Can you take the heat? Standout episodes
Crystal Lake native Sean Evans has found success, stardom with hot wings
When Sean Evans was a journalism student at the University of Illinois, a professor told him he should be a weatherman.
Instead, the Crystal Lake native now hosts a celebrity interview show on YouTube called “Hot Ones,” a show where he chats up celebrities while eating crazy hot chicken wings. He’s put everyone from the Jonas Brothers and Neil deGrasse Tyson to Trevor
Noah and T-Pain in the Hot Seat.
He also has a spin-off game show (“Hot Ones: The Game Show”) on TruTV which is in its second season. Now a celebrity himself, he has appeared on “Good Morning America,” “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Evans, 34, grew up in Crystal Lake, the son of Michael and Donna Evans. A 2004 graduate of Crystal Lake Central High School, he played football and baseball — and was part of a baseball team that went to the state finals. He majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, and on a Reddit post he revealed that one of his professors told him he’d make a good weatherman.
After graduation, he got a job as a copywriter in Chicago, but it wasn’t long before he traded the Windy City for the Big Apple when he accepted a position at Complex Magazine in New York City. That’s where he met Chris Schonberger, the general manager and executive producer of the Complex Networks’
YouTube channel First We Feast. It was Schonberger who had the idea for “Hot Ones.”
“He was like, ‘Hey, what do you think about eating scorching hot chicken wings with celebrities and have them eat increasingly spicy chicken wings over the course of the interview,’” Evans said.
“The way it hit my ear was so funny that I was like, ‘all right, let’s do it.’ It started out as this dumb idea between me and Chris and has since blossomed into this shooting star in the constellation of pop culture that’s now 12 seasons, a couple hundred episodes and a game show on TV sort of thing. But we did not have those aspirations when we started it, that’s for sure.”
As someone who grew up influenced by interviewers like Howard Stern and David Letterman, the concept was right up his alley.
In the beginning, it was a hard sell getting celebrities to give up two-plus hours of their time to subject themselves to eating some of the hottest chicken wings known to mankind.
But when people saw the show and saw the in-depth, thoroughly researched interviews by the affable Evans, they wanted in.
“There’s this hot wing aspect, but it’s also what we hope is a thoughtful and careerspanning interview and that’s how I think we get the show,” he said. “They’re actually engaged in the interview so they’re willing to put up with this goofiness because they’re actually sort of enjoying it. It’s torture, it’s uncomfortable, but in the end, it brings people closer together.”
Schonberger, Evans and his little brother, Gavin Evans, take about a week to research the celebrity guest. They pool their notes and come up with 10 topics.
“We’ll have a thesis question for each wing and four or five follow-ups. That way each wing is like its own self-contained video,” he said. “To ask somebody to sit down and watch 30 minutes’ worth of an internet video — on the internet, that’s an eternity. What we want to do is make sure we go deep enough on a topic but not so deep that … people are checking their phones.”
The sauce gets increasingly spicier with each wing and the guests usually have a pretty visceral reaction.
“We always think of celebrities as having this unobtainable lifestyle, this aspirational thing,” he said. “What we’ve figured out with the hot sauce is it takes these people and knocks them down to a level everyone understands, which is dying on hot sauce.”
Although he could make an argument for every episode being his favorite, there are a few that stand out for him.
“The thing I always say is if you’re not sure if you’ll like the show or not, check out the Gordon Ramsay episode, check out the Paul Rudd episode, check out the Shia LaBeouf episode, or Halle Berry or Charlize Theron,” he said. “If you like those episodes, then you’ll like the show.”
He had several episodes of “Hot Ones” completed when the pandemic hit. When it became clear things weren’t going back to normal anytime soon, Evans began making
“Hot Ones” from home. Although the process hasn’t been easy, it has been worthwhile, he said.
“In these times when everyone is so socially and emotionally and physically isolated, I think the show means more to people right now,” he said. “I see it in the comments and tweets that I get. I never really see entertainment as a noble pursuit necessarily, but people really want a sense of normalcy, even if it’s being delivered to them in a ‘Hot Ones’ episode.
“It’s a thing people can escape with for a little while. I’ve always prided myself on being a show that can provide that kind of escape for people because that’s what TV did for me when I was growing up.”
Then there’s “Hot Ones: The Game Show.” In each half-hour episode, teams enter the “Pepperdome” and compete against each another by answering trivia questions and eating ulcer-inducing spicy hot wings for a chance to win $25,000. Season 2 recently premiered on TruTV.
“It’s more spicy wings, more interesting characters, more teams fighting it out for a chance at $25,000 but perhaps more importantly, the two icy cold milkshakes at the end,” he said.
The show is extreme. It’s fast-paced and hinges on the misery of the contestants.
“We can’t have people enjoying the wings — the viewer won’t make it to the first commercial break,” Evans said. “We come out of the gates really, really hot. The kind of spice that sort of permeates the air and singes your nostrils and it only goes up from there through the three rounds. And of course, the Ring of Fire where there’s an actual shot of hot sauce. It is a crazy, crazy thing.”
It should be noted that in “Hot Ones,” Evans eats the wings along with his guests. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s become a hot sauce connoisseur.
“I wasn’t a guy who sought out the spiciest things before the show. I like hot sauce but it wasn’t a thing that was front of mind,” he said. “When we did the show, I didn’t have an amazing spice tolerance. I had to just pick it up.
“But in doing the show, I’ve been exposed to so many different hot sauce makers and pepper growers. The subculture of hot sauce is so fascinating and unique. Every season we’re working with new makers and new sauces and new labels and that’s exposed me to a lot and showed me some of the ways hot sauce can elevate and transform cuisine.”
His friends and family still live in the area and he tries to make it home as much as possible — he threw out a first pitch at Wrigley Field last year.
“I want to retire in Chicago. Chicago is home to me and I love it so much and miss it more than anything,” he said. “Right now, I just feel like a person cranking doorknobs and whatever doors open I just try to seize it and take advantage of every opportunity and that’s how I’ve gotten to where I’ve gotten.
“But Chicago is home to me and that’s the thing in my life that I think is missing — I haven’t gotten to spend enough time in Chicago.”