Hot Ones is an American television & web series that is all about watching celebrities try out the hottest of chicken wings. Featuring your favorite faces as guests and the charismatic personality of Sean Evans as the host, it spans over 16 seasons and 227 episodes filled with ‘hot questions, and even hotter wings’. The show is a combination between juicy questions, burning mouths, humour and very well thought out production.

Dreamed up by hot sauce enthusiasts, it first aired in March of 2015 with Tony Yayo being the first guest to be treated to some unbearably spicy wings. From then on, they’ve pumped out episode after episode of the series, while it kept gaining massive traction.

Because with every episode they get to have a famous person as guest, the show’s popularity skyrocketed. With one celebrity coming onto the show, several others wanted to get in on the trend as a result.

However, most people underestimate how hard it is to produce. Not only have they got to hunt down someone who’s popular and research them and what they’re going to be asked, but also source different exotic hot sauces from all over the world, while also planning twists and bits at the same time to keep it fresh.

Hot Ones is one of the most popular web series to ever exist, and has been given several awards during its time on air, including Pop Culture & Non-Fiction Series Streamy Awards and a Best Web Series Shorty Award, along with several nominations.

As with every viral content, the show has made a clear impact on Internet culture, originating a community obsessed with both hot sauce and Sean Evans, and setting the bar for future entertainment.

Premise about Hot Ones

Every chapter, the guest and the host sit at a table and are presented with ten chicken wings, each one prepared with increasingly hot sauces. The guest’s challenge is to eat all ten of them, one by one, to be regarded as the winner.

While eating the chicken wings, the guests will be subjected to a series of questions by Sean Evans, one per wing eaten.

As the chicken wings get more and more spicy, it becomes increasingly more difficult for the guests to focus on the interview as their mouths burn with thousands upon thousands of Scoville units, making for an exceptionally entertaining formula.

If the guest fails to chow down on the ten wings, they lose the game and are put in the infamous “Hall of Shame”, along with every other guest that just couldn’t bring themselves to finish off the deal – such as the very first guest, Tony Yayo.

Here’s a list of guests in the Hall of Shame:

• Tony Yayo
• DJ Khaled
• Eddie Huang (first appearance)
• Mike Epps
• Jim Gaffigan
• Rob Corddry
• Ricky Gervais
• Mario Batali
• Taraji P. Henson
• Lil Yachty
• E-40
• Shaquille O’Neal
• Chance the Rapper
• Eric André (second appearance)
• Quavo

Host

Sean Evans is the host of the show, and he is almost bizarrely good at it. Evans, no matter what’s happening, always has something to say, and has won the love of many thanks to his innovative and often surprising bits. He has proven to be one of the most talented and entertaining interviewers that many have ever seen.

Everyone is always amazed at how Evans can perfectly utter words and make articulate questions while all that can be heard from the guest is just indiscriminate babbling and stammering.

And the way this all adds to the show is very clear: some people might not know a guest, or may not like them or their personalities. However, Sean is here to save the day, making every episode enjoyable, original and entertaining regardless of who’s sitting in front of him.

He’s one of those interviewers that makes themselves be seen. One of those interviewers that makes interviews not only about the interviewee, but also about themselves, and which without their personality, the interviews would never be the same.

This is thanks to his broad experience as an interviewer. Plus, he’s also very talented at eating up flaming hot wings!

Hot sauces

The hot sauces that guests try out can come from all over the world, and they feature an impressive range of spiciness – the Scoville scale measures said spiciness, which can go from as low as 450 to as high as 2 million as the minimum and maximum number of Scoville units that’ve been recorded in the show, respectively.

At the end of the challenge, right on the final round, guests are given the option of adding a tiny bit of their infamous sauce made specifically for Hot Ones named “The Last Dab”, in case they’re feeling confident, or masochistic.

“The Last Dab”, to be clear, is by far the spiciest sauce on play in any episode, boasting about 2 million Scoville units. For comparison, the spiciest pepper ever recorded has 2.48 million Scoville units, followed by the second place with 2.2 million units.

Luckily, the guests have glasses of milk and water that are available to them to help ease the effects of the wings after each round.

Here’s a list of all the sauces that have been featured in the show in each season. In Caribbean Trading, we can offer you a wide variety of hot sauces from all over the globe at the reach of your fingertips – whether it’s for a challenge along with friends, an everyday condiment, or just to tickle your itch for a little bit of spiciness in your life.