The Challenge in the Media: "The road to [fame] is straight and narrow."

[millennium]

The inclusion of Nelson and Devin AGAIN is responsible for at least one eyeroll I did while watching the promo above.   Enough with those guys.  

Turbo's hair looks silly.   Probably no danger of anyone copying that.  (To be fair, there appear to be a few male candidates for silliest hair (guess Jordan feels a need to win this title, too -- is that a mullet?)

Potentially three confrontational/awkward meet-ups this season, with Jordan as the common denominator in two of them.  This is the first time Tori and Jordan have been on the Challenge together since their break-up.  And this is the first time Jordan and Turbo have been on together since Turbo lost his mind over Jordan copying his walk (still one of the funniest things I have ever seen on The Challenge).   Also, this is the first meeting between Bananas and Devin since the blow-up on Final Reckoning.

Edited October 9, 2022 by millennium

[lasu]

On 10/8/2022 at 9:02 PM, millennium said:

(guess Jordan feels a need to win this title, too -- is that a mullet?)

Jordan started looking like a Stephen King character a few seasons ago and doesn't seem to be letting up.  Not a fan.

[AntFTW]

[millennium]

3 hours ago, AntFTW said:

Thanks for the heads up!  

[millennium]

7 hours ago, lasu said:

Jordan started looking like a Stephen King character a few seasons ago and doesn't seem to be letting up.  Not a fan.

There are relatively few Challengers I actively dislike.   Devin tops the list, followed by Fessy.   Some others.  What they all have in common IMO is that they bring nothing to the show except a body and a desperation to attain the same popularity/reputation as bigger characters -- in Devin's case, Bananas, in Fessy's case, CT -- without having the personality/performance to back it up.   

[AntFTW]

[AntFTW]

[aghst]

I wonder if they used the same place they used for Challenge USA.

Both being filmed in Buenos Aires and both airing within a month or two of each other.

Maybe TJ and the production crew just hung out and shot them back to back.

Or not, maybe he wanted to get back home between the shooting of the seasons.

But if he likes steaks, he could hang out and knock out two seasons in one trip.  Maybe at most 3 months to shoot both shows?

[AntFTW]

Just saw this

[peachmangosteen]

Does that mean it'll be on Paramount+ in the US?

[DEL901]

https://people.com/tv/ct-tamburello-files-for-divorce-after-4-years-of-marriage/

[aghst]

1 hour ago, DEL901 said:

https://people.com/tv/ct-tamburello-files-for-divorce-after-4-years-of-marriage/

Is that from his child's mother?

He must be doing well financially.

Gonna be coming on future seasons of the Challenge saying "I got alimony and child support to pay!"

[xfuse]

On 10/12/2022 at 7:32 PM, aghst said:

I wonder if they used the same place they used for Challenge USA.

Both being filmed in Buenos Aires and both airing within a month or two of each other.

Challenge Australia is also filmed in Buenos Aires also. It's also on airing now and it looks like they are using the same arena. 

[lasu]

Aneesa and Devyn had Chauncey on the official Challenge podcast, and oh, wow, he seems like such an awesome guy.  It honestly was moving to hear a man speak so admiringly about his girlfriend.  He just had no ego (I mean that in a very, very good way) when it came to the fact that Amber has been on The Challenge and knows more about it than him.  He talked about what a leader she can be, and he said that when they were in the elimination, they decided she should go first, see how it should be done, and then tell him.  Holy crap!  Can you imagine 95% of the other male Challengers so easily saying their female partner knows better than they do?

And then, as if the glowing way he talked about her wasn't enough, he said that when Amber when down the elimination thingie and then put the puzzle piece in her shirt to go back up, it broke off the cross her grandmother gave her.  He took a bit of extra time when he went down to find it and grab it, because he knew, to her, it was irreplaceable.  I mean, my heart just squeezed, which isn't particularly easy for a cold black lump of coal to do, lol.

He also said it took them an hour and half to solve the puzzle!!  That's bonkers.

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, lasu said:

Aneesa and Devyn had Chauncey on the official Challenge podcast, and oh, wow, he seems like such an awesome guy.  It honestly was moving to hear a man speak so admiringly about his girlfriend.  He just had no ego (I mean that in a very, very good way) when it came to the fact that Amber has been on The Challenge and knows more about it than him.  He talked about what a leader she can be, and he said that when they were in the elimination, they decided she should go first, see how it should be done, and then tell him.  Holy crap!  Can you imagine 95% of the other male Challengers so easily saying their female partner knows better than they do?

And then, as if the glowing way he talked about her wasn't enough, he said that when Amber when down the elimination thingie and then put the puzzle piece in her shirt to go back up, it broke off the cross her grandmother gave her.  He took a bit of extra time when he went down to find it and grab it, because he knew, to her, it was irreplaceable.  I mean, my heart just squeezed, which isn't particularly easy for a cold black lump of coal to do, lol.

He also said it took them an hour and half to solve the puzzle!!  That's bonkers.

I started but I didn't get far. I listened to the first 20 minutes with the intention of coming back to it and it just never happened.

[DEL901]

https://people.com/tv/the-challenge-stephen-bear-found-guilty-revenge-porn-against-ex-georgia-harrison/

[aghst]

15 minutes ago, DEL901 said:

https://people.com/tv/the-challenge-stephen-bear-found-guilty-revenge-porn-against-ex-georgia-harrison/

So obvious he was a sleazy POS.

Young women didn't see it though.

Wasn't MTV hoping he'd become a big deal on The Challenge?

He almost seduced Kailah too, didn't he?  Or maybe he did.

If he didn't get in legal trouble, maybe they'd have had him back on more seasons.

[Lantern7]

That's nice. Any indication on how long this Bear will be isolated from society?

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

He almost seduced Kailah too, didn't he?  Or maybe he did.

Not almost, he did. Post-seduction, she found out he was a fuck boy.

[Remlab]

10 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

That's nice. Any indication on how long this Bear will be isolated from society?

Sentencing will take place on January 31, 2023.

[bunnyface]

On 12/13/2022 at 4:08 PM, Lantern7 said:

That's nice. Any indication on how long this Bear will be isolated from society?

It won't be long enough, no matter what it is.

[AntFTW]

 

[Lantern7]

*keeping smartass opinions to myself. AGAIN*

Anyone get around to reading the Challenge book? There's a chapter on Julie in there. More fuel to the feeling of dread that she's coming back.

[aghst]

Is this first or second child for Zack and Jenna?

They haven't been on for awhile.

Well they got the #1 reason to return to The Challenge.

#Igotstofeedmychild!

Followed by the associated:

#Wanttobeanexampletomykid!

 

 

[AncientNewbie]

15 hours ago, aghst said:

Is this first or second child for Zack and Jenna?

 

Second. They have a little boy as well. Probably tempers some of Zach's disappointment in having a girl that the boy was firstborn. 

[Lantern7]

13 hours ago, AncientNewbie said:

Second. They have a little boy as well. Probably tempers some of Zach's disappointment in having a girl that the boy was firstborn. 

 

On 12/28/2022 at 7:01 PM, aghst said:

Is this first or second child for Zack and Jenna?

They haven't been on for awhile.

Well they got the #1 reason to return to The Challenge.

#Igotstofeedmychild!

Followed by the associated:

#Wanttobeanexampletomykid!

I want to think that doesn’t matter to him, that he’s a good father, and that he’s never coming back. With that said, I’m thinking that I’ll be screaming for him to get dropped into Mt. Doom sometime in 2024. Also, it’s a small pity “Barbie Beast” couldn’t get over the hump. She could get over Zach, but that’s a different type of hump.

[DEL901]

https://people.com/parents/cory-wharton-reveals-baby-daughter-off-ventilator-after-surgery/

[aghst]

22 minutes ago, DEL901 said:

https://people.com/parents/cory-wharton-reveals-baby-daughter-off-ventilator-after-surgery/

Wow that's tough.  If these Challenge vets never bothered to get regular jobs, they may not have health care.

OTOH, since Cory never won, he might have been spurred to get a regular job, though he probably gets paid for appearing in all those seasons and for doing that Teen Mom show.

So does he have a big medical bill now?

He might really need to win if he appears on The Challenge again.

[AntFTW]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

Wow that's tough.  If these Challenge vets never bothered to get regular jobs, they may not have health care.

OTOH, since Cory never won, he might have been spurred to get a regular job, though he probably gets paid for appearing in all those seasons and for doing that Teen Mom show.

So does he have a big medical bill now?

He might really need to win if he appears on The Challenge again.

Is he still getting Teen Mom checks?

[aghst]

No idea, maybe residuals?

Never watched the show, don't know how much he was featured, whether they rerun episodes a lot so that residuals can even be a big deal on that show.

He has done the Challenge after his TM appearances didn't he?

If it was a big payday, he might be less likely to come to The Challenge.

[jsm1125]

6 hours ago, aghst said:

No idea, maybe residuals?

Never watched the show, don't know how much he was featured, whether they rerun episodes a lot so that residuals can even be a big deal on that show.

He has done the Challenge after his TM appearances didn't he?

If it was a big payday, he might be less likely to come to The Challenge.

I don’t remember when he did Teen Mom, but he’s been on the past few seasons other than the current one (Total Madness, Double Agents, Spies, Lies and Allies)

[DEL901]

According to IMDb, he did just 3 episodes of Teen Mom.  He also did ex on the beach and 10 episodes of The Real World in 2014.   He also has 2 acting roles coming up.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6256393/

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by DEL901

[AntFTW]

 

[LaurelleJ]

Amber's pregnant!!!!!!!!

[AntFTW]

36 minutes ago, LaurelleJ said:

Amber's pregnant!!!!!!!!

Caught me by surprise. It was the first thing when I went on Twitter.

[LaurelleJ]

20 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

Caught me by surprise. It was the first thing when I went on Twitter.

No idea what happened to my original post?? But yes she has been sitting on that all season while it has been airing. How exciting for her and Chauncey. 

[AntFTW]

8 minutes ago, LaurelleJ said:

No idea what happened to my original post??

Moved over to Challenge in the Media

[millennium]

3 hours ago, LaurelleJ said:

No idea what happened to my original post?? But yes she has been sitting on that all season while it has been airing. How exciting for her and Chauncey.

Parenthood is destroying The Challenge.   Zach and Jenna, Kam and Leroy, Kyle and his mate ... now Amber.   One by one, it's taking familiar faces out of the game.

[aghst]

1 hour ago, millennium said:

Parenthood is destroying The Challenge.   Zach and Jenna, Kam and Leroy, Kyle and his mate ... now Amber.   One by one, it's taking familiar faces out of the game.

Or they're actually moving on with their lives, unlike some others.

They may have to cultivate more young challengers, some newbies to become the new vets.

 

[AntFTW]

10 hours ago, aghst said:

Or they're actually moving on with their lives, unlike some others.

They may have to cultivate more young challengers, some newbies to become the new vets.

 

They're working on that right now with the new AYTO?  and Ex on the Beach seasons.

Maybe we'll get a legacy Challenge edition that includes Brad and Tori's kids, Zach and Jenna's kids, Kam and Leroy's kid, Tony's kids, Cory's kids, CT's kid, Amber's kid, Amanda's kid and so on... 😂

[aghst]

48 minutes ago, AntFTW said:

They're working on that right now with the new AYTO?  and Ex on the Beach seasons.

Maybe we'll get a legacy Challenge edition that includes Brad and Tori's kids, Zach and Jenna's kids, Kam and Leroy's kid, Tony's kids, Cory's kids, CT's kid, Amber's kid, Amanda's kid and so on... 😂

But they've brought in a lot of new blood over the last few seasons.

Some have appeared a couple of times but they don't come back.  Either they lost interest or the producers didn't think they had star power?

The game is slanted in favor of vets most of the time.  Even when rookies and newbies have the numbers, they get picked off and lose their numerical advantage.

Vets usually end up winning.  Amber won as a rookie but only paired with CT.

B-M is shady in the way the Dailies and eliminations are set up so if they're putting their thumb on the scale to favor vets who are best-known and likely to attract viewers, they will have seasons like this one, mostly vets who are willing to keep coming back and a couple of rookies/newbies who make it to the Final or close to the Final.

So if the rookies and newbies think the vets have too much advantage, they may not stick around and do multiple seasons.

For instance Horacio has great potential as a regular, to do multiple season.  But I don't think he's the first one in the past few years, there have been others who for whatever reasons didn't return more than maybe once or twice.

Depending on how this season ends and whatever other options he has, Horacio may not bother to return.

 

[bunnyface]

Part of the reason, not the whole reason because I do think the producers are shady, but part of the problem is that the rookies don't stick together.  They let the vets get in their heads and turn them against each other.  If they actually found a way to stick it out, they might have a chance.  Because as much as the producers love a Bananas, seeing him swing in the wind draws it's own viewers also.

[AntFTW]

4 minutes ago, bunnyface said:

Part of the reason, not the whole reason because I do think the producers are shady, but part of the problem is that the rookies don't stick together. 

Yes. Because the rookies tend not to know each other. The vets have been around for season after season establishing their relationships so they stick together more than the rookies do.

[millennium]

1 hour ago, aghst said:

For instance Horacio has great potential as a regular, to do multiple season.  But I don't think he's the first one in the past few years, there have been others who for whatever reasons didn't return more than maybe once or twice.

Thing is, Horacio's a bore.

I would say that's the problem with most of the new faces brought on in recent seasons.   They're not the same brand of over-the-top personalities who made us love this show.   

I think I have to finally have to admit that the old drinking, brawling, cat-calling, noodle-throwing Challenge is gone.   As someone in these threads pointed out recently, The Challenge used to be a reality show masquerading as a sports competition show.   Now it's trying to be a sports competition show that wants us to believe it's still a reality show.

And the morsel of reality show we still get is tepid by comparison to the past.   I mean, I'm sorry Nany lost her mother but OMG, enough already.   The last episode felt more like grief counseling.   Meanwhile the Tori and Jordan saga is just meh.   There are no more villains.  No more idiots.  Even the hookups in the house feel like they have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Bananas blames a lot of it on the demise of The Real World.  He feels the casting process of The Real World weeded out weaker personalities and created the perfect minor league for The Challenge picks.

[AntFTW]

52 minutes ago, millennium said:

Bananas blames a lot of it on the demise of The Real World.

I would agree with that.

Had it not been for Jenna being on the Real World, we would never know whose dad owns a bakery.

Edited January 23, 2023 by AntFTW

[Unclejosh]

Social media and cancel culture has also killed most of the drama or "reality" aspect of the show. Everyone is too afraid to be "real" on the show as there are now real world potential career ending consequences for things that previously would may be frowned upon but in a lot of cases, would be able to be discussed and learning and growing could be done. That is literally gone as the vocal minority public expects perfection in all words and deeds and anything even just 1 person has an issue with could steamroll into huge problems for the cast AND production.

There is also the issue that when this show was in its heyday, it was not seen so much as a career but something fun to do and in most cases would not lead anywhere. Now it is a career for a lot of them and even just being on the show without winning can help with influencing and other entertainment jobs but like I said above you need to make sure you do not do anything that might jeopardize this.

Lastly, even if they did cast people who don't care about this or lacked the ability to prevent themselves from providing dramatic moments, CBS/Paramount is not going to show anything that may be viewed negatively or potentially lead to trending in a bad way leading to complaints, talks of boycotts, loss of advertisers, etc. The old adage that any publicity even bad is good publicity is no longer true at all.

If you follow spoilers and the cast doing podcasts or their social media, you will see that there are still a lot of messy dramatic moments happening but they are being edited out. The only time they are not is if Paramount wants to virtue signal like they did something and even that it is unlikely to happen. Better to not even address it unless forced (Camilia for example).

 

 

[aghst]

But lot of the vets now were not on the Real World.

Devin, Tori, Nelson, Laurel.

They were on other shows, don't know if those shows have a lot of viewers.  Maybe BB has bigger ratings than TRW ever did.

The personalities they talk about are people who go over the top with drama.  For instance, imagine some Bravo reality show cast on The Challenge, which won't happen because Bravo is part of NBC while MTV is part of CBS.

It would suck to reinforce the behavior of some of these people by putting them on regular rotation for The Challenge.

Edited January 24, 2023 by aghst

[AntFTW]

23 minutes ago, aghst said:

But lot of the vets now were not on the Real World.

Devin, Tori, Nelson, Laurel.

They were on other shows, don't know if those shows have a lot of viewers.  Maybe BB has bigger ratings than TRW ever did.

I wouldn't include Laurel in that because Laurel debuted on The Challenge when the show's cast members were only from Real World or Road Rules, and new cast members from the Fresh Meat seasons. The Challenge is Laurel's original show.

Edited January 24, 2023 by AntFTW

[millennium]

2 hours ago, Unclejosh said:

Social media and cancel culture has also killed most of the drama or "reality" aspect of the show. Everyone is too afraid to be "real" on the show as there are now real world potential career ending consequences for things that previously would may be frowned upon but in a lot of cases, would be able to be discussed and learning and growing could be done. That is literally gone as the vocal minority public expects perfection in all words and deeds and anything even just 1 person has an issue with could steamroll into huge problems for the cast AND production.

That's a good point and unfortunately true.   At least once per podcast Bananas fondly recalls the days before social media.  He and some of his guests have implied that if social media had been around back then they would have been in trouble.   

[bunnyface]

While the show is a bit more boring now, if being social media "aware" prevents some of the more gross things, like what happened to Tanya and something else I can't quite remember at the moment, I guess I can live with that.  Or maybe I'm just old now.  One of those.

Funny that Bananas is mourning the days before social media, when he is riding that horse as hard as possible himself.