Well, young Greek, your snacking worries are over, thanks to a new show on the National Geographic Channel that asked the folks at The Crucible in West Oakland to build you the ultimate in frat fridges.

In fact, one might say it's the "Mother of All" frat fridges. Not the sister. Not the cousin once removed. But the very matriarch herself — a stainless-steel behemoth with porthole windows that looks like a bank vault on a submarine and has an air cannon that will spew a soda can to the second story, which is what mankind has needed since the dawning of the age of Amana.

But wait, there's more! There's also the mother of all river rafts, the mother of all Raiders tailgate vehicles and the mother of all fire-truck barbecue pits (it's got a flamethrower for roasting turkeys).

The reality design/build show, surprisingly called "Mother of All," doesn't air until Feb. 23, but we got a preview last week at The Crucible.

Some pretty awesome fine and industrial art stuff happens at The Crucible in a big warehouse on Seventh Street, where they teach people how to do things like weld, make neon sculptures and cast bronze. Crucible founder Michael Sturtz and his crew of instructors came equipped with the necessary spectrum of skills for a show where you have to attach a casket to an old military truck and turn it into a giant Smokey Joe.

And they're really excited about being on national television. The first season has been filmed, and they're hoping for a second.

"It was pretty fun to come up with this stuff," Sturtz said. "They basically give us three days and $4,500, plus tools provided by ACE Hardware for the show, to build the ultimate of whatever-it-is. It's a crunch, but fun."

"With each of the projects, we met with the group (selected by the show) before we started to build, and they told us of the ultimate features they always wanted," said Carla Hall, who teaches welding and blacksmithing at The Crucible. "For the tailgate truck, Raiders fans said they would love to have a huge ice chest, a shade structure. They told us what they wanted, and then it was our challenge to build it."

The base of the Raiders mobile is an old military truck painted black. In subdued Raiders fashion, it also sports a giant silver rocket — really a huge ice chest — that shoots fog out the tail. A black crow's nest rises up, and what looks like a life-size silver casket is actually a barbecue and smoker.

Grandpa Munster must be rolling in his Dragula.

For the river raft project, the Crucible team met with professional guides who lead rafting trips on the American River. Their "mother" raft now comes complete with vinyl-padded swivel seats and a small mirrored disco ball to enhance nighttime still-water parties.

It also has clip-on wheels, for a smooth water-to-land transition, a giant water cannon that sucks water out of the river for water-fight purposes, a fly-fishing platform that doubles as a dunk tank, a first-aid kit and turn signals.

The build team had a blast working on the project for Station 8 of the San Francisco Fire Department, which had requested an old fire truck be turned into a mean and anything-but-lean barbecue machine.

The irony was scorching.

"Now it is technically a 'fire' truck," Sturtz said. "We turned the water cannon on top into a flame thrower. And there's a pitchfork thing you stick a chicken or a ham on, crank it up, then aim the flame thrower at it. We made sure we gave them all the firepower they could ever want.

"There's also a big safety element, though," he said. "There are fire extinguishers all over it. Plus, it still has a functioning 500-gallon water tank with a pumper if things get out of control. And they're firefighters. I think that would help."

And finally, for the frat fridge, the team hung out with an actual fraternity at UC Berkeley, Pi Lambda Phi.

"They told us they were having problems with people stealing food out of the fridge, so we put in a security system with a thumb-print scanner," Sturtz said. "And they didn't want to miss the game while going to the refrigerator, so we added this light strip that flashes the current scores."

There's a bicycle attached on the left — a pedal-powered blender, "but you can plug it in if you're lazy," Hall said. There's a Web cam inside the fridge to browse the contents without leaving one's laptop and a big air compressor for the soda cannon.

"It's everything you could ever want in a refrigerator," Sturtz said.

So there, Frigidaire.

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