Make That Lemon Magic: Candyland, Episode 1
I Guess I'm Recapping Food Network's Candyland Now, Everyone
Hey, hi, how’s it going? Long time, no newsletter. I know: you want Part Two of the 90s Witch Movies (if you remembered this newsletter existed at all, that is!) Me too, friends! But there was a lot of stuff going on that I think stressed a lot of us out and I couldn’t think too hard about too many things or else I’d have had a breakdown and SO you’re just gonna have to wait for that a little while longer. There was a recent network premiere that I simply had to address, though, and will continue addressing weekly until we’re all released from this collective competition fever dream. So anyway, I guess I’m recapping Candyland.
Also, if Kristin Chenoweth sent you (brb, going back in time to tell myself, age 12, singing Popular in the school talent show that that’s a thing that happened) and you like character actresses and drag queens and musicals and Allison Janney, think about signing up for this newsletter straight to your inbox!
America is not doing super well right now, everyone! The winter is coming, the cases are rising, and we’re all looking for distracting entertainment to gather (or not gather - please practice social distancing!) around the tv with our companions to take in as the holidays approach. Food Network is confidently sure it has the show you’ve been waiting for: Candyland.
The concept is simple yet complex, straight-forward yet oblique, childlike yet startlingly-adult. Five teams compete in a candy/cake sculpture competition - de rigueur for Food Network holiday programming. This programming has a twist, though: the set is literally Candyland, based on the classic board game, and our intrepid host is Broadway’s and Oklahoma’s own Kristi Dawn Chenoweth (Kristin, if you weren’t on multiple Wicked fan message boards in the year 2004). This pilot was a two hour programming block, and honestly? We deserve this.
The first thing you must know about Candyland is that the entire set is edible and the teams are encouraged to pluck their ingredients from the environment around set, raising more food safety questions than answers given throughout the entire two hour runtime. This is a Wonka’s Chocolate Factory that Jojo Siwia would find a bit much, and Kristin is our very own Willy Wonka; certainly, at the end of this, she will absorb the energy of the winning team in order to add another century to her life. If I find the edible set confusing, the sentiment is certainly not shared by our teams, who do nothing short of frolic through the candy set as we meet our biggest personalities (notable are Andrew, a victory roll-topped, mustache-waxed adult version of a Lisa Frank folder come to live, and Reva, a redhead who, as the contestants explore Candyland for the cameras, hoists two fistfulls of candy into the air and cackles).
As the teams delight in lollipops stuck into the floor, Kristin makes her first entrance, and the contestants react in a way that tells me 75% of them know exactly who she is and own Pushing Daisies on DVD, while the other 25% heard her name for the first time when they arrived to the COVID-safe production bubble before shooting began. As our only living celebrity who has successfully transformed into a broad drag caricature of themselves, no one is more appropriate to host this show than Kristin Chenoweth. I’m certain she would have done this for free, perhaps even without contestants present. She is in costume shoulder pads that are a full quarter of her height, and she is sparkling brighter than the cellophane wrapped around the sugar surrounding her. As she exclaimed her love for candy for the fifteenth time in 90 seconds, I stared into the middle distance, smiled softly, and whispered, “thank you,” to the universe.
We meet our Candy Captains who will lead their teams to glory or defeat and learn which area of Candyland will inspire their creations: our Lisa Frank character, Andrew will lead the Pink Team’s Gumdrop Mountains creation, Brittani’s Blue Team will be inspired by Chocolate Mountains, Tiffany’s Team Orange will whip up something from the Lemon Lime Springs, Grace and her Yellow Team will craft from the Lollipop Woods, and Ray’s Red Team will deliver something a little fresh from the Peppermint Forest.
The challenge is, apparently, to make candy Neopets. Pink gets to work on a gumdrop bridge troll that looks shockingly like a conceptual Andrew self-portrait. Red sketches out a family of multi-legged creatures inspired by lambs and Ray’s tiny fat dog, Tofu. Orange is making a lemon fairy girl with big lashes, and Yellow’s creature is the candy version of what I imagine the pets of the tree people in Lord of the Rings must look like. Finally, Blue has some disagreements over their creature - a lizard, but not a dragon, but chocolate, but not too chocolate, but also coated in something called ruby chocolate, which I think is made up.
Kristin bounces back onto set after undoubtedly taking a gloved Diet Coke break, where she gives us a little nonsense singing. She’s made it to minute 15:53 without this signature nonsense singing, which demonstrates great restraint on her part. It was at this point that I noticed that Kristin is billed as Queen Lollipop, and also when I noticed she is the RuPaul in the Werk Room the nation deserves. She takes on the weight of competitors’ tragic backstories with grace, supporting them on her petite stature and giant shoulderpads. Orange is having a lot of trouble with the wings for the lemon lady, with their Candy Captain introducing the Chekhov’s Gun of reality cooking competition: saying in a confessional that they had “planned” an element of the piece, emphasis on the past tense.
Now that Kristin has humanized our merry band of sugar sculpting misfits, it’s finally time to meet our judges, Aarti Sequeira and Nacho Aguirre. Aarti is looking for “the Candyland quotient” and is obsessed with the idea of the competitors “foraging” for the ingredients that a producer has carefully placed on the set for them. Nacho wants good sugar work, and Kristin looks confused by the concept. The judges do their rounds, and they, of course, have their criticisms. The chocolate not-dragon is potentially not colorful or chocolate-focused enough, the lollipop dog might be too monochromatic, and Andrew remains confident while refusing to play Aarti’s mind games. At some point, a competitor bemoans that they were not good at the board game Candyland as a child, as if it is a game of skill, which is somehow the least bananas thing any of these dessert artisans say throughout the episode.
I had been unable to tear my eyes away from the screen up through this point of the episode, but for viewers less engaged than me, the producers throw us a mid-challenge TWIST! The mysterious King Candy demands tower treats created by one sacrificial lamb from each team, and the loser will be sent to the Licorice Lagoon. From this point forward, King Candy will be referred to exclusively, by competitors, judges, and host alike, as if he is the Master of the Candyland Dungeon and everyone else is a sub there for his bidding. If King Candy demands something, he must get it, one baker declares. I hope we get to meet King Candy in the finale, and I hope he’s Guy Fieri.
Our team representatives churn out stacked desserts like cookie butter truffles, passion fruit gumdrops, peppermint patties, stacked waffle surprises, and spiced chocolate ripples. As the contestants describe the creations, they use strictly business and technical names, making it clear that these cutesy theme names have been assigned by production. For the sake of dramatic utility, we must check in on Orange, where Chekhov’s Wings have ripped. Tears are being shed. The teensiest little wings are being applied to lemon lady’s back, and I am very, very worried that Orange is not long for this world.
The twist challenge has finally ended, and Kristin Chenoweth is at three instances of nonsense singing by challenge close. As the judges sample the mini challenge towers, Kristin pointedly does not. Orange’s representative’s waffle stack is declared the loser, and she is sent to the Licorice Lagoon, which Kristin leads her toward as if she is being led to Christian Grey’s Red Room of Pain. To escape the Lagoon, Waffles must fish for red licorice hidden among black licorice suspended in molasses or something, and man, this is not Orange’s day. This is a nightmare for both me and the Orange team. As poor Waffles fishes through a stump filled with licorice stew, Kristin comments that this little game reminds her of her boyfriends. She elaborates that this means she, too, keeps digging until she finds a good one, but which I had feared meant she must regularly go elbow-deep in goop with the men in her life.
Waffles collects enough red licorice to satisfy the demands of Daddy King Candy and is sent back to her team for the final moments of competition. Instead of a timer to indicate challenge end, Kristin does a high note, which, yes, sure, why not. We get a photo of a brunette child Kristi Dawn at what I am certain is her full adult height, as a treat. It’s time for the judges’ critiques, and time to find out if King Candy is pleased. The judges think Yellow’s lollidog is unique and organic, but Nacho think’s Pink’s bridge is boring while Aarti says, “nah!” to that assessment. Our introduction to Orange’s final product is Kristin attempting to make the same face as the lemon lady (which the judges declare a mascot rather than a magical creature), so you know this can’t be good. Red has too many lambs slash fat dogs and sloppy sugar and fondant work. Blue really focused on that ruby chocolate, which I still don’t think is real, and Aarti just isn’t sure they’ve played the game of the game within the game of the game enough, because I guess this is a donut within a donut hole within a donut.
Yellow wins, and Orange loses, which the other teams try really hard to be surprised by, and which I learned from a spoiler tweet from Kristin before I heard it announced on tv. Our teams now ritualistically lift their Candyland pieces up together and move them across the board, living another day to please King Candy. Next week, they must build candy rides, and Kristin will dress up as Anne Boelyn from the musical Six.
Candyland is just bonkers enough to be the perfect balm for these times. It’s Food Network programming brave enough to ask, “wouldn’t we be happier if we eschewed all responsibility to leave society and live inside a board game to be serenaded by a tiny Broadway star in sequins while we all serve a candy master’s whims and sadism?” To Food Network, I say sure, until someone’s younger brother gets mad and tears the board in two and feeds the game pieces to the family dog. Until that happens, though, I’m along for the ride, and I hope you are, too.
This is gonna be an every week thing, so if you want to take a ride on a candy creation with a loved one, hit the button below. See ya, love ya, tip your delivery drivers!
*********
follow my pith, my selfies, and my blog
tell a friend and make sure you subscribe!