Cake Boss needs to be more like Housewives, less like Ace of Cakes
After the big Jon & Kate premiere last night ("Look, honey! They're not sitting on the couch together! They must be getting a divorce!"), TLC premiered their new series, Cake Boss. It features Buddy Valastro, owner and head pastry chef at Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ, and shows how he runs the bakery along with his very Jersey family. Think about a cross between Ace of Cakes and The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and you'll get an idea of what's going on here: lots of hand gesturing and swearing being thrown around with the fondant and buttercream.At least that's what the preview episode the network aired about a month ago showed. It was loud and obnoxious and looked like a lot of fun. Last night's premiere, though, concentrated more on the funky cake-making aspect of the job than the interpersonal relations between Buddy and his crew. What a snooze.
Ace of Cakes was always one of the few Food Network shows that bored me to tears, because watching cakes being made does nothing for me (and the AoC crew's stoner antics make me feel like I've smoked a couple after a rich dessert... all I want to do is curl up in a ball and fall asleep). What intrigued me about Cake Boss was the Hoboken setting -- it's a second home to me, because I went to college there -- and everyone's oh-so-Hudson County demeanor. We need to see more of that going forward, or else it's going to live a very short life. I mean, who needs to see two shows where people build a Statue of Liberty out of angel food cake?

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