[Apologies if the site’s a bit slow at the moment, not sure why, hopefully it will sort itself in the fullness of time].
This week I’m a Celeb did its 300th Bushtucker Trial. I’ve often said this, but I genuinely think IAC has one of the best task teams in the business constantly coming up with slightly different ways to dress up the same three tasks over and over (get covered in bugs, put body part in bugs, eat bugs) with the occasional height task for variety. It must be a nightmare, especially when the celebs (completely reasonably) decide they then don’t want to do it. The Dingo Dollar Challenges, which are often inventive and fun, must be a more fun to come up with.
I often wonder if the punchline is always 5,000 cockroaches whether you get immured to it. I’m perfectly happy not to find out.
Anyway they’ve come a long way since they started, the first series trials back in the heady days of 2002 seem so quaint, including as they do “chasing pigs around” and “grabbing stars whilst riding a bucking bronco”, and in the days before earpieces were invented Ant and Dec had to time them using an actual stopwatch.
I wonder how much they’ve been inspired by Boyard, especially in recent years. That Food Factory one this year is basically a mashup of about five of the games.
I think if anything it tends to be the other way round – there have been several Boyard games in the last few years that have clearly been done on I’m a Celeb – The Ghost Train and Underwater Training are obvious examples.
The Food Factory just seemed to be a reskinning of Sc-area 51 from last year, from what I saw of it.
Incidentally, pro tip: ignore the website, they seem to put slightly longer video edits on the official Youtube.
Not sure when the premiere is yet, but CBS has started showing promos for Hunted…
And they just announced it- the premiere will be Sunday, January 20th (they’re giving it a prime slot- after the AFC Championship game that decides one of the Super Bowl teams, plus it’s a holiday weekend), future episodes will be Wednesdays at 8pm (so it’ll be the show airing between the fall and spring Survivor seasons)
-nine teams of two
-game area is the Southwest US (approx 100,000 sq. miles)
-game time is 28 days
-$250,000 prize for EACH team that makes it..