Web Video / Food Battle

Food Battle is a web series from Smosh. Originally a standalone sketch released in 2006, it returned a year later due to popular demand, and then turned into an annual series.

The series consists of Smosh creators Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox holding a mock competition to see how their favorite foods could accomplish household tasks. Anthony chooses a different food each episode, while Ian always chooses the pink frosted sprinkled donut.

An episode of Food Battle was released each year from 2006 to 2016, with the last annual episode coming out six months before Anthony's departure from Smosh in 2017. However, with his return to Smosh in 2023, it was officially announced that Food Battle was back on, with the year's installment releasing on November 17.

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Food Battle has examples of:

• Amusing Injuries: Both Ian and Anthony are subject to this but their injuries disappear when performing the next challenge.
• An Arm and a Leg: In Food Battle 2008, Anthony temporarily loses his left arm.
• Angrish: A throwaway line by Ian in the Food Battle 2009 bloopers. "I talk gibberish when I'm angry!"
• Ass Shove: One of the challenges in Food Battle 2014 is "anal suppository". Ian ends up shoving Anthony's rock candy up his ass. Thankfully it cuts away before we actually see anything gross, but afterward we do see Ian and Anthony looking rather uncomfortable and scarred.
• Armor-Piercing Question: "Do you...still even wanna do Food Battle?"
• Back from the Dead: Name dropped at the beginning of each Food Battle by whoever came back to life.
• Bait-and-Switch: A commonly used source of humor for the challenges.
• Banana Peel: Food Battle 2008. Anthony dies when he slips on one and is impaled by his churro.
• Berserk Button: Insulting Toy Story around Anthony.
• Blatant Lies: "Yep, this definitely doesn't hurt at all."
• Brain Bleach: Food Battle 2014. One challenge involves a "hacking device". Anthony then misinterprets it as using his rock candy as a cutting tool, all the while Ian uses his pink frosted sprinkled donut to hack into a computer... finding naked pictures of Anthony and thus pouring bleach on his face.
• Big "NO!": Ian's response to getting a Blue Screen of Death when trying to play Super Donut 64 in Food Battle 2009. In fact Ian has done this over 3 times in food battle...each more extreme than the last:
  • 2006, when the food battle announcer asks if he can come to Disneyland with Ian.
  • 2008, where it seems Ian wanted the food battle announcer guy to come to a party by Ian, but when he asks "really?" Ian gets up on the screen, gritting his teeth as he yells "NO!"
  • Even more that it comes as a parody of Extreme Close-Up, Ian screams it when he's tired of the announcer asking him if the paint is dry yet back in 2009.
    • More hilariously, when Anthony asks the announcer to come and play with Pogs, the announcer screams "No!" for some reason.
  • Anthony does this combined with a Skyward Scream in Food Battle 2011 after the announcer dies just before he can announce that he won, which is the only way to officially win Food Battle, thus forfeiting his victory to Ian.
• Big "YES!": Food Battle 2009. Anthony's response to Ian's idea to mind control hot girls into making out with them.
• Book Ends: Food Battle 2008. Begins and ends with somebody badmouthing Toy Story.
  • Food Battle 2009 begins and ends with Ian incorrectly assuming that Anthony is a zombie.
• Call-Back: After winning Food Battle 2007 Anthony said he would watch Toy Story. In the beginning of next year's Food Battle that is exactly what he's doing.
  • Food Battle 2010 begins with Ian using donuts to reenact the end of Food Battle 2006.
  • In Food Battle 2011, Anthony ends up time-travelling back into Ian's part of the "girlfriend or boyfriend" challenge from Food Battle 2006.
• Cargo Ship: One of the In-Universe challenges in Food Battle 2006 asks if their favorite food can be a girlfriend or boyfriend, in which Ian succeeds by making out with his pink frosted sprinkled donut and then proceeding to have (off-camera) intercourse with the donut hole. Anthony then forfeits the challenge out of Squick.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Zig-Zagged. Cheating usually helps with winning challenges but sometimes does backfire.
• Compliment Backfire: Food Battle 2009. Ian congratulates Teleporting Fat Guy on his marriage after he learned about the Unsettling Gender-Reveal. He still reappears to challenge Ian for killing his "wife".
• Credits Gag: Barney the Dinosaur (or at least Ian doing a bad impression of him) will narrate over the closing cards and threaten the viewer if they don't check out Smosh's website or subscribe. This seemingly ends in the 2016 video, with Anthony and Ian about to do a serious talk about the ending of the series, until Barney interrupts them and starts cutting off their scrotums with a chainsaw.
• Deadly Dodging: Downplayed. In Food Battle 2009 Ian dodges the Teleporting Fat Guy's charge and locks him in the viewing room for Susan Boyle's Sex Tape.
• Death Is Cheap: No matter what happens in the last Food Battle, whoever dies is there for the next one to demand a rematch.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ian's food of choice every year is always his pink frosted sprinkled donut. The word "donut" is often used as a slang for the anus, and Anthony's food of choice is always something enlongated or cyllindrical in shape, or in other words, phallic. Most egregious of all is his food choice for Food Battle X, a chocolate-covered banana. You probably get the idea by now.
• Double Entendre: Food Battle 2012 has several examples, the most obvious of which is, "I blew pork all over Your Mom."
• Dull Surprise: Food Battle 2010. Last year's winner is not surprised to see last year's loser is Back from the Dead. The loser lampshades this.
• Evil Twin: Ian's donut briefly takes on this role when it's ordered to become his clone...only to be punched out and never seen again for the rest of the video.
• Exact Words: Food Battle 2011. For the magic wand challenge, Anthony tries to turn a stapler into "a hot chick." It turns into a small yellow bird... that bursts into flames. Unlike most examples, Anthony seems to have intended this outcome.
• Eye Scream: Downplayed. After going blind from looking directly into the sun in Food Battle 2008 Anthony pokes Ian in the eye by accident.
  • Downplayed. Food Battle 2011. For the "magic wand" challenge Ian slams his donut into his eye.
• Fingore: In Food Battle 2011, Anthony accidentally cuts off his ring finger when using his lollipop as scissors.
• Flipping the Bird: Ian in Food Battle 2009.
  • Ian again in Food Battle 2011 when he's poisoning Anthony's lollipop. Or so he thinks.
• Foreshadowing: In Food Battle 2011, Ian darkly chuckles after Anthony suggests a duel with their two foods acting as guns. It seems slightly out of character and inappropriate for the moment, until we learn what he prepared for the duel....
• Gainax Ending: Food Battle 2012. While Ian is unconscious Anthony secretly switches their brains and then he replaces Ian's heart with a pink frosted sprinkled donut. So Anthony wins, while he's in Ian's body... And no, it does NOT make sense in context.
  • And this happens after Ian kills his mom who was wearing an Anthony mask and after Anthony sees the annoucer is Back from the Dead.
    • Heck, it's so bad that it gets lampshaded three times. Once before it happens, once after it happens and once in the beginning of next year's Food Battle.
• Grand Finale: Food Battle 2016 is their final food battle. Not only do they both have a pink frosted donut (with Anthony's being vegan), but at the end Ian and Anthony admit to each other that they have grown tired of the premise and wish to move on with their lives. In 2023 however, it was announced Food Battle was back on after 7 years, turning 2016 into a Series Fauxnale.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Ian holds a jealousy-fueled rage in Food Battle 2008 due to Anthony winning the 2007 one.
• Holding Both Sides of the Conversation: After both Ian and Anthony die in 2014, the announcer declares himself winner and begins to give the "You won" speech to himself. Subverted when it's shown in the bathtub there really were two of him.
• Homosexual Reproduction: In Food Battle 2009, as a challenge, Anthony wears his burrito as a wig. It's so convincing that Teleporting Fat Guy believes he is a girl he knows and proposes to "her" on the spot, followed by pictures of their wedding, their honeymoon, and one of them with their 3 kids before accidentally knocking his wig off.
  Teleporting Fat Guy: Sherrie, I hope we'll be together for- OH MY GOD, YOU'RE A DUDE!
  *later*
  Teleporting Fat Guy (interrupting the reporter): WAIT JUST ONE SECOND! *pulls out a corn dog from under Anthony's burrito and faces Ian* You killed my wife, and for that, I challenge you to a duel!
• I Lied: Food Battle 2010. Anthony admits to a dying Ian that he faked his paralysis.
• I'm Going to Disney World!: Nearly every episode ends this way. A reporter runs towards whoever wins the battle, exclaims that they've won the Food Battle, and asks what they're going to do afterward. The very first episode actually has Ian proclaim that he's going to go to Disneyland, and the next installments turn ridiculous, such as the winner saying he's going to watch paint dry or play with Pogs.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Food Battle 2008. Anthony and the announcer are both impaled by Anthony's churro. This kills Anthony but not the announcer.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Sometimes made between challenges in response to the next challenge suggested.
• It Runs On Nonsenseoleum: This and Rule of Funny are almost always in play.
• Lame Comeback: Sometimes occurs between rounds when Ian and Anthony argue.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After attempting the anal suppository challenge on each other, a traumatized Anthony and Ian agree to never talk about that again before moving on to the next round.
• Mythology Gag: Benny Jean shows up in Food Battle 2007 and Food Battle 2008. Benny Jean's flamingo also appears in Food Battle 2008.
  • The description of Susan Boyle's Sex Tape by The Teleporting Fat Guy.
    Teleporting Fat Guy: It looks like there's Beef-N-Go everywhere!
• No Kill like Overkill: The ending to Food Battle 2011. Anthony already poisoned Ian's donut, but he decides to shoot him with a bow and arrow anyways. This winds up becoming a deconstruction because firing the arrow was ultimately unnecessary and doing so caused the announcer to get hit as well. This backfires on Anthony because the announcer dies before Anthony can be officially recognized as the winner.
• No, You: Anthony's response to Ian calling him a pansy in Food Battle 2006.
• Overly Long Gag: Benny Jean chasing Anthony's celery in Food Battle 2007.
• Painting the Medium: In Food Battle 2014, Ian attempts using his donut as an iPhone on the toilet, which obviously fails. We see a wide shot of him on the toilet with a big black bar covering his junk. He then stands up, which causes the black bar to fall over (it had actually been real).
• Perma-Stubble: In Food Battle 2012, when Ian tries to use his donut as a fake ID, the store clerk doesn't bother checking it, because of this trope - he just lets Ian buy the beer anyway. (Conversely, the significantly-less-stubbular Anthony can't fake his way through the same way with just an egg roll.)
• Pink Means Feminine: Anthony's argument for why Ian will lose the "fishing for people" challenge in Food Battle 2007.

• Running Gag: Both Ian and Anthony usually both fail the very first challenge.
  • The announcer shows up at the end to tell the winner they just won and ask them what they're going to do now. What happens afterwards varies between Food Battles.
  • Each video opens with Ian giving Anthony a Bring It, shoving his donuts in his mouth and the title showing up dramatically using Stuff Blowing Up.
  • Ian or Anthony saying "It worked!" after a challenge. This is either out of genuine surprise or it plays a part in cheating.
  • One of Ian's challenges resulting in somebody vomiting
  • The opening of the video featuring Ian speaking in a German accent saying, "On ja! That's good. That's a very good X."
  • See Your Mom.
  • "Ow! My (insert anatomy here)!"
  • Barney closing the videos and threatening the viewers.
  • Starting in 2009 is Ian combining two words to insult Anthony during the Bring It speech.
• Rage Breaking Point: The announcer goes through this getting significantly pissed off at Ian and Anthony not getting any of the clues he put together to get them to do Food Battle 2016.
• Series Fauxnale: Food Battle 2016 was supposed to be the final video of the series, until Anthony returned for Food Battle 2023.
• Serious Business: The Food Battles. It's easy to lose count of how many deaths those have caused over the years.
• Self-Deprecation: During the pokeball challenge in Food Battle 2023, The Pokedex's description for a bikini babe Ian encounters is "typically used by juvenille incels for clickbait thumbnails", something the past Food Battles up to 2015 usually utilized.
• Shout-Out: The "Gangnam Style" dance is done in Food Battle 2012.
  • A variation of the sirens from Kill Bill plays in Food Battle 2008.
  • The honeymoon picture in Food Battle 2009 is an obvious reference to Titanic (1997)
• Skyward Scream: Anthony in Food Battle 2011 when he accidentally kills the announcer before he can be declared the winner.
• Stating the Simple Solution: In Food battle 2014, Anthony loses by touching a page in the catalogue laced with poisonous spread. At first Anthony suggests Ian had planted a poisonous tree as a young child, hired a lumberjack to cut it down and create paper used for catalogues, and timed it so by that exact point the poison would leak from the pages and infect Anthony. Ian tells him he just laced the page with a bucket of poisonous liquid.
• Super Drowning Skills: Food Battle 2006. Anthony dies when using the taquito as a pool floatie.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Food Battle 2011. Anthony's secret class is "totally not ballet."
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A lot of the failures are this, though it's especially prevalent in the 2012 video.
• Take That!: A challenge for Food Battle 2023 is "President of The United States". Both parties win due to differing actions, Ian's donut not doing anything about the housing crisis, and Anthony's baguette mistaking him for a Mexican immigrant.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Food Battle 2009. Ian poisons Anthony's burrito.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Every installment ends with one member of the pair violently dying, usually due to his attempt at participating in the last challenge going horribly awry. However, the next installment results in him coming Back from the Dead to demand a rematch.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ian's is the pink frosted sprinkled donut. Anthony changes his favorite food every year.
• Unconventional Food Usage: This series is about a competition that revolves around performing everyday tasks with food items, including shaving, playing video games, and unclogging a toilet.
• Wham Shot: The 2016 teaser has Anthony declare his new favorite food for the years battle; ANOTHER PINK FROSTED SPRINKLED DONUT.
• Wham Line: Anthony announcing his final favorite food above. Also see Armor-Piercing Question.
• "X" Makes Anything Cool: The reasoning behind naming the 10th Food Battle "Food Battle X".
• You Have Researched Breathing: Food Battle 2010 Anthony learned how to hold his breath underwater.
• Your Mom: A Running Gag is Anthony pulling these on Ian.

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