Long Island's Ricky Downes competes on 'Worst Cooks in America'

Long Island-born and -raised comedian and puppeteer Ricky Downes is funny for a living. But he becomes serious when discussing late chef Anne Burrell, the longtime star of the Food Network culinary competition “Worst Cooks in America.” As one of the “recruits” on the current 29th season, which airs Mondays at 9 p.m., he competed on her team against that of co-host chef Gabe Bertaccini when the series was shot last year.

But more poignantly, he attended the improv comedy show in which Burrell performed on June 16 — the night before she died by suicide at age 55.

“She had picked up a hobby of doing improv comedy,” says Downes, 32, who was born in Stony Brook, raised in Ronkonkoma and now lives in Queens. Burrell had posted about it on social media, saying she was taking classes at Brooklyn’s The Second City New York “and having an ABSOLUTE blast!!! My class and I are coming to the end of this term and we get to do an actual show!!!”

“I had a chance to go,” Downes says. “And at first she was, like, ‘Oh. Hi,’ ” unsure of who he was. “And then I took out my duck puppet” that he had used on “Worst Cooks” and, he says, it all came back to her. “It was great to reunite and talk shop. She easily transitioned into comedy and it's absolutely heartbreaking and really devastating that there wasn't a chance for her to blossom into a new skill set.”

She would have, he believes. “So much of Anne's personality was so great for comedy. She has rapid-fire wit and that spitfire attitude. And she's quick on her feet — all the things that you need to be as a cook, as well as a TV personality.”

Downes’ season, subtitled “Talented and Terrible,” features 16 performers such as belly dancers, clowns, jugglers and roller skaters, all inept in the kitchen. “But as silly and maybe even eccentric and over the top as people might find us,” he says, “there was a genuine effort by her to teach us and by us to be educated. She really did take the craft seriously, and we certainly did.”

Downes, the son of delivery van driver Richard Downes Jr. and social worker Pattyann “Candy” Downes, graduated from Connetquot High School, where, he says, “They voted me funniest and most likely to become famous. And,” he adds in a mock-majestic voice, "here we are! On the Food Network!” Then, in a whisper, “Season 29.”

After earning a visual and media arts degree from Boston’s Emerson College in 2015, Downes began a career of performing comedy onstage and in short films, primarily doing puppetry and voice-overs — including a recent gig on the Peacock streaming service and Peacock Jr. YouTube children’s series “Mimi’s Costume Closet.” By day, he’s a Bronx Zoo tour guide — albeit one who got to accompany Syosset-raised Tony Award winner Idina Menzel on the Bronx Zoo float in last year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Growing up in an Irish Catholic family where “the spice rack is nonexistent,” Downes came by his worst cook credentials honestly, he says. “I never grew out of the elementary school-Lunchables-Chef Boyardee-Kraft macaroni and cheese phase. Which to this day makes up my work lunch.”

Did the show improve him? “What's that phrase? Is it ‘shear’ when you put the meat on the ... .” Sear? “Yeah. Sear. Now I actually sear my meat.” As for his favorite spice, he offers: “Does salt count?”