Esquire Network hasn’t been around all that long. Formerly the Style Network, it launched back in 2013 with a lot of syndicated content, including re-runs of CSI and Parks and Recreation. However, it has original programming, too, including Best Bars in America, a show that aired on Esquire for two seasons before losing both of its two hosts. In a recent podcast with The Interrobang, host Sean Patton revealed that he and his Best Bars in America co-host Jay Larson actually walked out on the show after filming two seasons for the Esquire Network. His reason for leaving is both simple and outlandish, and you can check it out, below.
They wanted us to be way bro-ier. Which we’re not bro-ey at all, but they wanted us to have a lot of ‘Yo, dude, I bet you can’t pound eight shots of tequila, bro! Cause I’ll take that challenge.’ And we were like, ‘Who the fuck talks like that?’ No one actually talks that way – they wanted us to be cartoons. They wanted us to be two 25-year-olds skateboarding into every bar, except while wearing a cardigan and an ascot, you know cause it’s Esquire.
Esquire has always kind-of been the bro-ier version of GQ, and it stands to reason that the Esquire television network would have the same attitude. However, Sean Patton says that it wasn’t Esquire that was causing so many problems for the Best Bars in America duo but the production company people who were involved with the day-to-day making of the show. Things got even more ridiculous when the production company would ask them—grown-ass men in their 30s--to do really silly stuff, like ogle supermodels who would be “pumped” into each episode.
They would pull us aside and be like, 'Well, guys, she’s a supermodel. Maybe give her a like ogle, or be like, ‘Wow, you’re so hot.' And I’m like, 'I’m in my 30s! You want me to act like a…’ And Jay was like, 'I have a wife and two children. You want me to ogle another woman for television? No, I’m not doing it. So, we kinda shut that down.
Instead, the guys chose to politely greet the women and moved on with the filming. You can check out more from the interview, here.
Obviously, Best Bars in America could have been a great gig in other ways, but just as obviously, Sean Patton and Jay Larson couldn’t get on the same page with the people who were financing the network show. It’s one of the odder reasons for quitting a TV series that we’ve ever heard, but hey, if you can’t bring out your inner bro, you can’t bring out your inner bro. We get it.
You can find out more about Best Bars in America and Esquire’s other originals over at Esquire’s site.
