Food Network’s bedtime ‘snack’

It seems as if just about everyone’s looking to broaden their appeal these days.

HBO, which for years inhabited a comfy niche as a video jukebox of recent movies, branched out to such home-grown series as “The Sopranos.” Disney went from making movies about baseball (“Angels in the Outfield”) and hockey (“The Mighty Ducks”) to owning pro teams in both sports. And actors who used to be fixated on box-office returns are now even more interested in ballot-box returns.

And so it is with the Food Network. Once content to mix, chop and puree its way into viewers’ hearts, the cable channel now woos audiences with its own take on dating shows (“Date Plate”) and travelogues (“$40 a Day”). It was probably only a matter of time before a food-related game-show hybrid cropped up, and tonight’s the night with the premiere of “Trivia Unwrapped” (10 p.m.).

The show, an offshoot of the channel’s behind-the-junk-food program, “Unwrapped,” even uses the same host, the generically efficient Marc Summers, to preside over the competition. He doesn’t have too much to work with here, because “Trivia” is a Frankenstein-monster compendium of stock game-show parts, with the only interesting ingredient being the food theme.

Three contestants, Rachel, Craig and Mike, vie for cash and prizes tonight. First on the agenda is a film clip on chocolate, and the trio had better pay attention, because there’s a quiz that follows (Sample question: How many pounds of chocolate are eaten each year by the average American?).

Before we get to Round 2, there’s a brief interview segment with the players, but Mike has scarcely finished his anecdote when Summers is already administering a quiz on snack food, built around a vintage Lay’s Potato Chip commercial.

Later, there’s a wheel o’ food to be spun, a lightning round of questions to be answered and a winner to be crowned.

A very modest recipe for entertainment, but I was plenty full after 30 minutes.