Epic Meal Time

"Online cooking show! Got the magnum of Jack Daniels, about to change the game! What'you know about cooking? Breakfast! Wake up -- WAKE THE (caw!) UP!"
—Harley Morenstein, host, in Breakfast of Booze.
"So many chunks of bacon!"
—Muscles Glasses, in Maximum Protein Experience.

So a Montreal high school substitute teacher and his friends decided one day to put a ton of fast food items onto a pizza shell, cover that in cheese and cook it. Then, surprisingly, it got hits. Now, they've turned their gluttony into a weekly series devoted to the most high-calorie and fattening dishes imaginable: Epic Meal Time. The show started in October 2010 and is still ongoing, with new episodes every Tuesday.

With the audacity to call themselves an "online cooking show", the first efforts soon expanded into meat sculptures, questionable uses of bacon, "meat glue", bacon and five birds in a pig - and bacon.

Their YouTube channel is at EpicMealTime. They have made an appearance on Jay Leno, where they made a shepherd's pie that was also a car.

Tropes used in Epic Meal Time include:

Harley: "Next time, we eat a cult. ... *hic!*"

  • All There in the Manual - The (nick)names of most of the cast are only seen on their respective Facebook/Twitter pages:
    • Sterling Toth, the cameraman (was with Harley on Leno).
    • Tyler Lemco, who ate the "Meatball Deathstar".
    • David "Cousin Dave" Heuff, who ate the "Epic Eggroll". Tends to eat with utensils.
    • Josh "Epic Mook" Elkin, who tossed the meat salad.
    • Ameer "Prince Atari" Atari, who ate the second "Meat Car".
      • You had to go to That Other Wiki to learn Muscles Glasses' real name: Alex Perrault.
  • And a Diet Coke - During Harley and Sterling's appearance on The Jay Leno Show, they and Jay make a shepherd's pie together, during which Jay says, "You know what goes good with this? A Diet Coke."
  • Anyone Can Die - Muscles Glasses

Harley: "And, uh, we got some glasses...as a little commemoration to, uh, one of our lost members. He is dead now. No joke, he's actually dead."

"Your drink will be?" "Fresca."

Harley: "Four-cheese ravioli, Chef Boyardee Ravioli in ravioli, trifecta-liqour-meat sauce, cheesy-meat jolly balls and four of the hungriest mother(caw!)s that ever ate on the internet!"

  • Big No - One of the crew in the background at the end of "The Sloppy Roethlisburger", when Harley accidentally slams and cracks the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels.
  • Bilingual Bonus - The text on the title card of "Fast Food Sushi".[1]
    • In "Epic Indian Experience", the waiter translates Harley's description of the dishes.
  • Non Sequitur Episode - "Drunken Mess", where the cast just bombs around Montreal partying it up and hanging out with random people.
  • Blatant Lies - In "Bacon Bacon Truck", a girl "swears she's 21" before a group does some prison shots. After Harley (wisely) cards her, she leaves.
  • Breakout Character - Muscles Glasses. As if it wasn't apparent in the videos, he's the only cast member in "EpicMealTime LIVE" to receive his own introduction sequence.
  • Call Back - "Maximum Mac and Cheese" featured macaroni and cheese variants of no less than five previous dishes.
  • Canada, Eh? - Muscles Glasses' dad is a lumberjack for crying out loud.
    • Mistaken Nationality - More than a few first time viewers assume the cast are American. No guesses as to why.
  • Catch Phrase - "What'you know about x?!"
    • "Next time, we eat x".
    • "Next level x maneuver/technique!"
    • "x? That's (caw!)ing SMART!"
    • "Ah, what up, x?!"
    • "Drip-drop drippin'!"
    • "You wanna (caw!) this or what?!"
    • "Fingering/Fisting those chicks [eggs]."
    • "...and then you put it in the oven, and then you win!"
    • "YouTube money!"
    • More recently: "Epic Meal Time online cooking show every Tuesday!" (said by Harley to start each episode, once the gang is in the kitchen).
  • Chainsaw Good - Harley uses one in "Meatball Deathstar":

Harley: EVERY TUESDAY: EPIC MEAL TIME! Comin' at you with a chainsaw and a big pile o'meat! If you ain't down with that...THEN YOU AIN'T DOWN WITH COOKING!!!

Harley: "When I say "Muscles", you say "Glasses! MUSCLES!!"
Crowd: "GLASSES!!!"
Harley: "MUSCLES!!!"
Crowd: "GLASSES!!!"

  • Cultured Badass - Yes, Harley may spend most of his time hamming up new dinners in every possible sense of the word, but he also knows, on a scientific level, exactly why he does what he does with food, and exactly why that makes it taste better: humans are programmed by evolution to like fatty foods.
    • From "Puzzle Of The Lambs":

"Cerberus, the tri-head that guards the underworld."

Harley: "Taco night is when we lay some beef in a pink taco...drip some guacamole...make her sour cream..."

Harley: "...we're gonna give your sweet tooth a sexual root canal."

Harley: "Canucks love their Kraft Mac & Cheese...and bacon, and igloos, and maple and beavers. (Snicker) Maple beavers..."

Harley: "Next time, we eat a cat burglar...or a pussy thief."

    • Played straight at first in "Meatzza", but then subverted at the last second:

Harley: "SA-OOOSAGES! Some are big, some are small. All of them are nice and juicy...not to sound gay or anything..."

  • Drink Order - Jack Daniels, mother(caw!)!!
  • Drugs Are Bad - In "Sausage Fest", while making eggs, Harley states they're "Crackin' eggs like we crack smoke." He then suggests "Smoke crack?", but immediately answers "No, that's bad."
  • Early Installment Weirdness - "Fast Food Pizza" sees Harley not nearly as hammy (or rehearsed); it's just him and Muscles Glasses (who doesn't even keep his signature shades on most of the time and actually talked) eating a pizza loaded with hamburgers, chicken wings, fries, etc.

Harley: "Gosh, we used to be so damn polite. But the bacon made us crazy!! And by crazy, I mean smart!!"

  • Erotic Eating - Played straight with the "Massive Meat Log".
  • Even Gluttony Has Standards - In "The Ostrich Nest", Harley gives a saddened, gloomy expression due to the elephant birds of Madagascar being extinct.
    • Pragmatic Gluttony - Or perhaps he was simply disappointed that he couldn't eat an elephant bird egg because they're extinct?
      • Or perhaps he gave it because he IS the reason they went extinct.
  • Everything Is Better Deep Fried - Especially in beer batter.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies/Zombie Apocalypse - Whichever trope "Zombie Meal Time" falls under depends on how you look at it: within the context of the episode, it appears to be the latter full-blown. However, when taking this episode in the context of the whole series, it's merely an example of the former.
  • Five-Man Band
    • The Hero - Harley, who invented and hosts the show.
    • The Lancer - Sterling, who, although is seen rarely in episodes, is not just the cameraman, but the video editor.
    • The Big Guy - Muscles Glasses and Epic Mook, who does most of the cooking.
    • The Smart Guy - Tyler, who does the fat and calorie counter, and Cousin Dave, who eats like a gentleman.
    • Kid Appeal Character - Prince Atari, who makes faces and funny noises.
  • Flat What - The usual response from fast-food outlets from whom they order in bulk in the drive-thru. There's no way that listening to their confusion wouldn't be the best bit of doing Epic Meal Time.
  • Food Porn - But not the kind of soft, loving and tender porn you're used to. No, this is the manly, bacon-filled, made-of-meat food porn...for you perverts out there.
    • Note that one of the men is a trained chef. Think about that for a while.
  • Friend to All Children - Harley, who draws the line at dead baby jokes and gives apple pie to kids.
  • Funny Background Event - During Peanut Butter and Jelly Archetype, there's a sequence where Harley shows all of the food they've made for the episode, complete with calories counters. While he's doing this, Muscles Glasses is standing right next to him, eating from a jar of Nutella in his pocket with a mixing spoon.
  • Genre Savvy - In "84 Egg Sandwich", Harley goes and orders close to 100 breakfast sandwiches from McDonald's. The employee manning the drive-thru station (correctly) guesses it's for an Epic Meal Time project.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar - In "The Ostrich Nest":

Harley: "We got a whole bowl of ostrich eggs! On Epic Meal Time, we fist our ostrich eggs! (Camera pans to a bowl full of ostrich egg yolks) Look at me fist those chicks! (Harley literally dunks his fist to beat the egg yolks) Yeah, I'm fisting chicks...on the Internet...on Youtube."

FPSRussia: "Okay, this is the MP5K. "K" stands for "Kompact" in German, don't give me bullshit: I know what the gun is."

    • Everyone Is Armed - Played with: Muscles Glasses makes mashed potatoes while holding a submachine gun.
    • Pistol-Whipping - Harley, Muscles Glasses and FPSRussia take turns tenderizing meat, the latter using a Desert Eagle to do it.
    • Spent Shells Shower - Sort of: FPSRussia dribbles bullets out of his mouth at the end.
    • Swiss Army Gun - Harley uses a rifle + bayonet as a skewer for around half a dozen hamburgers.
    • Trigger Happy - Invoked by FPSRussia during the shooting range segment against users of this trope. Harley starts to turn guilty when a Desert Eagle wounds up in his hand, but slightly subverted when he asks FPSRussia if it's alright to pull the trigger after the latter inspects the gun first.
    • Wall of Weapons - At the gun store
  • Hilarious Outtakes - Two videos out outtakes so far, but one was included as a stinger:

Harley: Changin' the game!
(Harley slaps down a bottle of Jack Daniels...which is accompanied by a crack.)
Off-camera voice: (as booze starts leaking) OHHH!
(Harley picks up the bottle, just as the bottom of the bottle falls out.)
Harley: Oh (caw!)...
Off-camera voice: NOOOOO!

Harley: "I've been sippin' on that green and smokin' that liquor all day."

Harley: "We all know that no one wants to see a douchebag eat a corndog, so we brought a little girl in for all you perverts!"

Harley: "Some say we're the spawns of evil, meat-demon cyborgs. Well, we're not: we've got mother(caw!)ing moms...that are the spawns of evil, meat-demon cyborgs!"

  • Neck Lift - Muscles Glasses to two thieving thugs in "Fast Food Meatloaf".
  • Non Sequitur
    • "SUSHI! FAST FOOD! SEX!"
    • "WE 'BOUT TO GET DRUNK OFF PANCAKES!!!"
    • "We're about to die for this. What'you know about dyin'?"
    • "What up, meat sauce?"
  • Once an Episode - "Next time, we eat x!" where x is something outlandish or impossible to eat.
    • Subverted in "The Slaughterhouse": "Next time, we eat dessert!" Sure enough, the following week was "The Black Legend": two girls eating a gigantic crepe.
    • Also subverted in "Epic H'our D'oeuvres":

"Next time we eat bacon. Mweheheh."

    • Yet another subversion for "Sausage Fest":

"Next time, we eat ice cream." (Cue all the girls cheering)

    • In "12 Gauge Hot Dog", Harley says "Next time, we eat blood!" and in the next video, "Zombie Meal Time", Muscles Glasses takes a shot of Jack Daniels and blood.
    • Averted in the first video, which ends with Muscles Glasses (sans glasses) raising his arms in the air triumphantly after eating.
    • At the end of French Fry Salad:

"Next time, we eat sell outs. Next time, we eat while selling out... Netflix.com/bacon."

    • Subverted in "Candy Sushi":

"Next time, we eat. We have to, or we'll die."

  • The Other Darrin - Played with: in "Maximum Protein Experience", Muscles Glasses is replaced with someone having a similar body build and trademark sunglasses. When Epic Mook notices Muscles Glasses working out at the gym where they're filming at, Harley tells the extra they don't need him anymore.
    • Played with again in "Epic Stockyard Burger": Harley's absent to do the video intro, so Tyler fills in for him...until Harley walks out from the store and tells Tyler to go out, buy lunch and do his proper job.
    • In "Meat Mummy", Muscles Glasses wears a costume that turns him into... a random black guy. The rest of the guys (sans Harvey/"Beard Lightyear" and Cousin Dave as "Tony Hawk") wind up dressing up as Muscles Glasses.
  • Out of Focus: Muscles Glasses drops out of sight for several episodes (March–May 2012). Harley and the gang mention him in passing, and he is briefly seen hitchhiking along a back road. They offer up a sacrifice to prepare for his return ("Fastfood Sacrifice"), then cook him a bacon-stuffed cheeseburger after he shows up and helps them defeat a gang of vegan zombies ("Zombie Vegan Attack!"/"Boss Bacon Burger").
  • Overly Long Gag - Bacon in general.
  • Playing to The Fetishes - You like to watch girls eating? You do now. Straight female vorehounds? This is your mecca.
  • Precision F-Strike - In "Spam Fries Four Loko", Cousin Dave shouts one out when someone tells him there's an automatic can opener after he finishes opening a couple of canned goods with a manual can opener.
  • Rated "M" for Manly/Testosterone Poisoning - Debatable on which trope the show really follows; regardless, both come along with clogged arteries.
  • Real Men Eat Meat
    • Subverted for Fan Service instead in "Massive Meat Log".
    • Invoked in "Sugar Shack" by Muscles Glasses' lumberjack father.
    • Totally averted with "Candy BBQ" and "Candy Poutine".

Harley: "Well I guess you can say that this is the "no-meat" episode...but don't you (caw!)ing say it."

Harley: "And we got these custom sauces, 'cause I'm the 'Doctor of Dressing', aka the 'Pharaoh of Flavour', aka the 'Minister of Mixture', aka the 'Connoisseur of Condiments', aka the 'Don of the Drippin', aka the 'Jeff Goldblum of the Internet', aka... [dramatic zoom on the sauces] ...the Sauce Boss.

Harley: "Oh, you wanna change the game? Well, if you wanna change the game, you gotta stay ahead of it! And how do you do that? You eat a well-balanced breakfast of eggs, bacon, sandwiches and liquor! Rise and shine, you tired-ass mother(caw!)s."

Harley: "If you don't marinate your meat in a Ziploc bag, you think too highly of yourselves."

  • Serial Escalation - It started with a dish that anyone could make, then other culinary mashups. As more episodes rolled in, the dishes involved long and complex preparation methods, vegetables and require an entire dinner table of people to finish.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man - The whole cast in "The Gentleman's Episode".
  • Sound Effect Bleep - Nearly every curse word is censored via a crow's call. At least one instance of the word "vegetables" was censored, too.
    • If you listen carefully in certain episodes, they do forget to edit out some curse words.
    • Averted in the first half of "EpicMealTime LIVE".
  • Standard Hero Reward - Parodied in "Fast Food Meatloaf":

Lights: "Holy crap, my burgers! How can I ever repay you?"
Harley: "I dunno...maybe (caw!)ing share with us, you greedy bitches?"

Harley: "Muscles Glasses has a detachable penis, that also happens to be a combat knife."

  • Take That - "What you doin'? Hatin'? STOP HATIN'!!! BLEND YOUR OWN BACON!!!"
    • "Meat Salad". Seriously, just listen to some of Harley's dialogue in the video:

"What'you know about health? "Salad"? (caw!) SALAD!!!"
"Epic Meal Time showing you how to make a real salad! (caw!) your lettuce!"
"Oh, you didn't know? Carrots are for ugly people!"

    • They gave a very scathing F-U on their Facebook page to the people who were hating on "Drunken Mess".
    • A vegetarian of 4 years was pressured into eating a bacon strip in "Bacon Bacon Truck".
  • Tastes Like Crazy Alcohol Rainbow Pig
  • Trademark Favorite Food - Bacon, though Harley has a soft spot for macaroni and cheese. To a slightly lesser extent, Jack Daniels Whiskey.
  • The Stoic - Aside from "Sugar Shack," Muscles Glasses will get in maybe two lines of dialogue during a couple episodes; most of the time he'll remain quite and/or communicate with strong glares at the camera.
  • Troll - Although the guys may band together to create an epic meal, there are certain times when one of them can't help but either insult, snark or outright jinx each other. In "The Ostrich Nest", for example, when Epic Mook starts dicing up some onions:

Cousin Dave: "One of these days, I'm going to witness you lose a finger."
Epic Mook: "Why?"
Cousin Dave: "It's just going to happen."
Epic Mook: "I'm very careful with this."
Cousin Dave: "I know you are...but it'll happen."
(Beat)
Epic Mook: "...Don't be a prick."

  • Unintentional Innuendo - In "Chili Four Loko", after Cousin Dave opens a fresh bag of potato chips and takes a whiff of it, Harley's narration goes on to say "Love the smell of a fresh sack".
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight - Muscles Glasses snapping two thieves' necks isn't given anything more than a simple "Yup, he's doing it again..." from Tyler.
  • Up to Eleven - Their holiday specials, the "TurBaconEpic Thanksgiving" and "The Slaughterhouse".
    • "The Sloppy Big Ben Roethlisberger" was so large and beyond sane even Harley began to sputter as he was getting psyched to make it.
    • The "Turbaconepicentipede" took the "TurBacon Epic Thanksgiving" and multiplied it by ten. They didn't just break the previous calorie count the Roethlisberger had: they destroyed it at more than 800,000 calories.
  • Verbal Tic - "Sauce" is (nowadays) always pronounced "SA-OOOS"
    • As "Sausage" is pronounced "SA-OOOSAGE"
  • "Jack Daniels'" is now "Jack Dagnels"
  • Wham! Line - From "Fast Food Pizza Cake":

Harley: "We'll have a hundred and fifty."

  1. ↑ "ファストフードのお寿司ぶっかけ", which roughly translates to "Fast food no sushi bukkake"
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