October has finally arrived and Food Network connoisseurs are in for a treat -- and that's no trick.
It's a quadruple whammy with a new season of Halloween Wars, the new Worst Bakers in America, Halloween Baking Championship and the first ever Kids Halloween Baking Championship.
Let's get right to the details.
• Halloween Wars, 8 p.m., today. It's the "thrills and chills" of Season 6 for the fan favorite. Jonathan Bennett hosts and the judges are cake decorator Shinmin Li and horror film writer/producer/director Don Mancini, best known for creating Chucky and writing all six Child's Play Chucky slasher films (and one planned for next year).
There will be six teams, each with a pumpkin carving expert, cake artist and sugar artist. The teams will battle it out as they create Halloween-themed goodies that are, Food Network says, "so ghostly good, it's frightening!"
Each episode features two challenges. The first is the Small Scare, in which teams have 45 minutes to create a Halloween-themed design.
The winning team gets a special advantage in the second battle -- the Spine Chiller.
Joining the judges each week will be a guest judge who is a legend in the horror genre. They include Sid Haig (Halloween), Greg Plotkin (director, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension), Bitsie Tulloch (Grimm) and Carlson Young (Scream).
One team will be eliminated after each episode and the final survivors will claim the $50,000 grand prize on the Oct. 30 season finale.
Tonight's first episode, "Witches vs. Warlocks," features guest judge Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Peterson).
• Worst Bakers in America, 9 p.m., today. It's baker boot camp in this new series based on a twist of the popular Worst Cooks in America.
Pastry chef Duff Goldman and British baker Lorraine Pascale have recruited 12 of the most disastrous bakers in the country and, as Food Network explains, "attempt to mold these masters of cake wrecks and colossal cookie fails until one vastly improved wannabe baker rises to the level of pastry perfection."
The woefully untalented contestants will be divided into two teams, and over six weeks the pros will attempt to transform them into experts.
Based on their performances and progress in a series of challenges, the worst baker from each team will be eliminated each week until only two are left to face off in a final bakery battle royale. The winner takes home the $25,000 grand prize.
• Halloween Baking Championship, 8 p.m., Monday. Hosted by ventriloquist/comedian Jeff Dunham (and his sidekick Walter), the five-week competition will feature zombies, mummies and monsters and seven "terrifyingly talented" bakers conjuring "hauntingly delicious desserts."
Judges are Damiano Carrara, Carla Hall and Sandra Lee. The challenges include everything from making bite-size monster morsels to wickedly decadent desserts stuffed with trick-or-treat candies.
They'll weed out the contestants until the last three bakers face the ultimate challenge of baking, designing and decorating a haunted "gingerdead" house.
The winner will claim the $25,000 grand prize.
• Kids Halloween Baking Championship, 7 p.m., Wednesday. This hour special is hosted by Goldman and Alison Sweeney and features four fan favorites from Kids Baking Championship.
The gang will square off on two challenges, with the winner pocketing a cool $10,000.
All the recipes are kid-friendly and include Halloween lunchbox snacks and "cute and creepy" party ideas.
• Food Network. Here's a bit of trivia for fans of the Food Network. Launched (that's what they call it in the biz) on Nov. 23, 1993, the New York-based basic cable outfit is now available to about 97 million TV households, or 83 percent of the country.
Scripps Networks Interactive owns 70 percent of Food Network and manages the network.
The original lineup included Emeril Lagasse (Essence of Emeril), Debbi Fields, Donna Hanover, David Rosengarten, Curtis Aikens, Dr. Louis Arrone, Jacques Pepin and Robin Leach.
The programming is generally divided into daytime and prime-time fare. Daytime shows are in the kitchen with instructional cooking stuff and the evenings have cooking competitions, foodie travel shows and reality shows.
Food Network has gotten creative with all those hours to fill, with everything from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives to Chopped. How does that work? Well, beginning with Lagasse, Food Network has made celebrities out of dozens of relatively obscure personalities who might otherwise have slaved over a grill somewhere or simply owned a restaurant or two.
Style on 10/02/2016