Okay, why am I crying over Tiny Chef?

The little green stop motion chef has captured my heawt.

The cooking world has been rocked to its apple core.

Last week, The Tiny Chef show announced it had been cancelled by Nickelodeon in the most gut wrenching way. I am still not okay.

If you haven’t seen THE video, omg. Listen to me. Find yourself a quiet corner and take a few deep breaths before you hit play.

You see Tiny Chef (fondly known as Cheffy) happily cleaning his set/home, when he receives a phone call from Nickelodeon (or, Mickelflodeon) to tell him the show has been cancelled.

What follows is the most exquisite display of humanity and sadness I have ever seen. The silence. The smoothing of the apron. The return to former task. The involuntary blubber and then eruption of tears.

Honestly even thinking about it now has my eyes welling. POOR CHEFFY, Mickelfloden, how could you do this?

Why am I inconsolable over stop motion?

Why do I keep watching Cheffy’s heart visibly break? Why do I feel so strongly about this, it’s made me start a Substack just to sob into the void?

I’m not a masochist. Yes, I am in my luteal phase (IYKYK), but I think this goes beyond that.

I know there are plenty of Oscar-worthy performances from real life actors that show this kind of emotion, this kind of grief. But this one has hit different.

Logically, I think it’s brilliant screenwriting, voice acting, and creativity. The people behind Tiny Chef have done a stellar job at capturing a real human experience. No doubt they had this very phone call, and then chose to convey the news to their millions of followers the same way they received it. Leaving the collective hearts of the internet shattered to tiny smithereens.

But they intelligently insert some FAQs in there too, maybe to show us they are just as dumfounded. “But, we won an Emmy?”. Good god, make it stop.

I think there is something to be said for personification, too.

As someone who squeals as the sight of anything miniature, I’m not that shocked by the level of upset I feel over this. It’s completely on brand (she’s an empath).

But I can’t help think about how it’s so easy to give meaning and life to inanimate objects. Put goggly eyes on a rock, and I am a wreck.

It reminds me of Jeff Winger's classic first monologue in episode one of Community: his claim that people can connect with anything, and find the good in just about everything.

And Cheffy is only good things! He is joyous, he sings, he dances, he cooks for his friends, and he wants to connect with you. And now I’m crying again.

It’s also just a bit sad.

It’s sad to think something (or someone) that brings joy to so many, can still be stopped in its tracks with no control. The pros will say that’s showbiz, baby. But it’s also just life. Whether your creative project has been denied, you missed out on a big opportunity, or you have been made redundant — we’ve all felt the sucker punch of disappointment. And seeing that play out from a loveable green guy…well, it just hurts.

As the kids say, let him cook!

This can’t be the end though! There is too much heart, and too much creativity from the masterminds behind The Tiny Chef Show for the lights to go out completely.

The show’s animators and creators Rachel Larsen, Ozlem ‘Ozi’ Akturk, and Adam Reid have been fiercely promoting the Tiny Chef Fan Cwub, where you can sign up to keep informed on Cheffy’s next moves, and pay a small fee to support him in finding a new home for the cooking show.

At this stage, it looks like they’re aiming to move to YouTube, with the goal of monetisation. But surely any streaming service would be insane to not pick them up.

And if you’re wondering — yes, I have subscribed to the Fan Cwub, and you can too.

Stop motion really is the antidote to our AI-warped brains right now.

Stop motion is one of the most painstakingly slow and considered art forms. Every minor change or tweak of a character has to be created one frame at a time by real people. It’s the TV show equivalent of carving a wooden chair by hand.

Which is why it’s so cool to see the outpouring of love for Tiny Chef and its creators. It’s not something that can be replicated by a machine. You need patience, and you need heart in order to create it, and that emanates through all of The Tiny Chef’s content.

Long live Tiny Chef! And long live the little pockets of joy we can find in this messed up world right now.

This is my first ever Substack for My Weekly Empire.

I’ve been wanting to start a Substack for a while, and this felt like the perfect time to bring it into existence.

My Weekly Empire is my place to tell you what I’m hyper fixating on for the week, and what is taking up the most real estate in my brain. I’d been putting off starting this for ages, thinking I didn’t have enough to say, or not enough people will read it. But really, it’s just as much for me as it is for you.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! And hopefully see you again soon xx

---