Back again after an embarrassingly long hiatus.
I truly meant to catch the masses up on what’s been going on in the life of Jack Greaves through the lends of hot fudge sundae reviews. But planning a wedding and then being newly married takes a lot of time an energy. Who knew!
But yesterday I finally hung up the floating shelf we’ve been putting off both buying and installing since we moved into our new apartment back in October, and now I feel free.
Today, I wish to share with you all the other reason for my absence in 2024: Taskmaster.
My friend Erin Searle and I are big fans of the UK game show.
Granted, she’s a bigger fan than I am—I don’t have the stamina to keep up with a show that drops two seasons a year. I mostly just watch Taskmaster episodes them during my lunch break, but my “video-I-watch-during-lunch” consumption has been stuck on Game Changer episodes and Northernlion VODs.
Blah blah blah, we like the show.
We like it so much that we mused about putting one together ourselves. And then those musings turned into making plans. And then those plans turned into drafting tasks and making a dream cast from our friends. And then that lead to reaching out to those friends to see if they’d like to participate. And then those friends actually agreed to some hectic filming schedules in the spring and summer. And then I suddenly found myself buying a GoPro, lighting equipment, microphones, and everything else I’d need to film a low-budget TV show.
The result: Taskmaster – Chicago.
Between April and October 2024, I spent most of my creative energy and free time setting up our “studio” (my half-packed studio apartment), filming our contestants inadvertently destroy said studio, and editing the footage into something I thought was worth watching.
We presented these to a live studio audience of our friends and family at the Chicago Dramatist, this wonderful non-profit theater in the River West Neighborhood of Chicago.
Let me just tangentially rave about the Dramatist—the nicest people who really just let us play and experiment with their theater. They completely trusted us to run their tech with no questions asked. Really a frictionless experience for a bunch of theater newbies.
Anyway, the show was a blast. We filled the 70-person theater with pure joy. It made the probably 150+ hours of editing so worth it—people laughed, cringed, and groaned exactly when we wanted them to.
I put the entire show on YouTube in two parts, which required another 150+ hours of editing since I had to splice the live audio and video together, which required audio editing that was way above my pay grade (my pay grade was “free” because I did this to myself). That finally launched back in February 2025.
You can watch them here if you’re interested:
I look at the YouTube videos now and can’t help but wince at some of the editing choices. Not that my abilities have improved (more on that next week)—I think enough time has passed that I can take a more objective view of my work. And it’s always a good laugh to see a collective 300+ hours of work amount to a total of less than 500 views.
But I have to remind myself that the end goal was always the live show. We didn’t invest in microphones or any production equipment outside of what the theater already had, so the live parts are much quieter than the pre-recorded bits. We weren’t trying to become YouTube content creators—we were just trying to make a show we’d be proud of in the future, and the YouTube videos are really just to remember it happened at all.
That memory finally brings me to the review, because I shared many a sundae with my friends who were a part of this incredible creative endeavor, including this one:
This is the Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae from Lickity Split, a delightful little custard and candy shop up in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. I’d been here before, and upon reading that review I realize I got the same exact sundae last time. But this experience was decidedly better—even if last time was pretty excellent to begin with.
Quality of Fudge
The fudge was warm and in all of the right places. And there was plenty of it—every scoop of ice cream was easily accompanied with a scoop of fudge.
Quality of Toppings
The peanut butter drizzle was easily the star of the show this time around. Last time I got this, I don’t remember the peanut butter taking as big of a share of the sauce ratio, but it was warm and gooey and perfectly melded with the fudge. The brownie bits also offered some firm-yet-forgiving texture to the dessert.
Level of Comfort Ordering a Hot Fudge Sundae
Excellent. I forgot that they only have three flavors, but the cashier was much more accommodating this time around. Certainly third time will be the charm when I remember to just get whatever the weekly special is.
Would I Rather Get a McDonald’s Hot Fudge Sundae?
Nope—this is pretty close to an ideal sundae. If it weren’t for Margie’s hot fudge, this would probably be my favorite sundae in the city.
Final Score: 8.8/10
Hot for Fudge 