Tbs' `Dinner & A Movie': Culinary Meets Cinematic

It's getting steamy in the kitchen with Paul Gilmartin and Annabelle Gurwitch.

The flirty thirtysomething hosts of the TBS Superstation Friday night cooking show "Dinner & a Movie," known for their wry (and occasionally risque) comments, are screening the 1987 flick "Dirty Dancing."

Gurwitch jokes that the classic sleeper is "a movie about taking your shirt off." Gilmartin points out that actress Jennifer Grey, in a bedroom scene with co-star Patrick Swayze, isn't completely in, shall we say, character.

When the companion meal for the movie is completed - this night it's a dish known as Bumpin' Grinders - Gilmartin dons a green, skintight Swayze-style shirt. Gurwitch, dubbing him "Patrick Lite," ends the segment dirty dancing with her on-air partner in the kitchen.

American Movie Classics moments these are not.

But that's exactly why "Dinner & a Movie" is such a chuckle. Loyal viewers know that Gilmartin and Gurwitch, platonic companions to the dateless on date night, can bust chops as well as they make them.

They'll rip cheesy movie sets, '80s hair styles, bad acting and each other. And they're willing to do almost anything for a laugh. "We're like stupid human tricks," says Gurwitch, who once stuck out her tongue and touched her nose with it.

Now in its fourth season, "Dinner & a Movie" is most popular with adults 18 to 49, according to A.C. Nielsen data. The irreverent show that spawned a 1996 cookbook, with a second one on the way, takes nothing but the cooking seriously. And sometimes not even that.

To stave off the munchies, the hosts, who are not professional chefs, cook a dish that is planned around a movie, one of the more than 8,000 in the TBS library. More often than not, there is more cheese on the screen than on the plate.

Recipes are created by the show's culinary guru, Claud Mann, a four-star professional chef and the mastermind behind such pun-filled offerings as Broken Ribs and Blackeyed Peas to go along with the movie "Road House," May the Borscht Be With You to accompany "Spaceballs" and Drop and Give Me 20-Bean Salad to cook along with "An Officer and a Gentleman."

The one thing Mann won't do is "joke food" such as "goofy food and Jell-O molds," he says. His aim is to introduce viewers to fun dishes that also taste good.

Even if the movie is bad, the food never is. Take, for instance, the dish Heavenly Wings that accompanied the recently aired 1987 bomb "Date With an Angel."

"Oh, those wings are good. You should really try them," says Gilmartin, who eats everything that's prepared. "Claud usually has to beat me away from the food."

The set, in Burbank, Calif., is a kitschy apartment - sunglasses decorate a blender that doubles as fish bowl - but most of the action takes place in the kitchen.

The show isn't scripted. A week before filming begins, Gilmartin, Gurwitch and Mann sit together watching the planned film, take notes and finalize recipes. Once the cameras are rolling, anything can happen.

The pair's on-air chemistry, however, is strictly that. Gilmartin says they don't see each other socially and calls it "a sad commentary on the state of marriage" if people think they're a couple, but it doesn't stop fans from asking.

"Paul and I are married, but not to each other," Gurwitch says. "My husband is always saying, `No, no, I'm married to her.' "

While their relationship hasn't heated up, their culinary skills have.

"I make fewer mistakes in the kitchen. I have a lot less fear," says Gilmartin, who recently invited six friends over for dinner.

Gurwitch, who seldom cooks ("I have a 1-year-old child. I eat what my son eats, which is steamed vegetables and tofu"), says she can now poach and steam. What she doesn't do often is watch other cooking shows.

"They just depressed me. It's everything I'm not making. I have seen the `Two Fat Ladies.' If I were to cook like that, it would be the `Three Fat Ladies.' "