Aarcflick

Stars: Antoni Porowski, Haley Herridge, Kristen Kish Reality television is not immune to Hollywood's penchant for resurrecting old brands and repurposing intellectual property. In their desperation to make their way through the clutter of hundreds of TV shows and the most engaging distractions of TikTok, they scratch at anything that might be recognizable. But with its new Easy-Bake Battle cooking competition, Netflix has done a very smart thing: It used the IP and then ignored it. When I tuned in to Netflix's new Easy-Bake Battle cooking competition, I was expecting a battle with Easy-Bake Ovens, the 1960s toy oven with a light bulb for heating, and here was my mistake. I missed the fact that the word "oven" wasn't actually in the title, and that Netflix's press release simply said that the show was "inspired by Hasbro's iconic Easy-Bake Oven." Yet that iconic oven, or at least its most recent incarnation, along with Easy-Bake mix boxes, are the...