The Try Guys are framing Season 4 as their biggest, boldest step yet — 'the biggest food competition show on YouTube with the biggest chefs in the world.' Kornfeld and Habersberger's statement emphasizes creative ambition and growth.
Insiders note that the show is a deliberate bridge between Try Guys properties and the broader TryCast comedy ecosystem. Every contestant added this season pulls from their established talent network — no outsiders, just curated chaos from within their own orbit.
Season 4 premiered on 2nd Try TV on May 6, 2026 before expanding to YouTube on May 30, 2026. The show has expanded its judging roster with eight new culinary experts including Chris Ying and Elizabeth Falkner — doubling down on legitimacy.
The premise is objectively unhinged, but the execution keeps getting more polished. If you're not watching this show yet, you're missing one of the most genuinely weird experiments in food entertainment.
The Try Guys are back with Season 4 of their gloriously unhinged cooking competition "Phoning It In," and they've assembled what might be their most stacked lineup yet — a roster so ambitious that even the premise sounds like a fever dream. The show's core concept remains deliciously absurd: elite professional chefs are locked out of the kitchen entirely, forced to coach completely unqualified comedians from afar using nothing but telephone calls to guide their culinary creations from plate to palate.
It's kitchen chaos with a phone cord attached, and somehow it's become appointment viewing. Variety reported exclusively that Season 4 has rounded out its impressive slate of judges, bringing eight new culinary heavyweights into the fold: Chris Ying, Justin Pichetrungsi, Elizabeth Falkner, Jordan Myrick, Jimmy Wong, Jen Yee, Nick Schreiber, and Rie McClenny. These join previously announced judges Kristen Kish, Josh Scherer, Jonny Manganello, Mitzi Reyes, and Monique Chan — creating a judging panel that reads less like a YouTube show and more like a legitimate culinary institution.
On the contestant side, Melissa King and Kat Turner have joined the competition as players, while comedians from the TryCast universe including Ash Perez, Ryan Garcia, Jared Popkin, Kwesi James, Ryann Graham, Joyce Louis-Jean, and Rainie Toll will be attempting to cook things without burning down a studio. Previously announced contestants include Keith Habersberger and Zach Kornfeld of the Try Guys themselves, along with Miles Bonsignore and "Smosh's" Angela Giarratana.
The show premiered its fourth installment on May 6, 2026 exclusively on 2nd Try TV — the independent streaming service that the Try Guys launched in 2024 as a paid, ad-free platform. The season will roll onto YouTube starting May 30, giving it a dual-release strategy that rewards their most dedicated subscribers while still chasing broader reach. It's a model that's become increasingly common for creator-economy talent looking to monetize loyal audiences without abandoning the discoverability of free platforms.
In a joint statement, Kornfeld and Habersberger made clear they're not treating this as a side project: "We're making the biggest food competition show on YouTube with the biggest chefs in the world, and it's been awesome to step our game up every season." Bold words for a show where contestants are essentially cooking blindfolded while their mentors scream instructions through a speakerphone. But behind the slapstick chaos is clearly a machine that's gotten serious about scale — 2nd Try TV already hosts other original series including "Trolley Problems," "Escape the Kitchen," "Smoke Show," "Eat the Menu," "After the Menu," and "Without a Recipe," creating a full content ecosystem that goes well beyond their YouTube origins.
The strategic casting choices tell their own story. By pulling exclusively from their TryCast comedy network — no external influencers, no surprise celebrity guests — the show functions as a promotional engine for the broader Try Guys empire while maintaining the chaotic energy of friends torturing themselves on camera. Whether that insularity is a strength or a ceiling remains to be seen, but one thing's certain: Season 4 is taking itself seriously enough to demand attention, even if its contestants absolutely should not.
