chefs are told at the outset how much shopping time they will have.
- Spree Ball: A version of the arcade game skee ball. Each chef rolls an orange toward a target board to determine a constraint such as a required ingredient or spending limit. More desirable results correspond to the higher, harder-to-reach targets.
- Think Small: The chefs may use only the ingredients they can fit in a small shopping bag during one trip through the market.
- Time-Out: Used mid-round when pairs of chefs are competing. One chef in each pair must leave the station and write instructions for the other on a chalkboard, without speaking.
- Top Shelf/Bottom Shelf: The flip of a coin determines whether contestants can get things from the top shelf or the bottom shelf.
- Un-gredient List: After being given their dish theme, the chefs get a list of four typical ingredients used in the dish and are then forbidden to use them, forcing them to find substitutes.
- Watch Your Weight: The chefs are given a weight limit for their combined ingredients and must weigh their choices on a produce scale in order to verify that they do not exceed it.
- Wild Card: Each contestant draws a card at random to determine an ingredient they must use.
- World Fusion: Picking two flags out of a hollow globe, the contestants must combine two international cuisines into one cohesive dish.
Culinary Quizzes
In addition to challenging games, the show featured culinary quizzes in various episodes all the way up to season 11. The culinary quizzes varied but they all consisted of guessing a mystery item then bringing it back from the store for an advantage going into the next round.
- Culinary Quiz: The first quiz ever introduced, and the default name for all variations below. Contestants are given clues about a food item and the first person to bring back the correct item wins an advantage.
- Culinary Close Up: Contestants must guess a food item based on a close-up, on-screen image that slowly zooms out. First one to bring back the correct item gets an advantage.
- Grocery Pictogram: An on-screen rebus is shown to contestants who must use the pictures to "spell out" a grocery item. The person who guesses and retrieves it the quickest wins an advantage.
- Know Your Varieties: Different names/varieties of a type of food get listed off until someone figures out the correct grocery item answer and brings it back the quickest for an advantage.
- Market Multiple Choice: Three choices appear on a screen with. A question is then read who's answer is one of the three choices. The first person who picks the correct answer and brings back the corresponding grocery item wins an advantage.
- Word: A culinary quiz where Guy gradually reveals letters of a food, while also offering clues about the item. First person to bring back the correct item gets the advantage.
Additional Information
Season 1 was shot inside of an actual grocery store, Field's Market in West Hills, California. For Season 2, the market was built in a 15,500 square foot warehouse in Santa Rosa, CA. It was built over two weeks and stocked with over $700,000 of food. After each episode, the perishable items were donated to local food banks and local farmers.
The casting process to get on the show is described as "surprisingly streamlined" with potential contestants conducting a Skype interview and submitting photos of their best dishes. Once chosen, a member of production will arrange travel plans and bring the contestant to California where an episode will take up to 12 hours to shoot, with a good chunk of the time going to off-screen interviews.
Episodes
References
External links
- Official website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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