History YMMV / TheNextFoodNetworkStar

*** TheBadGuyWins: Penny was featured on an episode of ''{{Chopped}} All-Stars''... and won. One can only imagine that anyone who has to work with or live with her will find her several orders of magnitude more insufferable than before. However, [[spoiler: it becomes Subverted when she lost in the second round of the finals.

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Season 7: Jyll got possibly the biggest [=CMoA=] when she finally had enough of Penny's nonsense and called her out on her bitchy behavior in front of the judges (who squirmed around awkwardly during the whole exchange), giving Penny a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech. AndTheFandomRejoiced. One of the most well-remembered lines from Jyll's verbal smackdown of Penny was when she declared "You are the most entitled person I have ever met!"

*** TheBadGuyWins: Penny was featured on an episode of ''{{Chopped}} All-Stars''... and won. One can only imagine that anyone who has to work with or live with her will find her several orders of magnitude more insufferable than before. However, [[spoiler: it becomes Subverted when she lost in the second round of the finals. [[AndtheFandomRejoiced All together now, fans.]] ]]

* TheWoobie: Alicia of Season 7.

*** It's also a bit jarring when the season has Whitney Chen and yet her ethnicity is barely mentioned, which may be because Whitney is only half Asian, and doesn't exactly look it, or if it's the accent Susie has. In the second to last episode, Giada almost went orgasmic when she talked about Susie going back to her roots. They want certain styles of cooking on their network but talk about putting people in boxes.

**** The intentional sabotage was pretty much confirmed in the reunion show where they showed a never before seen clip of her saying that she just didn't care. One wonders if this will end bringing back the last X eliminated to help out for the Iron Chef Challenge.

** The previous season, many felt that Penny was this; although her food was good, she proved pretty quickly to be such an over-the-top {{Jerkass}} that it was obvious that she wouldn't be able to ever gain fan support as a FN host. Many concluded that she was spared from elimination specifically to cause drama and drive up the ratings.

* EliminatioHoudini: Many fans view Nikki from Season 8 as this, as she has stayed in the competition despite several lackluster performances and being on the bottom more than anyone else.

** Also from S8, during the {{Chopped}} challenge, Michelle freaks out because she thinks that Giada is constantly staring at her and insinuates that she feels like Giada is somehow fixated on her; the camera then cuts to Giada, who has the most sedate, bored-looking expression ever, and appears to be just casually viewing all the contestants rather than being the creepy stalker Michelle is making her out to be. Later during the judging round, Michelle quips that Giada was freaking her out and everyone starts laughing, Giada included.

*** In Season 8, the contestants are doing a challenge where they have to present food on a runway at a fashion show. When Nikki of Team Bobby presents her pork chops and then leaves, Giada wonders aloud "Is this runway food?" Bobby retorts, "It doesn't matter," and Giada (seeming offended for some reason) shouts "Yes it ''is!!!''". Bobby again says it doesn't matter, and Giada again insists that it does. That being said, mere minutes later they were perfectly fine again and the odd moment was never mentioned again.

**** She was just as full of herself as she was on NFNS. [[spoiler: At one point, she actually suggested that Michael Symon and Marcus Samuelsson were intimidated by HER. She also made the ridiculous statement that she was going to conquer Food Network. There isn't much call for 7th place finishers on this show. Eventually, when Michael Symon was eliminated because he'd forgotten to plate some okra chips,]] Penny was ecstatic and starts crowing "The bragging rights alone! I took down an IronChef!" Uh, ''no'', Penny. You didn't. He just forgot an ingredient, so unless you somehow slipped him a drug that disoriented his memory, then ''no'', you ''didn't'' "take down an Iron Chef." In the next round, [[spoiler: however, Penny ends up being a victim of her own arrogance as usual...]]
** Oh and the best part? [[spoiler: When Penny gets eliminated because she put so much saffron that it tasted bad to the judges, and Judge Amanda Freitag delivers the decision, Penny whines to the ConfessionCam: [[{{SoreLoser}} "Who's really the saffron expert? Me, or Amanda?!"]] She then [[{{WeWillMeetAgain}} vows that this won't stop her from conquering Food Network......]]]]

** CallBack: When Penny competes on Chopped All-Stars the following year, she does the cat thing again during her introduction, this time [[{{SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou}} directly facing the camera and clawing at the audience.]]

*** TheBadGuyWins: Penny was featured on an episode of Chopped All-Stars... and won. One can only imagine that anyone who has to work with or live with her will find her several orders of magnitude more insufferable than before. However, [[spoiler: it becomes Subverted when she lost in the second round of the finals. [[AndtheFandomRejoiced All together now, fans.]] ]]

*** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena loudly belts out [[{{LargeHam}} "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO!!!"'']] while standing over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the {{Narm}} value.

** Season 6: During the IronChef challenge, Aria--pressed for time--runs through the studio shrieking "''POTATOES, POTATOES, POTATOES!!!''" (Alton Brown was left hiding his face in his hands groaning). Doubles as a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, and quite possibly as a NeverLiveItDown moment that made Aria look like a basket case who couldn't keep her cool under pressure, which is likely why she was eliminated at the end of the episode, unfortunately.
*** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena loudly belts out [[{{LargeHam}} "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO!!!''"]] while standing over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the {{Narm}} value.

*** Also from Season 6, Italian immigrant Serena is being pressured by the judges to bring her Italianness UpToEleven (much like what they did with Susie and her Mexican heritage the following season), and she's currently feeling desperate about her place in the competition. During that weeks' camera challenge, as soon as the camera starts rolling Serena loudly belts out [[{{LargeHam}} "OH SOLE ''MIIIIIIIIIIOOOOO!!!''"]] over a bowl of pasta she's prepared. It was ''hilarious'', and it ended up being featured heavily in commercials that week purely for the {{Narm}} value.

** Season 6: During the IronChef challenge, Aria--pressed for time--runs through the studio shrieking "''POTATOES, POTATOES, POTATOES!!!''" (Alton Brown was left hiding his face in his hands groaning). Doubles as a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, and quite possibly as a NeverLiveItDown moment that made Aria look like a basket case who couldn't keep her cool under pressure, which is likely why she was eliminated at the end of the episode, unfortunately.

** On the other hand, Jeffrey Saad from an earlier season could ALSO have brought Middle Eastern flavor to the network. The best part is that--unlike Penny--Jeffrey has an extremely likable and friendly personality. (He does have a show on CookingChannel now, but it's a TravelogueShow, and thus doesn't feature any of his own recipes).
*** Actually, in Jeffrey's case, it is subverted. He ''does'' have his own cooking show, albeit [[http://www.foodnetwork.com/spice-smuggler/video/index.html a webseries on foodnetwork.com]] that ran for a year. It can be argued to be a SpinOff of ''TheNextFoodNetworkStar'' because his pilot turned into a webseries.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: This one came as a bit of a shock for a lot of people, but ''Mary Beth'' from Season 7 appeared this way in the Reunion Special ClipShow. Previously cut footage revealed that when she was eliminated and Jeff was allowed to move on in the competition, Jeff moved to give her a comforting hug and Mary Beth shoved him away, growling "''No!''". Then, at the actual reunion, she declared that she wouldn't watch his show. This came as a shock to a lot of people because up till that point Mary Beth had seemed like a plucky, likeable foil against the universally-loathed Penny (who doesn't count as this trope because she was a bitch who ''never bothered'' wearing sheep's clothing). Mary Beth's sudden and last-minute [[{{TookALevelInJerkass}} transformation]] from a plucky underdog into an IceQueen seems to have annoyed a lot of people, if the online reaction is anything to go by. It also put an entirely different spin on her antagonistic relationship with Penny, and made it come off less as Penny one-sidedly going after her as mutual antagonism between two similar people.
** Or it could just be 2 people who didn't get along (Jeff and Mary Beth). Reality shows are edited in such a way that its impossible to know
*** And for all we know, perhaps Jeff did something {{Jerkass}} to ''her'' at some earlier point, but the footage was never allowed to air because whatever it was was perhaps so bad that the execs might have been afraid that it would turn viewers against Jeff, who by the time the show aired on TV would already have been declared the show's winner. Just a theory, but it's plausible. That being said, the other contestants all seemed to adore Jeff, so maybe it was Mary Beth just being angry at being cut.

** Season 6: During the IronChef challenge, Aria--pressed for time--runs through the studio shrieking "''POTATOES, POTATOES, POTATOES!!!''" (Alton Brown was left hiding his face in his hands groaning). Doubles as a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, and quite possibly as a NeverLiveItDownMoment that made Aria look like a basket case who couldn't keep her cool under pressure, which is likely why she was eliminated at the end of the episode, unfortunately.

** Oh and the best part? [[spoiler: When Penny gets eliminated because she put so much saffron that it tasted bad to the judges, and Judge Amanda Freitag delivers the decision, Penny whines to the ConfessionCam: [[{{SoreLoser}} "Who's really the saffron expert? Me, or Amanda?!"]] She then [[{{WeWillMeetAgain}} vows that this won't stop her from conquering Food Network...]]]]

** Oh and the best part? [[spoiler: When Penny gets eliminated because she put so much saffron that it tasted bad to the judges, and Judge Amanda Freitag delivers the decision, Penny whines to the ConfessionCam: [[{{SoreLoser}} "Who's really the saffron expert? Me, or Amanda?!"]] She then vows that this won't stop her.]]

** ItGotWorse: As of the mid-season, Susie decided to fully conform to the judges' stereotypical expectations, and began to play up her ethnicity to an annoying degree. This caused the judges to express complete delight, rave about how the Mexican food she prepared for them "is the embodiment of her soul", and begin gushing about how pleased with her they suddenly are, and in the second to last episode, Giada seemed almost orgasmic by the "transformation"[[hottip:*:A certain amount of this may have been projection, since Giada is an Italian-American who started out doing a show about Italian cuisine and later branched out into other cuisines after proving that she had staying power, Giada probably views the whole "let your heritage inspire your cooking" thing as a natural first step. She probably felt that if Susie was good enough to not only win the competition but good enough to last long enough on the network, that Susie would eventually be able to do the same thing. Of course, Susie ended up losing, so we'll never know whether that would have happened.]]

*** Actually, in Jeffrey's case, it is subverted. He ''does'' have his own cooking show, albeit [[http://www.foodnetwork.com/spice-smuggler/video/index.html a webseries on foodnetwork.com]] that ran for a year. It can be argued to be a {{Spin-Off}} of ''TheNextFoodNetworkStar'' because his pilot turned into a webseries.
* TheWoobie: Alicia of Season 7

*** Actually, in Jeffrey's case, it is subverted. He ''does'' have his own cooking show, albeit [[http://www.foodnetwork.com/spice-smuggler/video/index.html a webseries on foodnetwork.com]] that ran for a year. It can be argued to be a spin-off of ''TheNextFoodNetworkStar'' because his pilot turned into a webseries.