It’s a recipe famed television chef Julia Child never imagined: Start with a base of 100 million viewers watching people play video games, mix in a marathon of 50-year-old television episodes, and wait for gaming-cooking mashups to rise.
Twitch, an Amazon site best known for live streams of people playing video games, will broadcast a four-day marathon of Child’s pioneering 1960s-era “The French Chef” cooking program as the kickoff for its own food channel.
The stunt follows Twitch’s weeklong stream of painting instruction episodes by fellow PBS icon, Bob Ross. That October marathon of Ross’ sedate guidance for creating canvases packed with “happy little trees” was hit within Twitch’s community and introduced the site to viewers who might otherwise be baffled by the concept of watching other people play video games.