10 Resurrected TV Shows That Should’ve Stayed Dead

10. Iron Chef

There was a time were the Food Network was actually populated by traditional cooking shows, y'know, the ones that tell you how to make things yourself. Emeril Legasse was the first big star of the network on the back of Emeril Live, which he taped in front of a studio audience. Somehow he parlayed this into a short-lived sitcom on NBC. The second era of the network began with Iron Chef. A Japanese import dubbed in English for American consumption, it became a huge cult hit, usually classified as cooking shows meet professional wrestling. You know the basics: A chef comes to Kitchen Stadium to challenge one of the Iron Chefs, with the few winning challengers clearly being among the most super awesome chefs on the planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tto0h9myLFQ There was just one problem: The show ended not long after Food Network picked up the dubbed version. Still, the back catalog carried them along for several years. Eventually, after various specials, the network picked up Iron Chef America, which included Iron Chef Japanese, Masaharu Morimoto (who lived in New York even during production of the original) and existing Food Network stars like Bobby Flay. Alton Brown would take over the both the play by play and color commentary roles, and the show is still on the air to this day. Unfortunately, it never really got what made the original great. The exotic foods, like abalone, which can't legally be procured in the United States. The theatrics. The voice actors who spoke English with Japanese inflections, making the show feel more authentic than it could have in lesser hands. Crazy rivalries like Ohta Faction defending the honor of traditional Japanese cooking against fusion special Morimoto. Amazing moments like Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi freaking out when the theme ingredient was yogurt. And so on. Iron Chef America is not a bad show. It's just not Iron Chef. With reruns of the original gone, that makes it feel like a replacement, which it isn't worthy of being at all.