Where to Stream: The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell

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The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell is a different kind of cooking show. Instead of giving us folksy recipes that are easy to replicate in a home kitchen, baking guru Christine McConnell serves up impossibly complex creations that require a deft hand and profound skill. But this show is more than just a whimsically creepy baking show; it’s also a welcome throwback to the weird and wacky Jim Henson shows of the 1980s.

The name Christine McConnell is synonymous with a specifically creepy aesthetic. The artist and baker became an Instagram sensation thanks to her elaborate bakes, which lean heavily into the gothic. She’ll make edible tarantulas and cakes that riff of HR Giger’s horrific alien designs. But McConnell also takes everything to the next level. She dresses up like fairy tale characters and creates mesmerizing tableaux that blur the lines between reality and fantasy.

McConnell’s new Netflix show pays tribute to her creative spirit. The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell is a half-hour cooking show with a twist. Yes, she’s showing us how to make edible werewolves and photo-realistic chocolate/peanut butter bones, but she’s also sharing the spotlight with a motley crew of puppet friends. In many ways, McConnell isn’t the star of her show. These guys are.

Yes, there are talking puppets on The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell, and oh, they are glorious. These critters exist in their own reality where Christine is the kindly fairy tale princess who has taken them in. Rankle the Cat was an Egyptian deity resurrected from the dead and Rose the Skunk was retrieved from the garbage. Both act as a sort of “Waldorf and Statler” for the show’s proceedings. They make quips — most notably, they wonder who their mistress is talking to whenever Christine addresses the audience in her cooking lessons. However, they also kind of ease the awkwardness. McConnell is beautiful and obscenely talented, but she’s a little wooden in front of the camera. These puppets, along with werewolf friend Edgar and whatever is living in the fridge, help sell the show.

They also transform the show into a giddy throwback to the Jim Henson-style shows of my childhood. I grew up with Henson’s Fraggle Rock, and similar shows like Faerie Tale Theatre and Zoobilee Zoo. These shows had humans interact with puppets, monstrous creations, and anthropomorphic kangaroos. These shows were wild and quirky and I loved them so much. Coincidentally, Brian Henson is one of the producers of The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell. So the show was meant to build a bridge between the golden age of Henson and the cooking shows made popular on the Food Network. The end result is half baking show, half wonderland of weirdness. It’s an absolutely perfect Halloween watch.

(Oh, and for fans of the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch who are sore that we won’t be getting a snarky Salem, Christine McConnell‘s Rankle is basically a mummy version of that classic quip machine.)

Watch The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell on Netflix