RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor San Juan Del Sur Premiere | 10 Year Anniversary
Episode Date: September 24, 2024It's been 10 years since Survivor San Juan Del Sur premiered and Rob Cesternino (@RobCesternino) and Josh Wigler (@roundhoward) are here to talk about it! Rob and Josh will break down how the game ha...s changed over the past 10 years and how San Juan Del Sur compares to Survivor 47.
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On this very night, 10 years ago, Survivor San Juan del Sur premiered on CBS and it sounded something like this. Dig woman. Yes, we are back here live to talk about a very special
day in Survivor history. September 24th, 2014 was the day we got to meet the cast of Survivor,
San Juan del Sur, and here with me to talk about this on this very special episode of Rob's Podcast, my great friend, who I love talking about
old Survivor seasons with, it's Josh Wiggler.
I'm going to cry, Rob.
There's something in my eye.
Oh, no, it's the fire grease from the trees.
Oh, it's this poison sap.
It's burning.
It's burning so bad.
Oh, my God.
Can you believe?
You just got sapped.
We just got.
It's been 10 years?
Yep.
Since Survivor San Juan del Sur.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Time flies, baby.
We are here.
It was 10 years ago on a 90-minute of survivor san juan del sur kicked off a season that has become
a survivor classic beloved by a generation who may not have even been watching it at the time
but we were hadn't even been born yet baby andy was a legitimately a baby literally an infant an
actual baby yes i mean not really he's actually
in his 30s but uh you get yeah you get the idea so we are here today to talk about uh this uh
10 year old survivor fans listening to survivor podcasts then or now like now i don't know about
now i feel like that there were then who were like oh wow i can't we have no idea now we have
to wait for them to grow up and tell us that they were listening i turned 10 uh minnows in the chat we're doing this live minnows
says i was 11 11 11 unbelievable yep unreal i don't want to say how old i was because then i
have to say how old i am uh when it comes to survivor san ju Juan del Sur. You say a classic, Rob.
I remember back in my day
when it was controversial to like San Juan del Sur.
It was a slow burn, for sure.
And I will say that we watched the premiere,
for now,
and it was, in my recollection,
a better post-merge than a spoilers of Survivor San Juan del Sur.
But the you know, really, it takes Natalie's revenge arc to really get going.
I mean, I'm sure there's a lot to love in the pre-merge.
But at the time, especially coming off of Survivor Kageyan, that I think that there was a little bit of a feeling that may have been off to a slow start.
Yeah, I guess for some,
absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I don't know about if there were any wounds
that needed healing other than Josh's tree-sapped eyes,
so I don't know that time had much to do with this.
But for me, going back tree-sapped eyes, so I don't know that time had much to do with this. But
for me, going
back and watching Survivor
San Juan del Sur, which we are, again,
we are recording these words, September
24th, 2024. Ten years ago.
To the day.
To the day.
To the day is when San
Juan del Sur. Also, congratulations to
Derek Levasseur
for 10 years ago today winning Big Brother.
Okay, so what I was also going to say
is happy 10-year anniversary
to the very first episode of Big Brother
that I ever watched.
I've watched like two more since then.
Yeah.
It was right after, right?
Or it was right before.
I can't remember which one came first,
the premiere or the finale.
I believe that Survivor
came on first
and then Big Brother
came on second.
And so I went back
and I thought that
part of the fun
of this project for me
to go back,
you know, I looked at the dates
and, you know,
all year long
we've been talking about 2014
of the 10-year anniversary
of Survivor Kageyan
in the spring
and a bunch of other things
that were 10-year anniversaries this year
in terms of Rob as a podcast and starting up the Patreon.
And this was really the start of my full-time work doing Rob as a podcast.
So it was a very special time for me also.
So looking back and mapping out the dates, it's like,
wow, oh, this also started this exact week.
And I think it's an exciting time for me to revisit talking about this premiere,
because I think it's also a time that a lot of people really started to find Rob as a podcast.
And while Cagayan got it started, I think that this entire year stretch of 2014 was a real
jumping off point for all of the madness that would come
in the next 10 years of Rob as a podcast. Yeah, I was going to say that I think that
from my experience, so at this point, San Juan del Sur comes out and I think that I'm two years
into knowing you as a person, other than just as like a TV character. And so I start getting involved in
the podcast. And those are very fun early memories of the podcast. But it's 2014 when I really
remember not just RHAP popping off, but I really remember Rob popping off is the year 2014.
Just on the Survivor side of things, though, on the Survivor podcast side of things though on the survivor podcast side of things i think that san juan del
suor is an historic season of survivor and rhap because it really revolutionizes and underlines
and stresses the monumental importance of the rhap soundboard. Yes. The RHAP soundboard becomes a main character on RHAP
with sound.
We figured it out a little bit in Cagayan,
but I think then the software started to,
like I figured out like the buttons.
We soft launched it.
We soft launched the soundboard software
and you became like mad with power.
Maybe too much so.
By the time Sanan del sur came around
we had so much to choose from a veritable smorgasbord of san juan del sur sound bites
uh i couldn't believe that dig woman was in this very first episode yep right off the jump and so
right off the rip yeah we'll we'll talk about that. Maybe a little bit about where RHAP was at also.
Josh and I both watched the premiere.
You just watched the premiere, right?
I just watched the premiere.
We just watched the premiere.
First time going back to it since we talked about it, I think, on Evolution.
I listened to and watched Survivor Know-It-Alls from 10 years ago.
It's actually 10 years ago tomorrow i guess
uh because of the big brother of it all that we pushed uh stephen fishback to to uh the day after
the survivor wow yeah we did we we bumped the survivor premiere for the big brother it's a busy
night yeah certainly i think uh you know in hindsight uh and i don't think you needed much
hindsight to know that that was that was the right call program wise.
Yeah.
One that has to get bumped.
I think like as much as I love SJDS.
Yeah.
You know, Big Brother for now.
He's a historic Big Brother night as well.
And then I also was listening to just now my recap of this episode with the great Kim Spradlin.
now my recap of this episode with the great kim spradlin and you know it's just and that to me was so fun of like really where you know we're winners at war really when we look back at this era and i
think that this is also what's so fun to go back and talk about the 10 years ago of it all really
from you know from 27 through you know 40 i feel like you start to have like uh this you know you're
laying the groundwork in all the marvel movies of like the ultimate infinity war and end game where
interesting uh so fun to have you know uh tony has just won and he's talking about kim and kim
is talking about tony in that podcast talking about, and first talking about Jeremy,
who Jeremy is going to be on the season with,
with all of them. And it's just that the groundwork is being laid for what's ultimately going
to come in winners at war.
But we're in.
So if that,
if that's the end game,
if winners at war is Avengers end game is survivor end game.
So that bodes poorly for a new era.
Cause like phase,
phase four memorably
is still ongoing kind of and not
so great. I say that as I
like new era Survivor a lot more
than I like post-endgame Marvel for sure.
Well,
hear more about that at
WeKnowScriptedTV.com
That's correct. WeKnowScriptedTV.com
But I do want to make this about the
premiere of
survivor san juan del sur and it really was so interesting to go back and and watch this because
it really i i don't think you could talk about this without talking about how the one year earlier
was uh in 2013 the first survivor blood versus. And it really felt like in watching this back,
Survivor was trying to maybe like soft launch.
Survivor Blood vs. Water was going to be
like the first of many seasons.
Yeah, yeah.
Like Blood vs. Water was going to be
its own iteration of Survivor.
Like you could like forget like all this talk about
like when are they going to do Celebrity Survivor?
That would be like a big brother ask mini season.
Right.
There,
maybe it feels like in hindsight,
looking back on it,
because the way that probes talks about the blood versus water concept in
this first episode,
he's like,
we liked it so much.
It was so nice.
We did it twice.
Like,
he's really,
really into the blood versus water premise.
And you could imagine it going on
into a few different yeah but even the cards that come in and out of the show they call are just
calling it like survivor blood versus water uh that and they like at the end of the first episode
like this season on survivor blood versus water so they were really all in on this theme and it's so funny because that to us uh who feel like wow
what a wonderful season of survivor by the time we get to the end for whatever reason i feel like
the show it cannot wait to get to survivor 30 survivor world apart and they never go back to
the survivor blood versus water concept which they were so happy and thrilled
with from the first time they did it yeah i think that one of you know uh we we recorded for those
who don't know what the evolution of strategy even is the evolution of strategy was an audiobook
chronicling the first 30 seasons of survivor bob and I spoke about each season in enormous detail.
And when we got to the final two seasons of that,
when we got to San Juan del Sur and Worlds Apart,
seasons 29 and 30,
we were now talking about seasons that had yet to air
when we started the evolution of strategy recording process to begin with.
Yeah.
So I think we always felt like those two seasons specifically, I think like the later seasons
of TOS, like we don't really have the benefit of time yet.
Like we haven't hit the time travel volume of the evolution of strategy yet.
You know, and so we were we were podcasting
we're recording commentary about a thing that we had just processed and so we didn't have um years
and years of distance away from it i think years and years of distance away from any survivor season
totally warps and changes the way you look at it, depending on how things moved along culturally,
or how did the show change, and how did the game, quote unquote, evolve. But I think in the case of
San Juan del Sur, and a lot of the seasons from this general time, so now into even into really
San Juan del Sur and Worlds Apart, these final Nicaragua
filmed seasons of the show. I think that there are some things that happen here or even things
that happened a couple of seasons before this, that Survivor feels like, oh, it's too soon. We
shouldn't, we shouldn't touch that again. And so then they never end up touching it again.
When I think that probably like people could handle another blood
versus water people would desire I think maybe even another blood versus water and they probably
could have done it a whole lot sooner and maybe we don't end like if you if you like kill a triple
h I'll trade you one heroes healers hustlers for a third blood versus water who's not taking that
deal and what does that do?
You know, I think a lot of things potentially change.
Yeah, it's so interesting because, you know, it's at a point where I think that Jeff is executive producer is playing with a lot of the ideas. I think they had such great success with
it with the first time that they did it. And for whatever reason, maybe they felt like that, you know, they had some casting hits,
but not both people from a,
you know, a duo ended up being casting hits
and they ended up going away from it.
But I think that Jeff loves this idea
of the relationships.
And it's so funny going back and watching this
because I feel like that while this period
in Survivor history that we're talking about
is a period where there are almost no loved ones visits,
where the 30s become really known for the loved ones visit all through the 30s becomes such a staple of the show.
And we end up getting the interaction that Jeff, I think, liked so much about this in the form of the loved ones visit of,
what's it like being the dad where,
you know,
you get to have your son go is going to exile Island.
Like what's it like?
He even asked him this episode is like,
you know,
what's it like that you're safe,
but your loved one is going to tribal council tonight.
Yeah.
I don't even know.
I think is what Jeremy says.
Yeah.
But baby,
just look at that one interaction to see just how much juice there was
to squeeze from San Juan Del Sur.
The season, it opens with day zero, right?
Night zero.
Night zero.
Where all the couples are stranded
across Nicaragua, hanging out,
trying to make fire.
The late, great, the incredible,
the goaded-
He's so good in this.
Keith Nail
talking to my son
he biffed it lost the striker
you know this is what's going down
and then we get to
what could have been Redemption
Island arena but is now
known as Hero Arena thanks to Mike
White and it's going
to be
in itself it's historic right well this is's going to be, which in itself is historic, right?
Well, this is so fun to be able to like,
these are things that like we can know now
that we didn't know then.
Okay, so I'm not sure at what point,
I think maybe in the preseason leading up to it,
I think that Jeff had told the story about that.
It was Mike White,
the future Survivor contestant, Mike White,
who then Jeff had told Mike White about Redemption Island.
And Mike White, for the first time in Survivor history,
not the last, ends up having like a,
Jeff can read Mike White's expression.
And he's like, oh, but is it fun, Redemption Island?
And Jeff, they throw it out.
Now, personally, I actually thought Redemption Island
worked its best that it ever worked in.
Far be it for me to disagree with Mike White on to them.
But I actually thought that the Redemption Island, at least in like if you were going to stop it at the merge, like they do the hero arena here.
Like, I think that it would be perfect for a blood versus water.
I think that it would be perfect for a blood versus water season.
Oh, man.
I'm a psychopath because you heard me rage about Redemption Island years ago and certainly about Edge of Extinction.
At this point, like, whatever.
Bring them back.
Why not?
Throw shit at the wall.
Who knows what sticks?
But I think evaluating what 29 could have been like with Redemption Island
is a very fun exercise.
But even with just Hero Arena
and the concept being you're going to choose your champion
and that champion has to go up against their loved one
in the Hero Arena.
And legend in the making, Jeremy Collins steps up
and he's going to be the guy.
And Jeff says, do you want to know who you're playing against?
And Jeremy,
like who is one of the deftest,
subtlest,
like socially excellent survivor winners.
I think that you,
you think of when you think of those qualities and a survivor winner,
uh,
is just like,
like all over the place in this challenge where he's like, I don't care who I'm up against.
Like, I don't care.
I don't care who this is.
Just throw him at me.
And then it's his wife.
And like, she's sort of the same way.
Like, I don't care.
Whatever.
This is what we signed up to do.
And then he blows her out.
You know, destroys her in this grab your sack challenge. Somebody in the background is going uh grab your sack challenge somebody in the background is going grab
your sack jeremy uh that did not go over my head and by the time it's over like jeremy's dragging
his feet because he doesn't want to uh have to send his wife to exile island and then when he's
on the mat on the other side of it jeremy can't even talk. This guy who had like his like sort of like Mortal Kombat one liners ready to
go at the start of this thing when he's like,
how does it make you feel that Val's going to exile?
I went,
Jeremy literally says,
I can't talk about it.
Like I'm not going to,
I'm not,
I like,
there's so much there just,
and we're not even at minute 15 yet.
Uh,
and there's so much there just and we're not even at minute 15 yet and there's so much there
so I think that there's still so
much to squeeze from blood
versus water as a concept and you
don't have to look any further than the
first 15 minutes of the first episode of San
Juan yeah and again we only watch the premiere I
do think that this hero arena
ends up being the only one with
those kind of emotional stakes
oh they don't always send them against their loved one?
They do send them.
I think that they start to.
I'm not sure.
I can't say that every single one,
but I don't think that any of the other ones have those kind of...
Well, Hacker goes up against Julie, right?
Yeah, but again, it's not like the emotional stakes are not there.
It's also great that we're so far away from it that it's a little foggy, too.
So there's aspects of this.
It's a great feeling.
I don't know how often you get this anymore with Survivor, Rob,
because you're still so in it.
But when you're away from it for a while and then you reaccess it,
there is this incredibly like sort of like dissonant joy in like,
oh my God, I completely forgot about that.
As you're now like immediately remembering what that's like.
Wes losing the striker.
And then Jeremy having to choose somebody to go with Val to exile.
And he goes,
I already know,
I already know who I'm going to send.
And it's Keith and Keith is getting emotional.
And he's like starting to like get really emotional because of what's going
on between them.
I feel the emotion of that.
And he's getting really,
really worked up.
And,
and Jeremy's like questioned by prob up and uh and jeremy's like
questioned by probes like you're trusting this guy you know this guy knows how to make fire he
lost his his flint on night zero and jeremy is going it wasn't him it was his idiot son and west
is like whoa and immediately like all of these things that I had completely forgotten are just like totally falling into place.
The the the utter goon squad that is Coyopa up against the seemingly got it together with the exception of Drew Christie Hunapu. Like all of this stuff just like starts like falling into place in this incredible like rain of member berries.
Just phenomenal, phenomenal stuff.
I had a point here, and I don't even remember.
I was just so...
You're on a roll.
I was just so jubilant watching this again.
It was my first time going back to San Juan del Sur,
I think, since we talked about it the first time.
And it really, like, wasn't fair to, like, evaluate it so close to it.
So to have now 10 years and be like what happened in the last
10 years to make it that a decade has passed since sjds so crazy i have not re-watched much
old i kind of got a little too close to the stove uh in 2021 when i re-watched 40 seasons in slightly less than 40 weeks when we counted down the seasons.
So since we've been in the new era now, since the fall of 2021, it's been like three years since I've really watched any old Survivor that wasn't from what had just aired.
old survivor that wasn't from what had just aired and it was it was definitely a little bit jarring to go back to this particular time in survivor history 10 years ago the show did feel a little
bit different and again it's not like now what's very interesting about this and doing this today
is that go looking at my own notes okay uh this survivor history and this
podcast history it does rhyme because 10 years ago this very week you and i were recording
the survivor vanuatu chapter oh of teos wow okay and and i have in my notes here i've uh written i i'm not sure when we
recorded but in my notes i'm watching survivor vanuatu on september 23rd 2014 so at the same time
that san juan del sur is premiering that we are also watching and recording about what was happening on
Survivor exactly 10 years earlier in September of 2004.
Wow.
Okay.
So now I'm trying to forecast where we are 10 years from now.
And unfortunately, I think that-
I've crunched the numbers on this, Josh.
And so on September 24th.
OK, yeah.
Twenty.
Thirty four.
Yeah.
We'll be in the midst of
recapping the premiere week
of Survivor 67.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Talking about
the 10 year anniversary of Survivor 47.
And the 10-year anniversary of talking about the 10-year anniversary
that we presided over.
It'll be the 20-year anniversary of Survivor San Juan del Sur.
On San Juan del Sur.
Yeah, and it'll be the 30 30 year anniversary of Vanuatu.
Yep.
Hold on,
I'm putting this
in my calendar.
I want to make sure
that in 2034
that I've got
nothing planned.
Save the date.
Yeah,
this is important.
Okay,
2034.
Does my calendar
go this far?
2034,
September 24th.
Ooh,
a Sunday.
Y'all want brunch? Okay. okay all right you want to do some brunch
we'll figure we'll work it out y'all trying to get brunch on september 24th 2034 because i am
so i feel like that um i noticed uh some differences i feel like from going back and
watching survivor san juan del Sur through now that with 10 years
difference from where we are you know uh like three or four years into the new era versus uh
where we were then I one of the things I thought was striking and not like the thing that Wes lost
was Jeff describes to us who these people are.
And that's something I do not believe is in the new era of Survivor.
And I do think that this is a change for the positive.
Because instead of Jeff telling us who these people are, for instance, Jeff describes Missy and Baylor.
Jeff describes Missy and Baylor and describes them as
Missy's three divorces
have left Baylor feeling like
she's the mother in the relationship.
Did they say that?
Did they say that?
I don't know.
I don't know if those were their words.
And I don't think that they would
I think that they would let Missy
or Baylor tell you who they are now.
To categorize themselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I,
I,
there's that there's a,
there's,
there's a few other,
like Jeff,
the thing that I appreciated about it was that,
um,
in Jeff narrating and editorializing each of the pairs,
each of the pairs gets like highlighted with specificity before the show
really starts.
So I think like,
that's like sort of the benefit of whether it's the benefit of night zero or
probably more accurately,
like the benefit of like that narrative structure of probes is telling you who
these people are.
That felt a little bit like,
like back in like earliest Survivor days
where they'd be like...
Yeah.
And there would be the pictures of everyone.
There's Rob at the computer company.
I don't think we technically had that, but you could see it.
It was that kind of deal.
And so it sort of had those vibes for me i think that like
what the new era is uh doing instead is like making like bolder format breaks uh and like
having these moments where like uh carson could tell you how good he is at puzzles but instead
they can show you him doing like printing out the puzzles and doing them at home so like i think
like there's a way that they're having their cake and eat it too but as uh as as like as like somebody who now
is like uh i don't i still don't know how to classify myself but like trending casual
at least for like new age survivor uh like i know who rome is because he's halfway in the well
uh and i know who john is because he's not there anymore and i obviously know who asia
welsh is uh and a few of the others who i know but like i don't feel like the cast of 47 was like
remarkably characterized for me uh and at the very least like i don't think that i could like tell
you half the names of the cast but at the like 15 minute mark of San Juan del Sur, I feel like because the pairs have been
laid out, I at least know the relationships. It's a different game literally here with San Juan del
Sur. And a big piece of that is these aren't former Survivor players. And you can't just say,
well, that's Rupert's wife like they gotta work harder to like show
you who the various pairs are
I think it's successful there
I don't know that it's necessary
now but that was my only observation
the observation you made of like
oh yeah and Missy's just been divorced
a whole lot and Missy's
got a Missy's got a lot of work
to do to make it up for Baylor who had
to mom Missy it's like
Jeff come on you don't have to say all that you just let it ride get in the back seat and let
Missy and Baylor drive yeah I just I do think that it's something that the show has worked on
over these 10 years of I think and I think it's probably an improvement at least from the
perspective of the contestants of that they're to let the contestants tell you who they
are more so than they are going to tell you who the contestants are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
for sure. Uh, and I, I think that that's great. I think, I think it's great. It was nostalgic to
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We end up with two tribes.
Also, what a departure from the new era to have these two tribes. But interestingly, two tribes of nine.
And I believe this is the only season that we actually know.
I think Edge of Extinction, I think there's also two tribes of nine.
And we end up.
Were there dropouts?
Yes.
Yes.
So Kim and Doe Kim.
Oh, right.
Right.
That's so Kim.
And then she comes back yes the next season
only to not get a foo interview with me but could have
and how it works out with if so isn't a blood versus ah man the butterfly effect that George R.R. Martin warned about. That's it. Yes.
So, Kim ends up being not in the season
and we end up with these
nine-person
tribes, which I guess
does loom large in the
very first vote. Okay, Mike Bloom reminds
us that Vanuatu,
Guatemala, and Gabon also had
two tribes of nine.
My question for you, Rob, is
off the rip, without looking
at anything, can you
give me the tribe breakdowns? You got that
in you? I'll tell you which
Who's in Coyopa, who's in Hunapu?
I'm pretty sure I could do that.
Hunapu,
if I'm going to start with the men.
You know what?
Ladies first.
Let me start with the women.
Okay.
With due respect to our winner.
We don't want anything wrong with this.
Natalie Anderson.
Who not?
Kelly Wentworth.
Yeah.
Missy.
Yeah.
Julie.
Julie.
And then I'm assuming that they have, this is the tribe that has five men. We have Jeremy, Keith, John Mish,
Reed, and who am I missing?
I can't believe you don't have the courage
to remember my name here.
Oh, Drew Christie, yes.
Okay.
And then on the other side,
Alec Christie, John Rocker, Wes,
Josh, then Dale,
Baylor,
Jacqueline,
Val, and Nadia.
Yeah.
There he goes.
I could not do that for every season of Survivor.
I do not believe.
Could you do that for New Era?
Do you think?
I believe so.
If I asked you,
and I'm not asking you to actually do this, but if I
asked you, give me
the names of everybody on every
tribe from, every
starting tribe from 41,
could you do that?
I think so. Do you want me to...
No, I don't really want you to try.
I don't really want you to try.
I'm pretty confident. Theory. My theory being Do you want me to? No, I don't really want you to try. I don't really want you to try. I was trying to test out a theory.
My theory being that in the moment, at the time,
we had a lot of gripes, just like the royal,
we had a lot of gripes about the various themes
and like, does this make any sense?
Why are you a hustler?
You should be a hero.
Why are any of you any of these?
This shouldn't be a theme, this kind of thing.
But I think in those days,
there's at least individuality.
And I think there is more specificity
to who is on which tribe.
I find it easier to track for me, at least mentally,
but I have not studied the 40s casts the same way.
But I just wonder.
I just wonder. I just wonder.
Yeah.
Okay.
Josh, what else stood out to you
about the premiere of San Juan El Sur?
Individual people.
Obviously, individual people.
So many of them who would go on
to become legends in their own right.
We've talked a decent amount about Jeremy already,
who would just come back a couple seasons later
and deliver a very impressive win. We could talk about Jeremy already, who would just come back a couple seasons later and deliver a very impressive win.
We could talk about Jeremy all day long
in his first episode here.
Well, Jeremy is such an interesting character
here in San Juan del Sur.
And I always think about, you know,
Jeremy and how he came back in Survivor Second Chances.
And one of the things that I always think about Jeremy
just as the Survivor player
is the interview that you did with him when you went out to Cambodia, not Fiji.
And you talked to him before he played in Survivor Second Chances.
And he just came across as like very like loosey goosey.
And he was at peace with whatever happened.
And to that point, I wouldn't think that that was the right
headspace to go into a returning player game i mean jeremy uh here is just you know uh stressed
in san juan el cerro he has a lot going on you know he definitely has like main character energy. But that main character is like a, you know, Jack Bauer, who is just is.
Yeah, it's just like going through it the entire time he's on the show.
Yes. Yeah. Like that is his energy.
And then his energy is completely, completely flipped.
completely completely flipped um my memory of the cambodia stuff is that like every single person out there to a person of the second chancers was like i gotta win i have to atone for this thing
i have to like heal this mistake and jeremy basically was the only one or one of very few
who is like this is crazy i can't believe i get to play survivor twice really uh and like it's
just like completely screamingly different from the guy that you see in this first episode for sure but you already
see like jeremy with that main character energy he's just like such a good tv presence uh he the
way that he narrates the way that he speaks uh like the the wheeling and dealing he's doing on
on hunapu is just like very, very fun to watch.
And I remember that there's a moment
that occurs early in this episode
when we go back to the Hunapu tribe
for the very first time that we talked about
during the evolution of strategy,
but could not see the future yet,
did not know yet that Jeremy would be a survivor
champion. And there's a moment where he and Kelly Wentworth very quickly handshake deal on an
alliance and go their separate ways. And Wentworth will go on to have a very underwritten story here
in San Juan del Sur, only to become a legend in her own right. But in that moment, I remember
in T.E.O. teos you and i just like
crossing that scene and being like this could be historic yeah like this could be a historic moment
and i think in a lot of ways the hunapu beach actually was very historic specifically for
second chance sure uh and even going back to that you know end game uh winners at war with you know
jeremy and natalie are both going to be part of uh winners at war with you know jeremy and natalie are both
going to be part of uh winners at war and you know have big parts to play in in that story and at the
time we recorded the evolution of strategy we had known the second chain i mean you had already gone
to uh cambodia the greatest trick josh wiggler for pulled was talking about vitus having a really
good shot at second chance when i already knew he'd gone home. Yeah.
But you had known that she was,
we all had known that she was out there
at that particular point in time.
We would not know.
I also, at that point, had watched her get that immunity idol
at that first challenge of second chance.
And so in my mind, I was like,
Wentworth's off to the race.
Is this good for Kelly.
But you know what?
That if we were talking
on September 24th, 2014,
and we were talking
about Wentworth,
it wouldn't be Kelly
that we were talking about.
No.
It would be Dale
who had the much bigger
premiere episode.
Yeah.
Another reason why
there's a lot of reasons
to mourn the fact...
Farm Guy 69. I was just going to say there's a lot of reasons to mourn Farm Guy 69.
I was just going to say there's a lot of reasons to mourn the fact that Survivor had to skip a year of production for the very obvious reasons of like we were in a global crisis.
But I think one of the greater tragedies will bear fruit 10 years from now when it's the premiere of Survivor 67 we're talking about instead of the premiere of Survivor Farm Guy 69,
which could have been nice.
Yeah, I'll have to wait 11 more
years for that instead of just
10.
Dale breaks his glasses and starts
a fire.
This just doesn't get talked about.
Yeah, did Dale wear glasses?
Did he just bring these glasses to break?
Reading glasses?
He needs to read it for all.
He was going to read all the tree mail.
And then he couldn't be the tree mail reader anymore because he couldn't read them anymore.
I had completely forgot that Dale gets the fire started with the glasses.
I feel like that this totally gets overlooked in survivor history i feel
like yao man does it and again everybody's like oh my god yeah um we get dale doing it it's a footnote
well then maybe like everyone like on like like if we could like check like uh the like if there's
like any sort of like way like documented way to check what was the search engine like on September 24th, 2014, what were people searching for on Survivor?
Does Google Trends go back that far?
I don't know.
People were looking up Dale Wentworth?
I don't know if G Trends was going back that far, but if it was and people were searching for Dale Wentworth that night and then what would yield is like Farm Guy 69. Maybe people were like,
I don't need it. Yeah.
My kids are in the room.
I'll look at that later. Josh, something else
about some other footnotes
about Survivor. People understand that
though. That was his Twitter handle.
His Twitter handle, his social media handle
was and I believe is
Farm Guy 69. Why would he change it?
10 years greater. Do we know
why he's Farm Guy 69? Was that
ever revealed in the lore? Probably.
I'm going to guess the year was an
important one. I don't know necessarily.
Probably
maybe
I don't know. Is that the year he started
a farm? I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I don't know.
Some mysteries are best left untouched probably but so a couple of notable things of survivors anyone else sir that i gleaned from
uh you know listening to uh the podcast and stuff like this so of course, Survivor Cagayan set Twitter aflame, much like Dale did with his glasses back in the spring of 2014.
The cast of Survivor, San Juan del Sur, was not allowed to post on social media about Survivor.
Oh, right, White Rice Wednesday.
They had to post about White Rice Wednesday.
Yeah.
And then did they also, was there like a show that they also
like uh we're tweeting about and i can't remember what it was it was like an abc show mysteries of
laura thank you mike bloom a great mike bloom yeah it's the encyclopedic memory mysteries of
laura white rice wednesdays yes that's what they would talk about that would be like if uh you were
watching like the survivor 47 contestants couldn't talk.
So instead they tweeted about Matlock.
Yeah.
I heard it was good.
No, I heard it was good.
Did you watch it this week?
I did.
I watched it today.
I watched it about an hour and a half ago
because I couldn't come on to a podcast
in the Survivor 47 live taping the season
without having talked about Matlock.
I didn't like it. Oh, oh okay i don't think i'll talk
about it anymore all right so also this was i totally forgot about this survivor sam wandell
sir that there was a new host of the cbs a survivor live uh i guess parvati had been doing it from i'm not sure when they started doing
it with parvati i think maybe during caram owen and then parvati was hosting like on cbs.com
yeah a weekly recap uh like and have the person like there with her in studio she I believe she moved to New York and left the West Coast.
And they had hosting Jeff Schroeder,
Big Brother contestant.
Oh, yeah.
Hosted the Survivor Sandwagon.
And I'm not sure if that was only one season lived.
It did not catch on.
Was it beyond one episode?
I think it was the whole season.
Yeah.
When did Survivor Live stop?
I think probably maybe after this.
Yeah.
Because you know when you reach a thought or a series of words,
and you're like, oh man, haven't thought about that in easily 10 years,
or haven't had those two words together
next to each other in this context in my head in 10 years.
That's Survivor Live for me right now.
Had completely forgotten that that ever existed.
Are there people out here who need to know
what Survivor Live was?
I think maybe.
Yeah.
It's possible that people who were zero years old 10 years ago
were now watching Survivor as 10-year-olds.
They might need to know.
Yeah.
So now the Dalton Ross version with Jenna Maresca,
was that Survivor Live?
Is that the same franchise?
I think so.
Where's Mike to let us know?
I'm pretty sure that's correct.
And I think, I don't know if
it was an EW crossover or not,
but it was Dalton and Jenna
for a long time, and then that stopped.
And then does it go straight to Parv?
No, I think that there was a period
in between. I think that
it was in...
And you're never the host of this, right?
You did some CBS.com blogging though
yeah i did a blog or two but uh do you remember i uh think it was during nicaragua
a different uh nicaragua yeah yeah i think that the original uh i'm not sure if it was survivor
live also richard hatch and uh booker was uh his name and i believe he was married to jlo's sister
uh that they hosted it during vanuatu and then and then they switched to dalton ross and jenna
but we are yes okay uh we're we're way off base from 2014 we've gone we've gone back too far
we're in the time machine bring it back to 2014 we always far. We're in the time machine. Bring it back to 2014.
We always threatened we'd get
in the time machine. Here we are.
We're in the DeLorean. Yes.
Okay, Mike Bloom says Bill Posley hosted
it during the Philippines. That
feels like it's a made up
fact. That doesn't feel
possible.
And even if it was Bill Posley
hosting Philippines, technically doesn't bill
posley host all of this yes aren't we all you know it's funny because when i was listening to
uh the survivor know-it-alls um i uh i mentioned bill posley hosting the like 2014 me and i'm like why why am i talking about bill posley uh yeah
uh your audio quality spruced up you think over the years you know what honestly my video quality
has improved a lot more uh your audio was pretty pretty you know on if you watch the video on
youtube and you can go back and watch the old know-it-alls uh the video the audio quality is
not so great there but the podcast I was listening to with Kim,
I felt like the audio actually was still pretty good.
Yeah.
And those podcasts,
the interviews that I would do
would not be on video.
It was audio only.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But let's bring it back to...
Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry.
We went down the wrong stream.
We have to we have to
pay homage we have to honor the uh the the the the greatest the greatest figure of san juan del
sur looms large over the whole season gonna going to get a second chance invite as well.
Just the absolute best immediately. The late, great Keith Nail.
Yeah.
How great was it to watch Keith Nail on Survivor today?
Yeah, it was fantastic.
Emotional.
I don't feel like in second chance he gets as much as he does here in Survivor San Juan del Sur.
And he has like a side to him,
ideally that we don't really see in Cambodia where, you know,
he seems just like the greatest guy.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, he's going to get his moments in Cambodia for sure,
between like the tuck tuck or him like, yeah,
just like zoning out while Jeremy's trying to catch his attention for what
is that final six? But Keith's arc in San Juan del Sur is just so good and emotional and powerful
immediately from like a guy who's like, you know, making fun of his son for losing the Flint to being the guy who like has no problem hopping in and helping out with Val to then being like the guy who again is like he's a feared of these urns.
Right. Like he's scared of the game is sort of Keith's whole arc, which is just it's so it's so funny to me in hindsight, because this is a man who out twice in almost back-to-back seasons in very quick order and places fifth and fourth or fourth and fifth. Keith Nail was great at this. to win here in this season. I feel like in Second Chance, maybe more of a long shot,
but it did feel like that
he had like an inside track at this thing.
Yeah.
But just like even like,
even seeing like the moment with him
and Jeremy hugging it out as firefighters,
knowing that this, you know,
working relationship doesn't exactly work out,
whether in this season or in San Juan.
Jeremy also, a thing that delineates him
from Keith and Kelly.
Keith and Kelly, I think,
were both relatively excited
to see other people from their season out there.
I believe Jeremy was not pleased at all.
It specifically was like,
oh, no, not Keith again.
Not Keith again.
No, not Keith again.
Yeah.
And it's fine.
It's fine in this premiere episode.
The relationship does sour a little bit when we get into everything with the sub alliance.
And Keith and the hat and the mustache and like those like beautiful eyes that are like constantly just like about to shed
tears the jeans rob the jeans are a really underrated component uh of keith who's just
always wearing them uh doesn't matter how hot uh just an like it's so easy to just like just be
like yes icon stan like keith Yeah. Keith Nail, icon.
He goes to Exile Island a couple times.
He goes there with Val here in this episode.
And Val, we don't get to spend a lot of time with her as a Survivor contestant here, just these couple of episodes.
But, you know, Val is such a big personality and really gives us a lot here in this premiere.
Yes.
Val is great.
Val's whole like, I'm a fighter.
Don't worry about me.
I'll be back.
And when I come back, I'll have a satchel filled with immunity idols.
So you're not going to have to worry about a thing.
Yeah.
Now, if you didn't rewatch the episode with us, Val ends up, Val and Keith go to Exile Island and there are two urns.
They have to both pick one.
One urn has a clue to an idol hidden back at the camp.
Val finds the idol or finds the note inside the urn that has the clue.
Does not share it with Keith.
Luckily, Keith is sort of easy come easy go
yeah he's like alright that's her business
if it's about her camp then
that's I'll leave that to her
yeah
but he's scared of the game
he doesn't want to play this this is terrifying
Val gets the clue to the hidden immunity
idol yeah
yeah she does and so like
that ends up becoming sort of uh a possible hot spot when she
returns to coyopa and coyopa has to go to tribal and they haven't had a she hasn't had a chance to
meet any of these people yet so like reason to think that maybe she's somebody to go after um
they they really don't go after her which i remember being a little confused by
in the moment i went back uh and uh shout out to the to the great mike bloom here in the chat who
is the king of survivor coverage at parade magazine once upon a time i was his father uh and i was i was his father at parade magazine and parade
survivor coverage and so my survivor coverage began at parade and it began with this season
and so i had interviews i was in the exit interview circuit for the first time uh son uh and i he's a
good boy he's a good boy yeah he's not gone boy. Yeah. I cannot promise that he won't by the end of our run here.
But I went back and I read the Nadia interview and I and I asked her, I was like, you weren't thinking about Val at any point.
And her thought was like, these boys were like transfixed with rocker.
Once Dale cooked up fire, no one could stop talking like there was just no
breaching the boys uh and so val in her mind was like an essential number in order to potentially
combat against that alongside the rest of the girls so val nadia jacklyn uh, Baylor, and Josh?
Which she's not to say.
And Josh is like, ooh, that's probably the worst thing you could say about me.
Ask Reed on the other beach.
And then she says it again in confessional and at tribal council.
Not the best.
Not the best.
No, it wasn't really great.
not not the best at the best no it wasn't really uh great she's that uh in the battle of like uh you know uh men versus women that she uh says a couple times that uh she was counting josh as
one of the girls and look i i think even even at the time we were uh saying like yeah maybe uh she
shouldn't have said that uh yeah I said, read the Nadia interview
and my first thing that I say to Nadia
is, hi, my name is Josh, but I'm not
a girl. And she says, okay.
And I say, Mike Bloom, you
got like edit access? Because like
that doesn't need to be in there. Like maybe Mike
still has edit access. Hey, look,
it was 10 years ago.
We all get
better and smarter and you, and it's okay.
I don't think that Josh...
I have a couple things to edit out, though.
You could do that, right?
Okay.
So Josh, that he...
First Survivor Josh.
I was so excited to finally have a Survivor Josh.
Yeah.
He did not love that.
But I don't think that that was the reason why he ultimately didn't side with them. He actually has a curious vote. He votes for Baylor. And I think we find out in the next episode that he was trying to hide his relationship with Baylor.
Yeah, but instead...
In the podcast, we're very confused about it because I haven't looked ahead and I haven't like read ahead or anything.
So I don't really remember why he does it.
I just remember like this, this being like a bad choice that ultimately doesn't benefit him at all with Baylor.
Right. Like I think like there are moments where like Baylor could be more loyal to Josh, but because he does.
She didn't like this. She didn't like that at all.
Yeah.
Okay, so Nadia ends up being the first boot of the season.
Dale does not like that she was part of the Amazing Race.
He felt like that she was a backstabber on the Amazing Race.
They did the U-turn.
In the podcasting,
I say that that was not really my recollection
of the 20s from their time
on The Amazing Race. Interestingly, at Tribal Council, Jeff even asks Nadia, how do you compare
being on Survivor to being on The Amazing Race? Which I am a little surprised, maybe because
Nadia ends up being the first boot, they include that in there. But for Jeff to even be talking
about The Amazing Race was a little bit surprising.
Yeah, you can tell that like,
because like Amazing Race is really not part
of Natalie's story out here.
It's like, we really like just like,
we get as far, we run as far away
from The Amazing Race as we can as quickly as possible.
It's even only brought up when like,
Jeff is doing
these like night zero intros
of all these people.
And Jeff is like,
yeah, and they were on
The Amazing Race.
And like, just like kind of like,
like he has like these epic
editorializations
of all these different people.
It's like, hey, yeah,
Natalie, Nadia,
they played The Amazing Race.
And it was one for us
and one for them
in the fall of 2014.
As of course,
friends of the pod,
Keith and Whitney appeared on The Amazing Race that fall.
Is that right?
Yes.
Keith and Whitney got on a different CBS show?
Yes, they did.
Why?
I guess that they love to have a showmance.
And I don't know if it was like, hey, we'll give you we'll trade you 20s for Keith and Whitney.
I had to have known this, but this is another one of those like, really, that had that also happened.
Yeah.
Whitney.
If we want to know why, we'd have to go back and re-listen to my exit interview with them.
From South Pacific.
Oh, yeah.
That was a really good exit interview that you had with them.
Yeah.
One of the best.
One that I remember vividly. Now it's all coming back to me. Yeah a really good exit interview that you had with them. That I remember vividly.
Now it's all coming back to me.
An unforgettable exit interview.
So good that you
didn't do it.
So
Natalie
is our winner of the season.
She does not have a very
big premiere.
Rather like an under-edited premiere for Natalie. Yes. She does not have a very big premiere. No. Rather like a under-edited premiere for Natalie.
Yes.
Yeah.
Nadia gets to carry the Anderson family weight,
the narrative weight in this episode.
And as her survivor soul leaves her body,
it drifts from tribal council,
from the,
from the ghosts of Coyopa to possess Natalie and fuel her with a fury that
will take her as far as Jeremy's destruction in this game,
which will then his soul shall fuel her vengeance even further.
Natalie is like,
it's,
it's sort of like,
did you ever,
what's that Denzel Washington movie
where like the ghost keeps possessing everybody?
It's kind of like that.
Like Natalie's story doesn't start really,
I feel like until Jeremy goes.
Like it's like sort of like.
Because he becomes the new 20.
Yeah, he becomes the new 20. And becomes the new 20 and so she has a new
20 and so as long as she has a 20 in the game that's her story uh but until then she just
doesn't have a ton to do yeah it's uh and again it to me even still going back it feels like that uh this is a more uh top heavy uh in terms of uh the stars
of the show i feel like are on hunapu with all due respect to the coyote tribe you mean from like um
like uh like historic like the like the stars of san juan del sur or like even at the time i i think
both i mean i feel like that in terms of like,
if we're going to like rank the, you know,
most interesting people in the cast,
I think it would be weighted far more
for the people that are all on the Hunapu beach.
Yeah, I'm just trying to like check that
and it's really like Rocker is holding it down
over at Cueva.
Yeah, I mean,
Val and rocker are going to be out soon.
Uh, and then,
you know,
you end up with,
uh,
Wes,
Alec,
you know,
Josh has a part to play in the story and sort of,
sort of Baylor,
but,
yeah.
Um,
you know,
even,
uh,
you know,
Jacqueline and,
it's going to,
you know,
it's going to take for her to get back together with John to have her story.
Yeah.
The cast of San Juan del Sur is quite good, I think, though.
I think back on these people with a nostalgic fondness
that I still can't summon for South Pacific,
as evidenced by the mention of Keith and Whitney
and that not really doing much for me.
And I say that remembering that when we recorded
our South Pacific chapter of Evolution of Strategy,
that was like the biggest surprise of the whole run for us.
You and I were like really intrigued.
Like we were very, very hooked on that season.
Why do you think that is?
Is there a difference between what was going on
in the casting or is it just like what we saw
on the screen from 23
to 29? Well, I think
in 2014,
you know, Blood vs.
Water, like Philippines is a great
season and then
Karamoan giveth
and taketh. Blood vs.
Water giveth. Kageyan
giveth. But San Juan del Sur, giveth. Kageyan giveth.
But San Juan del Sur,
like for some people is take a thing.
And Worlds Apart is going to go there too,
I think.
But I think like we're like now
in sort of like an optimistic period
in that like mid to late 20s of Survivor,
where I think like there was some ability there
to look back at like South Pacific at that time,
being like, I think that this gets a little more hate
than it deserves like three years later.
With like, and I'm ballparking,
I don't know if it was three years or whatever it was,
like 13, 15 years later now at this point,
South Pacific, something like that.
I just don't know that the nostalgia goggles are on for that.
If I may posit a theory on South Pacific versus a season like San Juan del Sur, that these returning players who come back between Rob and Russell and then Coach and Ozzy,
the coach and Ozzy, that they end up just like taking up so much screen time that maybe we just never got to know some of these other characters to the same degree where probably, and I'd have
to go back and look at like the confessionals and everything, but it feels like that the edit is
probably more even, even the people who are like the big stars of the season, like Jeremy ends up going
out around the time of the merge. So I think that probably, uh, the amount of, uh, screen time that
we spend with all these characters, it's probably pretty even. That seems fair. That seems like a
very good, everybody got something. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, certainly like that's a huge complaint
of like, yeah. Who, like who is even Ometepe and Zapatero.
Like, who is on those tribes?
Like, I don't think you could go back and even look at the seasons
and say, like, who is the most purple character in San Juan del Sur?
I mean, even...
It's Kelly Wentworth.
Probably, yeah.
Who goes on to be, like, you know, a legend.
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah um yeah i think i think that i think that
san juan del sor is like uh uh i don't know i think like it is it is it is in its own way
as emblematic of what survivor was like back then as something like Kageyan, maybe even more so. Kageyan
is like a legend
that has grown larger
in the telling and felt like it was sort of
like this instantly legendary
season to the point where I
think it's
grown overrated
probably to a certain
extent. See, and you say you haven't been on Survivor
Twitter. Well, I have an insider.
And I don't think that there has been
sort of like a real reason
for any sort of like any feeling developing
about San Juan del Sur other than
positive nostalgia.
Like I can't really think of like a reason why you would like think back on
this season and think about anything other than just like kind of being happy.
I think that this was like a time when like being a survivor fan was just
about being happy.
We had been through like a fairly dark period of the early 20s,
and the seasons just were not that good. And now the seasons are kind of bangers again.
The podcast is a banger every single time you're putting a new show out. Being a Survivor fan
during this time was the best. Not to besmirch what it's like to be a fan right now certainly it was a optimistic time
in terms of uh people connecting online in uh 2014 and i think it was a period in which the
survivor was was very good and very strong really starting from i think that you know coming out of
uh you know 26 ends up being like where there's like a lot of talk about twitter and
cochran gives out his twitter handle in a caramon finale and then we have the first blood versus
water and obviously kagian and then here this other blood versus water i think it was a time
in which survivor was very exciting and then i think that people then uh sought out others about
like hey like let me i'm gonna they put the hashtags on the screen so you would say
like what are other people saying about this and it was a time i'm sure people got hate in the in
the real time but overall like i feel like that it was a a very positive time around survivor and
it was a period of connection both in in Survivor and I think in a
lot of online spaces. And I think that it was really a point where, you know, it ended up being
rocket fuel for this Survivor community to bring it back to something that we heard a lot in this
past season premiere from this week. And it was a period where I'm not sure where it starts to
deteriorate. But this is a time when people were finding Survivor and finding each other. And it
was a very happy time in the Survivor community. Yeah, I agree. I think like there's there's this
like chunk of time that I would probably,
you and I were talking about this a bit offline and like trying to sort of like sketch out what that era kind of might be.
Is it like the first blood versus water through like millennials,
Gen X or something like that?
Like feels like a very warm time to be a survivor fan.
Yeah.
I would say that, um,
uh,
that's probably around the time. And look at the political discourse is going to change up quite a bit around
the time of survivor millennials versus Gen X.
Uh,
and so I,
I think that moods shift moods,
moods shift.
It's a very big vibe shift.
There's a vibe.
There's,
there is a vibe shift.
And I think that that is, uh like even in these types of communities.
But like, I think that we're just like bringing people together.
And it's also the big moves era of Survivor, which I think really starts in Survivor.
The first Survivor, Blood vs. Water,
and famously with Ciara voting out her mom. But we do have at least a few big moves here.
Maybe not the flashiest, probably the Natalie playing her idol in the finale and asking Jacqueline, did you vote for who I told you to?
Probably being
the biggest of the big moves
from Survivor, Sai and Wanda,
but probably... But what do you think gets remembered
better? Like the big
move or the big character? Generally
speaking. I think that
certainly the characters here
in this season, but I think that the show
really falls in... season, but I think that the show really falls in,
like it has been my personal thesis,
you know, Survivor falls in love with the blind side
in Survivor Kageyan.
And then in a season where, you know,
we get the blind side of Jeremy
and then it's not really a season of blind sides
in Survivor San Juan del Sur.
I feel like that the show maybe struggles with how do we,
how do we market this?
Yeah.
But,
but then don't they also end up like they like market like this,
like Godfather brawl between Josh and Jeremy.
And then they both get blindsided back to back.
Like there,
there is such a good question.
I don't,
I don't remember it super well.
I think that there's like an under,
I think that there's like a,, I think that there's like a,
like,
because there is,
there are like,
there is a lot of like chicanery occurring on San Juan del Sur.
And there are,
there's definitely a vibe of the inmates running the asylum at certain
points throughout the run.
And I think like that gets felt and that gets frustrating.
And I think from,
um,
uh,
I,
I,
I cannot begin to speculate on what it's like to make survivor from 40
onward.
Uh,
but like my experience of like talking to some of these people who were
making the show back during like the late twenties and the thirties is I
think like their experience, like their front row view of making the show,
often like their like feeling of like how is the show going to be received,
this or that, is from like the feeling of a blind side in the moment
or like watching a big move happen in the moment.
And then that stuff, you know, maybe translates differently to us back home.
And I think like San Juan del Sur was not a particularly loved season
by the people who were making it
for reasons that are probably similar to that.
But I think that beneath the buffoonery,
there are really fun, solid moves that are being made.
But I don't even want to say beneath the buffoonery
because I think one of the most
instrumental words in the survivor lexicon is right there in buffoonery. It's the buff.
The buffoonery is the stuff. I think my stuff ultimately, when I think back on what I love
about this show, is the level of hijinks you get from season 29.
I don't know if that could have been appreciated as much by the people making the show in the moment.
And that might be part of the reason why,
all right, we exhausted blood versus water.
It wasn't as good the second time.
So let's just not touch it.
Let's just not do it again.
I don't think that's right.
I think you could do it for 51 or whatever if we're like gonna start this thing all over again like and people would be
psyched people would love it they'd be great yeah ramble well i have long found with uh my
interviews that we do with the contestants the strategy i feel like is fleeting like yeah there
are certain there certainly is an audience that is here for it. And like the over explanation of the moves, take it apart. How did it work? What did
you say? What did you do? Who was thinking what? And you know, that's certainly like that autopsy
is always interesting. But what I find that the things that when people tell me about their
favorite moments from this show, from this podcast are always like the anecdotes, the stories, the times they laugh, the character moments that people get.
And I think it's very much similar with Survivor.
And so I think that we sort of like maybe come in for the big moves.
We want to be here for the blind sides.
But maybe sometimes they all blend together.
And I think it's sort of the moments where you felt something are really the
times that you look back and those really stick with you.
Yeah,
I think so.
I think so for sure.
I really love looking back at this.
This was great.
Oh my God.
I want to open this up if there's anybody who has any questions,
but what do we,
what do we do with this from here?
What do we do with Survivor San Juan del Sur?
Are you asking,
do we put it in the backseat and drive away with it?
Or what are we doing?
Do we come back to this in 2034?
Uh-huh.
I think at the bare minimum every 10 years we have to check in on
on san juan del sur uh i think i think is is very important uh i think it's very important it's on
my calendar it's a sunday brunch uh i saw someone watching this live say oh uh live event, Sunday brunch podcast. Yeah. That sounds fun. So one week from now, okay?
Yeah.
I believe it's October 1st, 2014.
Okay.
Is the 10-year anniversary of the very first live Know It Alls.
Oh, shit.
So one week from now, in 10 years, or 10 years ago, October 1st, 2014 was the very first live Survivor Know-It-Alls.
I was I was there. Yeah. There was 75 of us in the basement of the Gotham Comedy Club.
Yeah. So I don't know. Should we celebrate that anniversary next week?
Yeah, absolutely. Do we go back and do we have like the video to watch and everything can we
i believe the video is there i mean that would be fun if somebody would then recap the video and
tell us uh about anything uh anything interesting look if you're telling me you want to go you want
to come back one week from now and remark on more decade later history in the survivor pantheon i
would i would be here uh in a heartbeat i literally have have nothing else to say. Let's see what the response is to this episode.
I mean, the live chat today was pretty positive.
Yeah, very positive.
Loved seeing all the people in here.
Yeah, I'm up for it.
I would check it out.
Let's see what the folks think.
Okay.
All right.
We love to hear from you in the comments about how
you felt about this podcast what it was like uh having josh back talking about survivor how was
that that was that good for you it was great for me uh any thoughts on uh after watching the survivor
47 premiere and how uh this premiere uh stacked up uh it was It was the first time that I've watched Survivor live
in forever.
It's such a long time.
And I really, really missed that.
I'd forgotten how much I missed what it's like
to be on whatever version of Twitter this is right now
while an episode is on to then have the
podcast live 15 minutes later. I mean, I think that the truth about Survivor, or at least my
experience with Survivor, and I imagine many people's experience with Survivor, if they listen
to a podcast about San Juan del Sur 10 years later, They're an hour 10 plus into the podcast
and it's not even an off season.
The season is happening
and you're listening to this content.
I think that you will be much like me
in saying that the internet
was always part of your Survivor experience.
Like the internet has been like a companion with me
when it's come to Survivor
from the earliest days of
those first few seasons playing orgs to getting to talk about it on on rhap to getting to talk
about it uh on twitter with people um that live online community component that was alive 10 years
ago or was maybe being born in a new way 10 years ago for San Juan del Sor absolutely still exists and is flourishing today.
And I really enjoyed,
I binged the new era and that was a really fun experience that I'm still
unpacking.
But there's just nothing that really compares to watching survivor on the
weekly watching survivor on the weekly is just a transcendent experience.
So as far as my takes on
47 right now, my takes are
really mostly just about the community
around Survivor, less about the episode
itself. Could we make any comparisons?
If we were going to make a list of what are
the things that Survivor 47 and Survivor
San Juan del Sur have in common?
Both have
a famous John. They both have
notable media friendly or media-unfriendly John, depending on which media you're talking about.
Yes.
No one fell down a well in San Juan de los Suer.
Dale tried to take the cover to the well
or took something off of the well.
That's right. There are some
well shenanigans.
Yeah.
There's a little bit of Matt
chat freak out in San Juan del
Sur, but it's Jeremy. I think
Jeremy is in a much more
it's not
as big of a moment as what happened with Andy this week,
but there's like,
there's some drama about kicking out.
I don't know that there's a ton,
not a ton,
not a ton yet.
Okay.
I don't know that there's a ton.
We'll see.
Might be fun to chronicle as we go through it.
Okay.
All right.
Josh Wiggler,
of course,
if in case you've been living under a rock or a rocker, a five-letter word, okay?
Josh Wigler has been part of the team talking about Scripted TV back here on Rob's podcast.
You can find it all at WeKnowScriptedTV.com.
That's the homepage for all of our Scripted TV dot com. That's the homepage for all of our script TV podcasting.
We know scripted TV dot com, where every week we're talking about all sorts of non-reality shows.
Yeah.
We know unreality.
We didn't want to go that way.
I know.
That was starting to get a little too trippy, but all kinds of.
I actually already talked about Survivor this week on a podcast in the We Know Scripted feed.
We snuck it into the Survivor feed, so hopefully you all got a chance to listen to that.
But Antonio Mazzaro and I have been podcasting with him for 10 years.
We're still podcasting each and every week on the weekend program, every weekend on RHAP at WeKnowScriptedTV.com.
And this past week, we talked about uh about
the new era of survivor and where
both of us are at with it and then we
uh cast survivor borneo the
dramatic tv show yeah
okay check it out weekend
program tv show it's kind of ridiculous
that we haven't dramatized survivor yet
be amazing
be pretty good okay who would
uh who would star in Survivor
San Juan del Sur, the
movie? Could you cast one
person? Cast one
person.
Who would play John Rocker
other than Danny McBride?
I mean, definitely Danny McBride
has already played John Rocker.
So, I don't know.
This is not my area of expertise yeah
yeah yeah yeah okay um i gotta we got a question in the chat uh that was about uh missy and baylor
we haven't really talked about them uh so any mention of any of the other cast like missy and
baylor who apparently removed a lot of her older songs from her YouTube channel. What?
What?
No.
No. Is that gone?
I'm not sure.
Do you still just have that on the soundboard?
Yeah, man. I mean, I don't want to get a copyright strike, but...
Yeah. All right.
Take it off. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. We don't want to
get struck down. Nice and done, Rob.
What else do you got on that? You got any, like, San, quick, quick. We don't want to get struck down. Nice and done, Rob. What else do you got on that?
You got any San Juan del Sur goodies in there?
I'm a meat collector.
Oh, my God.
I kind of want to keep watching San Juan del Sur
at least until Al Christie tells me that I'm healthy.
So, basically, I'm a badass.
And a master manipulator of this game.
I think that's. That continues.
Of course.
Get in the backseat and let me drive.
Yeah.
Shut your mouth, homie G.
Homie G, yes.
I'm not talking to you.
Smarty poo.
Smarty poo.
Yeah, Missy and Baylor are a whole ass mood.
Remember when they would just show up?
Yeah.
They would go to, they had a thing where they would like,
you could like write to them and they would just show up at your house.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think actually that one, I think that that is.
And we'll just show up.
And we'll just show up is like the biggest threat anyone has ever delivered
and we'll just show up no no no no no no i only said beetlejuice twice yeah unbelievable okay
all right well let us know uh how uh you all are feeling about this and let us know if you want us
to do more survivor yeah yeah we'll just show up we'll just show up okay if'll just show up. I feel like in many ways
that we talked about San Juan del Sur
in a way that was fairer
and more evolution of strategy to San Juan
del Sur than the actual evolution of
strategy coverage. But you know what? In fairness
to us, we were talking about it so
close to when it happened. It would be like
if we did the evolution of strategy of
Survivor 45 right now.
Right. Yes.
Yeah.
It's like,
it's hard to say how it changed the future.
It didn't happen yet.
Like if you're,
if you're one of those people who wants like the survivor 45 chapter of the
evolution of strategy right now,
then you may as well just pay me and Rob to read the phone book.
Cause it's going to be the same level of intellect, as in not much.
We're just going to vibe.
But I'll do it if you
want to release chapter
45 of the Evolution of Strategy and it's
just some phone book banter.
I'm here.
Look,
one step at a time on that.
Now, we
got this whole thing started back in 2014 if you want to become a
part of this uh patron community we're still having a lot of fun including a weekly survivor
q a take questions from our patron friends every friday about what's going on had a great call
this past week plus uh so many perks, including we have our live show
coming up in New York City
on October 16th.
I'm planning a patron-only meetup
the night before.
So lots of exciting stuff
that you can check out.
Plus, merch discounts,
ticket discounts.
You can get that all
at robisawebsite.com
slash patron.
Merch discounts?
Like if you made the merch,
you get more money off?
Well, yes. Merch discounts where that for Survivor San Juan del Sur, Rob is a website.com slash patron. Like if you made the merge, like you get more money.
Well,
yes.
Merge discounts where that for a survivor,
San Juan del Sur,
you had to merge on day 19.
Now with our special discount at Rob is a website.com slash patron.
You get the merge at day 13,
six days off the merge at Rob is a website.com slash patron.
Not bad.
You thought of everything, haven't you?
Thought of everything.
Okay, Josh, what else is coming up for you?
Anything?
Down the hatch with the great Mike Bloom,
we've been recapping every season of Lost,
but just the seasons.
We're not doing an episodic detail
because we're not that psycho.
We're almost done.
We're almost finished.
They're spoiler free
so if you're just watching Lost for the very
first time, you can finish
a season and listen to the season one recap
and so on and so forth. Really
really fun. That's been great to do
with Mike. Otherwise
I'm here behind the scenes on
RHAP helping
Rob make the podcasts go boom.
So I'm here.
Just like a little bit behind the curtain.
A little bit.
Just behind the veil.
Thank you so much for joining us. We've got the slop coming
up for the patrons at 6pm
Eastern talking about
another sloppy week on Big Brother
26. Take care everybody. Have a good one.
Bye.