TAR in the Media

[Jobiska]

Aw, Ernie and Cindy had a baby boy!  I think it's sweet that Ernie was interviewed as telling his son "The world is waiting for you," but what does the rest of it, "live in the along," mean?  

http://celebritybabies.people.com/2014/10/27/amazing-race-ernie-cindy-halvorsen-welcome-son-maverick-zhang/

[Mrs. P.]

This is going way, way back, but in 2006 a book was published called My Ox is Broken!: Roadblocks, Detours, Fast Forwards and Other Great Moments from TV's "The Amazing Race." I wanted to take a bath last night, so I grabbed that off our bookshelf. I haven't flipped through it in years. There aren't really any earth-shattering revelations in it and the author's personal bias is pretty evident (he hated Season 8 - the family edition), but it's an interesting analysis of the various teams. Plus, it's a good resource if you want to refresh your memory on particular teams, episodes and/or tasks. Unfortunately, it only covers Seasons 1 through 9. I wish the author would update it. Has anyone else read this book?

[Mrs. P.]

I read it several years ago and enjoyed it. The author chose to give every team a nickname, which I found a little disconcerting, but it's a good read for TAR fans.

He spends a good bit of time defending Jonathan from Season 6, which I found annoying. He also names Zach (of Flo and Zach - winners of Season 3) as the strongest racer in all seasons. I don't disagree, since he had to drag worthless Flo along for the entire race.

[jah1986]

Why do I have absolutely no recollection of Ernie and Cindy?  I haven't missed a season.  Can anyone help?

[ByaNose]

He was white and she was asian, right? They won, too......I think....maybe, I don't know who they are either. LOL!!!

[SnideAsides]

They won TAR19, a season that isn't that memorable to begin with but also suffers hugely by being wedged between TAR17 (watermelon in the face) and Unfinished Business on one side and TAR20 (Brenchel) and TAR21 (Chippendales) on the other.

[Quilt Fairy]

Why do I have absolutely no recollection of Ernie and Cindy?

They were from my home town of Chicago, which is the only reason I remember them. She was the woman who was super-prepared for anything TAR had to throw at a team. IIRC, they won a goodly number of legs as well as the title.

[jah1986]

Thanks all for the responses. I still can't place them at all. I guess I'll have to try to find that season and rewatch a bit.

[Lingo]

So would it surprise anyone to learn that Kym has her own YouTube channel?  It's called KymNonStop, it's been around for a couple of years, and mostly it's made up of instructional exercise videos as well as general health/fitness videos.  They are very well put together.  Alli features in several of them.  And they are also posting "recaps" of the TAR episodes giving "behind-the-scenes" information and that sort of thing.  Episode 4 discusses how they worked on snagging that early flight, for instance.  If you enjoy them on the show, they are just the same in the videos, but like pumped up to 11.  I enjoyed watching them.

 

I came across Kym's channel "by accident", more or less -- it popped up after I watched a completely unrelated sports video (though YouTube of course knows that I like TAR-related videos).  Just now I searched for videos of the other teams.  Only Tim and TeJay seem to have their own channel, though it's very new and doesn't seem to feature much TAR discussion (I haven't watched any of their videos though).  Brooke and Robbie don't have their own channel, but you can find a few videos of Brooke giving her own show recaps on the "TNT Impact Wrestling" YouTube channel (these I haven't watched yet either).  I spot a short video of Robbie too.

 

I also found a cute video of Amy and Maya on the local news talking about auditioning for the Race.  Maya is the big Race fan, as you might guess.

[TheRabbi]

This is mainly due to me having too much time on my hands to think of random stuff during my long commutes, but here goes:

 

Tonight is advertised as the 300th leg of the show (woohoo!!), but I just can't do the math right.

 

Seasons 1-11 had 13 legs.  11 times 13 equals 143.

Seasons 12-13 had 11 legs. 2 times 11 equals 22

Seasons 14-24 had 12 legs. 11 times 12 equals 132.

 

That's a total of 297 legs going into this season, which means Shetland Islands would have been the unofficial 300th leg.  That is a 4 episode difference, so is TPTB saying there were four technical "double legs" in the show's history?  Off the top of my head, I remember the season 8 finale was a double length leg with no NEL in the middle, and season 6 also had the Hungary leg with the back to back to back equalizing that caught Lori and Bolo up to the rest of the pack in the middle of the leg.  They can't be counting every To Be Continued episode, as there's far more than 4.  Totally meaningless discussion, but I'm clueless how they get to 300 tonight!

Edited November 8, 2014 by TheRabbi

[mtlchick]

EW posted some "Where are they now?" couples news.  

 

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20302134_20869974,00.html

 

I may have written NOOOO!  upon learning Uchenna and Joyce are no longer married. 

[merylinkid]

I love how many of the former racers are doing charitable work post-race.   Still laughing at Brooke signing watermelons.   Poor girl.   She can become friends with Scott Norwood (wide right, wide right).   Whoa, Christina married Azaria.   Interesting.   Hope Grandpa Ron treats his grandchildren better than he treated his daughter.

[viajero]

Thanks Lingo for the tip on Kym's You Tube channel.  Their recaps of each episode are really good and well worth watching.  I posted more about this on their thread, but the link is:

https://www.youtube....mNonStop/videos

[SnideAsides]

This is mainly due to me having too much time on my hands to think of random stuff during my long commutes, but here goes:

 

Tonight is advertised as the 300th leg of the show (woohoo!!), but I just can't do the math right.

 

Seasons 1-11 had 13 legs.  11 times 13 equals 143.

Seasons 12-13 had 11 legs. 2 times 11 equals 22

Seasons 14-24 had 12 legs. 11 times 12 equals 132.

 

That's a total of 297 legs going into this season, which means Shetland Islands would have been the unofficial 300th leg.  That is a 4 episode difference, so is TPTB saying there were four technical "double legs" in the show's history?  Off the top of my head, I remember the season 8 finale was a double length leg with no NEL in the middle, and season 6 also had the Hungary leg with the back to back to back equalizing that caught Lori and Bolo up to the rest of the pack in the middle of the leg.  They can't be counting every To Be Continued episode, as there's far more than 4.  Totally meaningless discussion, but I'm clueless how they get to 300 tonight!

There was also the Finland-Ukraine double leg with no Pit Stop in the middle, but even then the 300th would only be last week's Morocco episode.

[Lingo]

EW posted some "Where are they now?" couples news.  

 

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20302134_20869974,00.html

 

I may have written NOOOO!  upon learning Uchenna and Joyce are no longer married. 

 

Nice article but what's the point of doing a "Where Are They Now?" on racers we just saw last season?! *eyeroll*  And too much focus on Big Brother contestants and bland winners like Megan and Cheyne. I did like hearing about Uchenna and Joyce (nooo!), Ron and Christina, and Brooke and Claire though.  (Still hope to see B&C on a future all-stars!)

[Lantern7]

Judging from his picture, I see Cheyne still use wax on his hair. And the news on Uchenna & Joyce wasn't totally news to me, but it's nice that they're friends.

[kassygreene]

If I remember correctly, Uchenna & Joyce were very nice, she was a good sport about the shaving the head fast forward (which still only put them seconds ahead of the other teams), and weren't they the couple where one had worked for MCI and the other for Worldcom, and both got clobbered in that debacle.  For that alone I was rooting for them to win.  Glad they are still friends, although with how I remember them, I don't think they could be anyone's enemy.

Edited November 14, 2014 by kassygreene

[ottoDbusdriver]

I can't believe that TAR has been preempted by some second-rate film awards show that has a judging process as mysterious as the Golden Globes, yet has somehow managed to exist for 17 years without breaking onto TV until this year.

Edited November 15, 2014 by ottoDbusdriver

[auntlada]

If I remember correctly, Uchenna & Joyce were very nice, she was a good sport about the shaving the head fast forward (which still only put them seconds ahead of the other teams), and weren't they the couple where one had worked for MCI and the other for Worldcom, and both got clobbered in that debacle.  For that alone I was rooting for them to win.  Glad they are still friends, although with how I remember them, I don't think they could be anyone's enemy.

 

Uchenna worked for Enron.

[kassygreene]

Thanks auntlada, I knew it was two of the big bad bankrupt companies.

[Rusun]

I can't believe that TAR has been preempted by some second-rate film awards show that has a judging process as mysterious as the Golden Globes, yet has somehow managed to exist for 17 years without breaking onto TV until this year.

 

From the CMAs to these HFAs, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Rusun

[NurseGiGi]

I can't believe that TAR has been preempted by some second-rate film awards show that has a judging process as mysterious as the Golden Globes, yet has somehow managed to exist for 17 years without breaking onto TV until this year.

 

 

From the CMAs to these HFAs, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

AND I forgot that TAR was being preempted so I hurried home from work (I work 7p-7a), got all situated in my recliner and then......no TAR!  Because of yet another stupid awards show.

[ottoDbusdriver]

AND I forgot that TAR was being preempted so I hurried home from work (I work 7p-7a), got all situated in my recliner and then......no TAR!  Because of yet another stupid awards show.

 

And to add insult to injury, the Hollywood Film Awards tanked in the ratings, dropping from TAR's 1.2 18-49 rating to 0.6, and losing nearly 2 million viewers from the previous Friday, coming in 4th in the 8pm timeslot behind a re-run of Masterchef on Fox.  Well done CBS.

 

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/11/15/tv-ratings-friday-last-man-standing-cristela-rise-100th-episode-of-shark-tank-grimm-constantine-down-hollywood-film-awards-tank/328032/

[GaT]

Check out this article about The Hollywood Film Awards, this is the crap they thought would be better than TAR?

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-hollywood-film-awards-cbs-20141114-column.html

[ottoDbusdriver]

Check out this article about The Hollywood Film Awards, this is the crap they thought would be better than TAR?

http://www.latimes.c...114-column.html

That portion of the article about Quentin Tarantino just confirms what bullshit the HFAs are.

[riley702]

I still can't help but chuckle when I see someone talking about HFAs, because I'm a respiratory therapist, and to ME, an HFA is a kind of asthma inhaler. Kind of like DNR means "do not resuscitate" instead of Dept. of Natural Resources. 

[Lantern7]

Here's a commercial for the next episode. It's stuff we saw before last week, and something extra with Misti & Jim. Winners' edit? Who knows . . . between that, Maya constantly loving the race, and the good karma that has followed the Surfers, I can believe any of the remaining teams could win.

[Rusun]

RHAP a.k.a. Rob Has a Podcast - Cesternino, not Mariano - interviews the non-finalist teams elimination by elimination:

 

http://robhasawebsite.com/category/amazing-race-2/

 

The latest one elicited the following curious comment(ary):

 

I had no idea Jim & Misti could hand off the save to another team at any point they wanted. That is CRAZY! I also like that Kym/Ali referred to the save as "having immunity". I agree that it made the race predictable to some extent. At least the others didn't know what special powers Tony had in his "bag of tricks" on Survivor. The save is IMHO worse than the Tyler Perry Idol because Jim & Misti were untouchable unless they came in last twice. In addition, knowing the save could be transferred at any time, nobody wanted to flush it. They wanted to try and be the team that Jim/Misti handed the save over to.

 

 

[GaT]

Why would any of the other teams think that Jim & Misti would give them the save? I can't imagine any circumstance where the team that has the save would give it to someone else.

[ByaNose]

Yeah, I think that would be the last team they'd want to save. Then again, I wasn't there. LOL!!! The Save us a good idea but Jim & Misti should have list in when they used it in the non elimation leg. You snooze you lose as it goes. I'm still not sure why TPTB let them reuse it?!

[tds444]

a situation would be to give it to the wrestlers or  the scientists to take the lesser competition to the finals over the surfers or cyclists

[Lingo]

Oh yeah, I think I remember Jim floating the idea of giving the Save to another team in a very early bonus clip, but I forgot all about that. Definitely an unlikely scenario unless it were the ninth leg and you knew for sure you wouldn't be last.

[Lantern7]

Heads up for anybody who reads Reality Blurred . . . Andy has one cast spoiler and location spoilers as TAR26 wraps up. I just wanted to warn anybody reading this about it.

[kassygreene]

Even if the Save could be handed off, there is no way Jim would have done that.  Which means the Save was effectively a twelfth team.  Forcing the Dentists to last place and forcing them to use the Save would have leveled the field.  Being intimidated by the Save meant that opportunities to weaken a strong team were ignored.  And so what if Jim would have held a grudge?  They were playing to win anyway.  If they were good sports they would admire the game play (50-50 that would have happened, as they are so much more even-tempered then I think anyone expected).  If they were poor sports (like the wrestlers), again, so what?  It's a race!  Your competition is going to compete!

 

The AR blew it when the Save turned out to be unusable on a non-elimination leg.  If a Save can create an NEL, then why can't an NEL turn in to a Save?  That's as bad as building a badly-timed leg (Thailand, AR1).

[Lingo]

the Save was effectively a twelfth team. 

 

I like that way of putting it!

[Lantern7]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdJ_iJwDQNg

 

Word of warning about the commercial for the finale . . . there's a shot of sixteen people on the Big Mat with Phil, so it can be a bit of a spoiler if you squint hard enough.

 

ETA: This is "Reality Remix," where Jeff from TAR16 goes over moments from TAR and Survivor. I had to look up his name . . . I tend to black out on Big Brother alumni.
 

[ottoDbusdriver]

Listening to the RobHasaPodcast Amazing Race Finale recap show, they apparently have it on good authority that Brooke and Robbie are no longer together.

Edited December 20, 2014 by ottoDbusdriver

[Lamb18]

Too bad so sad. I guess Rob's crazy attitude was too much for Brooke.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Too bad so sad. I guess Rob's crazy attitude was too much for Brooke.

 

Or Robbie finally had enough of Brooke's constant complaining and badmouthing people (outside of wrestling, since in wrestling badmouthing is written into the script -- just like all the "titles" they won).

[Lantern7]

Run, Robbie! Run away!!

 

In case you missed it, here's the TAR26 promo.

[Lingo]

Thanks. I think the thing that bugs me the most is that only some of the teams are meeting for the first time.  Aren't the teams who know each other going to have a pretty big advantage?

[threebluestars]

One of the couples is New Kids on the Block member Jonathan Knight and his boyfriend Harley Rodriguez. I'm really looking forward to seeing Jonathan race - I still remember when he was on Oprah because of debilitating anxiety and depression.

[Lantern7]

Glowing review of TAR25. The author loved him some Sweet Scientists.

 

ETA: Here are the Beekman Boys talking about the merits of Time-Warner. Also, Andy of RealityBlurred weighs in on TAR26.

[Lingo]

I've stumbled upon some articles about TAR25 from TV Guide.

 

This one is an article from the start of the race, giving behind-the-scenes video and information about that start in Times Square.  Other than that information, the most interesting bits is Phil's predictions about elimination order.  He predicted:

 

11th: Keith and Whitney
10th: Shelley and Nici
9th: Dennis and Isabelle
8th: Lisa and Michelle
7th: Adam and Bethany
6th: Amy and Maya
5th: Tim and Te Jay
4th: Brooke and Robbie
3rd: Misti and Jim
2nd: Kym and Alli
1st: Michael and Scott

 

Honestly, I thought his predictions were pretty good!  Of course he was way off about Michael and Scott, but if they hadn't rolled that ankle, then they might have survived that leg, and who knows how far they would have gone?  It's interesting he picked Keith and Whitney for last.  I picked them for the top half, maybe even final 3, but his prediction was closer than mine!  He was also way off about Amy and Maya, but I think it's safe to say that we all underestimated them. The other odd pick is Adam and Bethany for 7th place!  About that, here is a second TV Guide article previewing the final leg, in which Phil discusses those pre-season picks.  About Adam and Bethany, he said, "Yeah, I felt like they would've gotten more overwhelmed by the international travel, not from a physical standpoint, but from a cultural point of view. But I was wrong! And I'm happy to be wrong."  Interesting -- maybe the surfers are not well-traveled??

 

Here is a post-finale interview with Amy and Maya.  Maya says: "We were only about 20 minutes ahead of Misti and Jim, and about an hour and 20 ahead of the surfers."  Amy says: "I actually found out when I got home that I had stress fractures in my lower pelvis. I was in pretty severe pain most of the race, but that just shows you what adrenaline can do. I was actually suffering more from crashing the bike into the van last week than I was from heat exhaustion."

 

Here is an interview with Jim and Misti.  Jim says of the ending, "It wasn't as close as it appeared on TV. You kind of lose perspective of time. It was probably 30 minutes behind Amy and Maya, and Adam and Bethany were probably the same amount of time behind us."  Misti says the last task was probably like 2.5 hours.  Jim says, "When I said my goal was to beat to Dave and Rachel's record, it was. I didn't think it was a practical goal. I went in thinking we had a 50 percent chance of winning and a 10 percent chance of beating their record, but that doesn't mean that's still not our goal."

 

Here's Adam and Bethany.  B: "We didn't want the race to come between us. It actually made us more lovey-dovey than we are. [Laughs]"

 

Here's Kym and Alli. Kim about the FF: "I do feel a little better about it having seen the episode and knowing that everyone was planning to U-Turn us. Either way, it was a gamble. If we hadn't gone after it, what would've happened? With the tightrope-walking, only one person could go at a time. I fell twice. They didn't show it. I felt like the space between the ropes was really far and I was having a hard time reaching. ... It was nothing as spectacular as Jim's fall where he flipped around. I don't know if you got consecutive tries, but if I had fallen, they would've put the wrestlers up there and they got it on their first try and they would've been in first and gotten to the U-Turn and we would've been U-Turned."

 

OK, all of the interviews are here.

Shelley and Nici.  Shelley says: "We did ask for directions, but the directions we were getting from people were, in our minds, messing with directions we were given on the clue about how to get there. We were told to drive through the town, but the directions on the clue don't say drive through the town. It says you're supposed to make a turn. We just didn't listen to the people. I know! They live there! Why are we questioning people who live there and drive there every day? It was a horrible mistake." On Keith and Whitney: "they didn't get U-Turned because of [the fight]. .... We knew we needed to U-Turn someone because we didn't have our bags and we had to pay our cab. We didn't know we'd be in the square all day long. ... So we needed to get our bags after the Detour and we needed time. In the race, minutes were important. If we didn't U-Turn someone, in the time it took for us to leave the square, go all the way out where the taxis were, anything could've happened. So it was like, whoever's still down there twirling, we're U-Turning them. Keith is, like, six-foot-three, six-foot-four, wearing bright yellow. How hard do you think it was for me to see him? It's Big Bird! There he is! That's why we say it's karma because it turned out that Maya and Amy were down there too. I could've spotted them first ... but it was a 30-second decision. There he is."

 

Eh, you can read the rest yourselves. :)

[Lingo]

Here's another interview with Amy and Maya.  (Amy thinks they were at the crates between 1 and 1.5 hours.)

[Chyna]

TnT's latest videoblog includes cameos from a lot of the most recent Racers and a couple of past, some clips of TeJay's drag performance, and bits from the Race finale party. All the Racers (including Brooke) seem to get along swimmingly now that it's all over. (Brooke even greets Amy with an ass-grab. :) )

Edited December 26, 2014 by Chyna

[ProfCrash]

Love this quote

 

"HitFix: What did you guys sort of get from the reactions of your fellow competitors as you had that last run to Phil? What was the energy of that moment like for you guys?

Amy DeJong: It was insane. I mean people seemed really happy for us. When we were talking to everybody at the mat, the other teams waiting, they were really glad to see us coming around the corner. Brooke and Rob I think wetr a little bit different because they had just been eliminated, but for those teams that had been out for a little bit they were glad to see a strong all-female team win. I mean we're not bimbos, we didn't trick our way through the race, we didn't rely on other people. We really ran our race; we were there based from we had done to get ourselves there and so they were happy for us. We were nice to other teams..."

 

Gee who might they be talking about? OK, so there could be more then one team that falls into that category.

 

One of the reasons that I love that they won is because they did run their race and they did not look for others to help them and save them and care for them. Amy was running on a freaking broken pelvis. They were physically and mentally tough and very much earned their win.

[Electruck]

includes cameos from a lot of the most recent Racers and a couple of past, some clips of TeJay's drag performance, and bits from the Race finale party. All the Racers (including Brooke) seem to get along swimmingly now that it's all over. (Brooke even greets Amy with an ass-grab. :) )

Near the end where they're headed off somewhere, Brooke says, "take a shot every time I complain!" -- Ha! At least she's self-aware.

[Lantern7]

Live chat session with Amy & Maya. Pretty informative stuff.

[Vermicious Knid]

Premiere will be 90 minutes on Wednesday, Feb 25, with the second episode back on Friday.

http://smartshow.tv/event/amazing-race-season-26-premiere-cbs