Roku Channel, in August, dropped The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Summer. The star-studded event was easily one of the best celeb specials the series produced due to the superior baking talent of the contestants who entered the famed tent.
This month, Roku Channel dropped the first ever Celebrity Halloween Special. This special easily tops Celebrity Summer as the best special produced by The Great American Baking Show team. This is in no way due to the baking talent of literally any of the contestants.
Comedians Patton Oswalt, Leslie Jones, Rachel Dratch and Adam Pally are all very forthcoming about their distinct lack of baking talent and experience. Yet, as you’d expect from these four, what they lack in culinary chops, they make up for in being hilarious. All four bring their own brand of humor to the series. Jones brings her patented genuine bombast and enthusiasm to the series, and her running joke of getting Paul Hollywood to give her a handshake is worth the price of admission. Pally, who co-starred with host Casey Wilson on the amazingly underrated ABC series Happy Endings, brings his quick-witted, self-deprecating everyman style to the tent. The show is not shy about leaning into Dratch’s Debbie Downer character, while Patton Oswalt brings his verbose, neurotic style of humor.
This buffet of comedic stylings makes for a laugh-a-minute special that is also very endearing and human, as all four really come from a place of honest amateurism when it comes to the baking, but also they’re unabashed fans of the series. This makes for a special that doesn’t feel like a competition, as it makes four people just very excited to be baking in front of Paul and Prue.
The Great American Baking Show Celebrity Halloween, like the Celebrity Summer special, does not reinvent the wheel, nor does it have to. This is just a pleasant slice of Halloween fun to put on after a stressful day, and sometimes that’s all you need on your TV.
