When Dragon Con announced that Alton Brown and the rest of the Good Eats cast would be visiting, it might have seemed a little odd. Why would the cast of a cooking show visit the nerd capital of the world? If you’ve seen Good Eats then you know why it was perfectly appropriate. Good Eats isn’t your typical food show. It’s not some chef cooking at a table while other people watch and cheer while they yell “BAM!” or other catch phrases.
Good Eats brings you food and the science that goes with it. And that special nerd flair is exactly what packed the room at the Good Eats panel at this year’s Dragon Con. The cast was all there full of smiles, laughs, and behind-the-scenes gems that could have entertained us for a full day.
Alton Brown shared many wonderful stories from the set. Probably the most memorable was the story of when he accidentally ran headlong into a low-hanging doorway and had to film a scene with a gash duct taped together. He, and the rest of the cast, shared stories of last-minute script changes that would call for new cast members that are drafted from the show’s crew.
Yes, the rule, we learned, was that if you worked on the show in any capacity then you had to act on the show. This included everyone from the producers to the set designers. Speaking of which, one particularly impressive set was designed to allow Brown to show a series of locations around the world as one continuous shot. Not only did he have to nail his lines while moving from location to location, there was also a crew off-camera that had to move and replace parts of the set silently so that new locations could “appear”. Good Eats was anything but your average cooking show.
The highlight, though, was the gang’s big announcement. Brown told everyone in the packed-to-capacity ballroom to take out their cell phones and then gave them time to do so. He announced, for the first time, that Good Eats would be returning to television under the name Good Eats. He encouraged everyone in the room to post their videos to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else they could, because the announcement at that panel truly was the first time that news had been shared.
Dragon Con is a buffet of nerd-dom, but rarely do we get the honor of being the first people to hear news like this. With the amazing response that Alton Brown and the rest of the crew received, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dragon Con starts to be the origin of many more “world premiere” announcements.
Nerdy Minds Magazine 
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