As our final post of the year, we present to you another exclusive addition to the Iron Chef Collection. We asked if you wanted to see the Best 50 episode despite the problems with the video in some spots. The voting was clear with over 90% “Yes.” This special episode is presented with all breaks and commercials intact. There are a lot of problems with the video dropping out. Unfortunately, this is the only copy of this episode I have been able to find.
The chairman seems to be sick, but he insists his body is fine. The doctor doesn’t seem so optimistic. I think the doctor says something about remembering the happy memories. He will count down the best fifty dishes in Kitchen Stadium history. (We see the Iron Chefs sorting through post cards, so perhaps the audience got to vote on this ranking.) I was hoping for a little more from the battles, but the segments between announcement of the battles takes up the biggest portion of the show.
- Regular announcer Kenji Fukui along with a guest announcer ??? Nishikawa.
- They announce it in sections: 50-41, Chen, 40-31, Sakai, 30-26, Sakai, 25-21, Kobe, 20-11, Michiba (drunk perhaps?), 10-4, 3, 2-1.
- Between groupings of battles, they show a segment which features a different judge from the past: (Kayoko Kishimoto, Tenmei Kanoh, Asako Kishi, Chai Lam, Sachiyo Nomura, ???, Kazuko Katoh, Oishi Megumi, Kaori Momoi, Shinichiro Kurimoto)
I don’t know a lot about this episode. I have only seen one
web page about it. (The page has each battle listed in order, so don’t go there unless you want to see the rankings.) I tried to give a brief explanation above of the things I think I understood to be happening. (As usual, please correct me when I am wrong.)
I also do now know exactly when the episode aired. It seems to have been before the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics judging by some of the commercials. It was after Kobe’s debut, but before Morimoto arrived. If anyone knows of an exact air date, please let me know. Thanks to a commenter, we now know that this originally aired February 12, 1998.
That does it for 2008 at the Iron Chef Collection. We will be back soon with more exclusive Japanese episodes as well as a few more additions to Beyond Kitchen Stadium. As always, we will continue to search for new videos and episodes for you. See you soon.
tuthead
30 December, 2008