Don't forget that Hans frickin' Zimmer composed the main theme.

... yes, it was from Backdraft, I know.

Ain't my channel. I just Googled for the following and found it:

>"Battle $THEME" +"Iron Chef Japan"

I'm just going to leave this here.

Cough cough.

I still have AVI rips of about 150 or so of the original US airings on Food Network on one of my servers at home. I can't count the number of times I've watched Battle Strawberry, Battle Lobster (both regular and homard), Battle Water, and many many more.

Back in the day, I had a capture card, a decent encoding rig, disk space, and Time Warner Cable. Good times.

AND MASAHIKO KOBE IS IRON CHEF ITALIAN

... he died of a fall in his kitchen when he was 49. Damn shame.

He, Michiba, and Sakai will always be my Iron Chefs.

Allez cuisine, you magnificent Sichuan master, you.

Yup, fuck that noise.

I've got a standing order and a signed and witnessed letter in my safe deposit box stating that if my mind ever goes and it definitely isn't coming back, the bearer of the letter has permission to off me so long as it's done in a particularly humorous or ironic way so's to get the media's attention.

I've seen what dementia does, and fuck that noise. That's no way to live.

Yep. Thanatophobia is a motherfucker to them, and they're terrified of the concept that their existence won't matter to anything or anyone in the end, hence why they come up with increasingly crazy and desperate theological ideas (like the Quiverfull movement) in order to see if they can feel like they left a lasting mark on the world.

Jon Stewart and the Daily Show ripped them a new one in an amazing segment called "Dead-Eye Dick."

I miss him.

Let's be honest.

We grew up with them, and no matter how shitty the people in our lives were, we always had these individuals as beacons of how we should act.

Now that we have the chance to be like them, we should - not just because they're aging, retiring, and dying, but because it's the right thing to do.