Genevieve Koski, writing for the A.V. Club:
The two test episodes aired and reran a few times on WTTW, but that’s not how they came to the attention of Matt Stillman. A programming developer at Food Network, Stillman ushered Good Eats onto cable the same year he brought the channel another unique take on food programming—and a future phenomenon—in the form of the original Japanese version of Iron Chef. Stillman read about the Good Eats pilot in a film trade magazine—in which it was featured for having used a new type of Kodak film stock—and found Brown and the episodes via the Kodak website. It’s an appropriately backward genesis for a food personality who only went to culinary school after he decided he wanted to make a cooking show. Brown was a cameraman and cinematographer throughout his 20s—he shot the music video for R.E.M.’s “The One I Love”—and decided when he was 30 that he wanted to do something new. Unlike other Food Network personalities who leveraged their time running restaurants and writing cookbooks into TV careers, Brown wanted to make good TV first, and went to culinary school to get the tools he needed to get there.
I did not know this about Alton Brown’s life. How interesting!
Love the show.
(via reddit)