When he was growing up, my younger son and I did the usual dad and lad activities. We attended the opening night gala at the Lyric Opera, and visited fun places across the country from the Morgan Library in New York to the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.
Okay, we also did normal stuff too. Baseball games and camping. We went fishing, once. We fired weapons. I even swallowed hard and took him to see a hockey game — the one time I attended a Blackhawks game in a non-professional capacity.
All fond memories. But one I cherish above all others, because it was his idea and was, by far, the most normal guy thing I have ever done in my life. We went to a Buffalo Wild Wings and sampled hot wings. I’m serious here. He asked me to go, and I went.
Did I sense a trap? Sure. Did I go anyway? You betcha.
Did my lips burn for three days afterward? Absolutely. Would I ever do it again? Never. But I remember thinking to myself, as we slid into the garish plastic interior of our local B-Dubs, that this must be what regular dads do all the time. No arias. No Gutenberg Bibles. Just a couple of regular Joes, mano a mano, ingesting fiery foodstuff.
This is a long way of saying that I was primed when my cousin Harry mentioned “Hot Ones,” a talk show where A-list celebrities are grilled while eating progressively hotter wings. At first I couldn’t believe it was real; it had to be some feature of a dystopian novel presented as fact and accepted by a gullible public.
“Hot Ones” has been on YouTube for nearly a decade. They’ve produced 339 episodes.
While I couldn’t pick most guests out of a line-up, “Hot Ones” regularly snags big names: Ricky Gervais, Chris Hemsworth, Gordon Ramsey, Scarlett Johansson, Conan O’Brien. One must begin somewhere, so I started with Will Ferrell — star of one of my favorite movies, “Stranger than Fiction.”
The 10 progressively hotter wings, lined in a row, really jar these celebrities out of their comfort zones.
“I enjoy spicy food, to an extent,” Ferrell said at the start, already uneasy.
As the conversation progressed, I was impressed with host Sean Evans, an Evanston native with a genius for carefully crafted questions and unexpected lines of inquiry. He asked Ferrell how he discovered sportscaster Harry Caray.
“I just couldn’t believe the stuff he would say in the middle of a game,” Ferrell replied.
Then on to exotic foods Ferrell ate in Sweden. How was that grilled reindeer eyeball?
“The eyeball was slimy and gelatinous and then you crunched down on the cornea, and then you get into that middle squishiness,” said Ferrell, who obviously has a knack for placing himself in culinary distress.
Plunging into the oeuvre, I watched “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega’s episode. She was remarkably composed.
“I come from a strong family. they’ve got strong taste buds,” she said. “I think we’ll be good.”
Evans gives the celebrities plenty of time to plug their projects, interspersing softballs with questions like this:
“In a New York Times interview last year you talked about not being able to take care of a house plant but spoke very reverently about protecting your 1897 edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson essays. What for you is the magic in collecting books?”
“I stay up all night and write random things … books are incredible” Ortega answered. “I wish people would read them more. I don’t want to read them on an iPad. We need real substance. Go outside and read a book.”
My wife scoffed at the idea of the show, but I baited the hook with Matt Damon and she sat down to watch — and finish — an episode. The movie star explained why he was there: “My kids really want me to do this. They want to see the flop sweat.”
Yet, like me, he seemed eager to participate.
“It’s like they’ve done something to the lining of my stomach,” Damon said, toward the end of his ordeal. “My kids are going to be so happy.”
After, saying he wanted to vomit, Damon added: “It was totally worth it. My kids are going to be thrilled. Honestly, we love this show.”
It makes perfect sense. Parents are there for every difficult moment of childhood — encouraging and supporting, one hopes. But still cool and composed while the child struggles to walk, ride a bike, copes with illness and terror. It seems only fair — delicious payback, really — to return the favor, and make mom or dad squirm a little. Or a lot.