The Great British Bake Off has had six hosts, or presenters as the English would say, during its sixteen-season run, and to be honest, all six of them are deeply weird human beings. Not a single one is from the Carson Daly or Ryan Seacrest school of even-tempered professionalism. Every single one is an odd character, but to be clear, that’s been a huge benefit to the show. Their collective eccentricities have added to Bake Off’s recipe. They’re part of the quirky and soft-spoken charm that makes it all work.
As such, I expected off-beat humor and some peculiarities from the host when I recently started watching Junior Bake Off, but none of those preconceived notions properly prepared me for just how weird the host of Junior Bake Off is. Harry Hill makes every other presenter in Bake Off history seem like Alex Trebek during the drier, non-mustache, non-beard era. He is a true original that’s twenty steps to the weirder side of Noel Fielding, Alison Hammond, Matt Lucas, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc.
If you’re wondering whether all of this is a compliment, the answer is I don’t know. I’m powering through episodes of Junior Bake Off like it’s my job, and I still haven’t quite figured out what to make of him. To be fair, most of the bakers on the show seem to feel the same way. His interactions with the various contestants are sometimes funny, sometimes endearing, sometimes awkward, and sometimes downright uncomfortable. One minute the edges of my soul will be burning in awkwardness as he tries and fails to make a nine-year-old laugh. The next minute, I’ll be smiling as he does some wacky bit with judges Liam and Ravneet.
The whole thing is particularly bizarre because it’s so similar and yet so different from what we see on Great British Bake Off. Current hosts Noel and more recent addition Alison get up to some shenanigans with the contestants and longtime judges. They say “BAKE!” in weird ways and usually start each episode with some impression or elaborate bit of varying quality, but you almost never see an interaction with a contestant that feels uncomfortable. They ask about how the bake is going. There’s some light joking, and they move on.
I assume there are some awkward interactions or banter that fall flat on the adult Bake Off during the shoot, but we rarely see it as viewers. It doesn’t make the final cut. On Junior Bake Off, however, we see less-than-ideal exchanges all the time. Hill will come in with an almost manic energy and make some kind of joke or reference the kid may or may not get. Sometimes it’ll work. Sometimes it won’t. Either way, we’ll actually see it, and sometimes the end result is a pre-teen glaring at him, not knowing what to say.
After I watched this happen twenty or thirty times, I took to the Internet to see if I was maybe reading these moments differently than everyone else, and let the record show, I am not alone in my utter confusion. Social media is filled with years and years of Reddit threads and Facebook conversations about Harry. There are comments accusing him of being creepy, comments saying they love his dad jokes, comments asking for recommendations of comedians similar to Harry Hill, and comments saying he ruins the show. He’s more divisive than any other Bake Off host by four or five tablespoons.
I love Junior Bake Off. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try it. It’s a fun way to spend an hour, but you need to be mentally prepared for the hosting situation. I’ve watched dozens of reality competition shows, and Harry Hill is unlike any host I have ever seen. He’s weird, even by Bake Off’s weird standards, and whether or not that’s charming or a cringey disaster varies from bake to bake.
