Mike Vasa (staff) brought the hit TV show “Hot Ones” to Windsor with “Wizards on Fire,” maintaining the same concept of the show but with a few differences.
“Wizards on Fire” debuted on Sept. 5 with Vasa as the host and Michael Thompson (staff) as the show’s first victim. The show starts out with a mild sauce building up to the hottest sauce Vasa could get his hands on.
The original inspiration for Vasa came from the show “Hot Ones.” Vasa said, “I stumbled across it over the summer while I was playing FIFA 23. I just had it playing in the background, and I loved the interview questions. Sean Evans is a great interviewer … he does a great job of finding interesting facts about the subjects.”
After watching a few episodes of “Hot Ones” Vasa said he thought, “Why can’t we do this? Thinking of students interviewing teachers they know well while eating hot wings.”
Getting “Wizards on Fire” off the ground took some work but was not as difficult as Vasa first imagined. Vasa said, “I thought getting teachers to engage would be a challenge, but as soon as I sent the email out I had 10 responses right away saying ‘go for it.'”
Though engagement wasn’t an issue to get the show up and running there was a concern of student safety as well as sponsorship: “I wanted Wing Shack to sponsor us. We would be able to talk about them and publicize their wings (and) I had to create a waiver for students and students’ parents to sign,” Vasa said.
Thompson is an active member of Windsor’s staff, acting as the defensive coordinator for the football team, the student council adviser and the Knowledge Bowl head coach. Not only is Thompson a member in club and athletic activities, but he also is a social studies teacher at the school.
Being the first participant of “Wizards on Fire” was certainly no easy task, but Thompson did better than anyone. “I’m not gonna lie, I was a little nervous,” Thompson said. “I have a pretty high tolerance for spice, but you know when you watch the ‘Hot Ones’ TV show … and for heaven’s sake that Da Bomb sauce brought down Shaque …. But I was also really excited.”
Despite being the first staff member on the show, Thompson said it was still quite an enjoyable experience during it. After is a different story: “The rest of the day was pretty rough,” Thompson said. “It felt like Ms. Frizzle had the gang from the ‘Magic School Bus’ taking a tour of my intestine and my digestive system.”
A little more than a week later, Vasa filmed the next episode of “Wizards on Fire” with Principal Dick Thomas (staff). Thomas maintained a notably lower spice tolerance than Thompson and was quite nervous going into the filming: “I feel okay, a little apprehensive. Kind of wondering how hot is going to be hot. I’m just wondering how I’m going to be after this,” Thomas said.
After Vasa and Thomas finished the segment, both were visibly suffering from the effects of the hot wings, but Thomas had a surprising reaction: “I feel great! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Still pretty hot, but it was fun,” Thomas said. “I don’t really watch ‘Hot Ones’ … but I think it’s pretty cool how they have discussions with somebody about their life or just things about them. So I enjoyed that and, of course, the hot wings.”
Not only did Thomas come out of the filming feeling great, but the hot wings also helped him clear up his cold: “I’m feeling pretty good right now, it kind of set me up for the rest of the day because my sinuses definitely cleared out a little bit … but I can definitely breathe better,” Thomas said.
See the video of episode 1 below.
