#3242 Bonus: Rob Has a Podcast/Watch What Crappens Crossover

0:00What happens? Watch what crappens. Watch what crappens.

0:07Ben Mandelker: Who cares what happens when there's so much that crappens? It's so funny. Watch what crappens. Oh, a little bit. Watch what crappens. Who cares what happens when there's so much that crappens?

0:21Ronnie Karam: Well, hello and welcome to Watch What Crappens. I'm Ronnie. That's Ben. and today it's not just watch what crap happens it's also rob is a podcast and i'm rob sestrina

0:32Rob Cesternino: i'm so thrilled to be back together oh my god yes this is this is a thrill i'm i'm specifically

0:40Ben Mandelker: excited not just obviously as a fan of traders and survivor but also like we go back about 20

0:46Rob Cesternino: years or so yes like yes well once a decade i like to collaborate so i'm so happy to be back

0:52Ben Mandelker: together and congrats on all your success in you too yeah i mean what people don't may not realize is that back in the heady days of 2004 2005 um ronnie and i were doing tv gasm and you were doing the fishbowl and we'd see each other at these like reality show event things in in la all the time you know and that was like a whole different world back then we made it

1:21Rob Cesternino: this is so great we survived also we're alive we made it through true survivors working yeah yeah

1:29Ronnie Karam: you made it all the way through that time into podcasts actually matter now which is crazy yeah

1:34Rob Cesternino: right right and and you guys are so successful and the only place where i have you beat is that there's only one of me so i don't have to split the money like you do yes oh we've both got murder

1:46Ronnie Karam: plans, I'm sure. We're taking life insurance out on each other over here. This is great.

1:51Ben Mandelker: Let's not diminish your accomplishments. I mean, you have built an amazing empire over on your end. We sort of have our own areas of reality TV. You know, like we're over on the problem. But the traders brings us together. It actually does. So for our listeners, Rob, you're covering Survivor. You do Big Brother too. Do you do just all the CBS reality?

2:12Rob Cesternino: I would say the competition reality show. So anything that's a game with their strategy, that's the stuff that we really, but Survivor is number one and the traders has been so huge and we do a lot of Big Brother coverage all season long. So really anything that's a strategy game.

2:31Ronnie Karam: Yes. Big Brother is a bear too, to keep up with that. You know, we've had seasons where we've done Big Brother and that is not an easy one to keep up with, especially when the season sucks or something, you know?

2:40Ben Mandelker: Yeah. Yeah. Which has been the case recently quite a bit. This last one was good.

2:46Rob Cesternino: I don't know how closely you follow it.

2:48Ben Mandelker: You know, we'll get onto that. But like, I've heard that this last one was a really good season. But you know what? What we're going to do is we're going to do first half of this episode. We're going to talk traitors. And we're going to talk to Rob about both you having now been on it. And also from as you as a commentator about these sort of games. And then the second half, we're going to do something that I personally am really excited about. we're going to talk survivor so bonnie are you excited for survivor yeah listen i've watched

3:21Ronnie Karam: tons of survivor seasons i used to do videos called survivor in two minutes where i would make these comedy videos and just do the whole episode in two i used to be obsessed but these shows just go on forever i mean yeah that is season 50 at some point i just had to i know a lot of the people on this one though i remember coach and i remember and he's exactly the same which is hilarious he's got like a bravo thing going on where he's coming on he's like oh it's

3:45Ben Mandelker: 2.0 it's like a different it's a different code nah 4.0 yeah yeah i guess so yeah i've seen a

3:52Ronnie Karam: couple of his so yeah i'm pretty into survivor i just yeah nobody's ever like this is like a 3.1

3:59Rob Cesternino: this is like a little bit of an update from the last one exactly yeah i do like the incremental

4:04Ronnie Karam: like a 1.2.

4:06Rob Cesternino: No one has a patch.

4:07Ronnie Karam: No one has a patch. They just have a new system software.

4:10Ben Mandelker: I've changed my font. That's it. Okay, so let's start with the traders. And of course, the question I have to ask because I feel, and you probably answered it on your podcast. And if you're like with us, we are so consumed with Bravo that we never get to, you know, really listen to too many other pop culture podcasts. So apologies to your listeners. That's okay. Dave, you don't know everything I've ever said before. Okay. But like the burning question for me is, how was the trader's experience different than the survivor experience for you?

4:45Rob Cesternino: So the trader's experience is so bizarre because you go there and it's not necessarily like survivor where it's like, hey, okay, I'm going to get my people. And okay, I know I have the numbers and I'm in a group and I'm safe. where on the traders, if you're a faithful, you're never really safe. And even if you have numbers that somebody in your numbers could be wanting to kill you, or you said the wrong thing to the wrong person. And so there's so many different ways where you screwed up. And even if you didn't screw up, somebody thinks you might not screw up and then they could just end you like that.

5:22Rob Cesternino: So survivor is an easier game to play, I think, than the traders where the traders is just,

5:28Ben Mandelker: there's so much randomness to it yeah yeah i um some of my friends i'm i'm a huge board gamer and i play a lot of these social deduction games etc and a lot of my board game friends struggle with the traders because they feel like the faithful don't have any way to get any good real information and so they're just sort of scrambling and so for them the strategy side of that is like really really hard um and i've i can imagine that idea of like just going into this game and you think you're doing well and then you're just you are just like snuffed out in a second because you said the wrong thing to the wrong person and you had no idea i mean i personally

6:06Rob Cesternino: love that as a viewer i think it's like it's a great tv show as a game it's probably not as elegantly designed as survivor which is really just such a perfect game in terms of in its purest form but the traders is meant to be a spectacle first and there is a game that's being played more so by the traders where the faithful that if they can avoid the purge of just being picked off by the traders that there are a lot of things that the faithful can do later on in the game but they just don't have as much control over their fate as the traders do or as a player might

6:51Ronnie Karam: have on survivor or big brother well yeah i mean as far as the gameplay goes you see how much it hurts you to have a kind of gamer brain because you had it figured out pretty i mean right before you got kicked off or murdered yeah you got banished right i got murdered so i got murdered in plain sight ronnie yes yes yes that's right you got murdered you figured it out you're like conga line candace let's go and then you were dead yeah and you were the only one that knew

7:17Ben Mandelker: that a murder plane site was probably happening when candace started up that conga line it was for us as viewers it's like this is the most random thing ever and it did not strike anyone as strange did it strike you as strange that she was doing well it did strike me as strange i know

7:31Rob Cesternino: that she has said that you know she for whatever reason that she wanted to do a conga line i'm not sure why that that was a thing, but she had been talking about it for like a day or so of like, we should do a conga line in the castle. Nobody's ever done that before. But I was already thinking, okay, there's a murder in plain sight is happening. And then once I was looking for anything that was weird or out of the ordinary, and then the conga line started, I'm like, wait, that is actually very weird that that was happening right now. And so I hid from the conga line because I thought that that was maybe the thing the traitors were doing of like whoever is the first person in the conga line is going to be the murdered person which was actually better than what actually was happening where it was like hey actually know that somebody's going to just burn your card in the fireplace but i was very concerned about that and then i maybe not so smartly then was like i gotta warn people about this the traitors are trying to kill people candace they're gonna kill us tonight and so i tried to warn candace about the murder in plain sight but i was already dead at that point they already they already threw my card in the fireplace i was gonna say did you

8:42Ben Mandelker: have you talked to okay well that's interesting because i think the way it was presented was that you had said something uh it looked like you had said something beforehand and the card had happened afterwards but you were already burned so they had already made the decision

8:56Rob Cesternino: So what they presented in the show, and again, I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly if this was how it played out, but Rob and Lisa were making the decision of what to do. I was with Candace and then they went and threw my card in the fireplace and Candace didn't know who they ended up killing that night. And so she was sweating bullets that I hope they killed Rob C because he figured this stuff out. And then she was very relieved when it was me.

9:29Ronnie Karam: no bummer so a big article came out today after the reunion yes uh on vulture saying no more housewives on traders and that is very um that is a big controversy every season on traders when i'm reading the reddit threads people having a fit about the housewives i mean such a fit i i look at it and i think you know you the gamers are pretty dramatic as well i mean i feel like there's a lot of drama queens with the gamers as well um i mean jam jam obviously you you're kind of a drama queen last night you what or this weekend this uh on the reunion you told jam jam

10:04Rob Cesternino: he was a pick me girl i didn't call him a girl i didn't say he's a girl a pick me faithful or

10:11Ronnie Karam: whatever um yeah so i think you guys have your drama too so i say unfair damn you vulture take

10:17Ben Mandelker: it back yeah and also just uh just to read uh just to clarify not to clarify but to add on to here's a quote from from the blurb that was because none of us were willing to pay the paywall um it said podcasters cheap ass podcasters no i'm like i'll just we'll just use what we think listen this is what they put out there okay um the author is joe reed yeah and he says after last week's lackluster reunion it which by the way they've all been lackluster this is the fourth lackluster reunion in a row actually actually the first season didn't even have one i don't think but after last week's last lackluster reunion it became clear that the housewives don't want to play the traitors.

10:58Ben Mandelker: They want to play the real housewives of the Highlands and have arguments that spill out into social media, then meet up for a housewives style reunion, which I would argue is all reunions on reality TV, with their patron Andy Cohen. The contrast this season couldn't have been clearer. Rob Roush played a near perfect game while Lisa and Candace made mistakes and then spent the better part of two months telling any Instagram follower or podcast host who would listen about how they were betrayed in a game that's literally a game the name of the game so what are your thoughts on this blazing hot take yeah i have gotten to see the fan bases

11:39Rob Cesternino: of battle a little bit especially on twitter where that the strategy fans are saying like oh the housewives they don't get it and lisa and candace are being bitter and then the housewives fans being like okay the gamers are ruining things and rob shouldn't have done what he did and first off i think that you need both of these things for the traders to work and i do think that the reason why it's so successful is it it's it is this avengers of reality tv where the housewives bring in they they really they put a lot of the asses in the seats for this thing because if this If you didn't have Housewives on the traders, it would not be nearly as popular.

12:26Rob Cesternino: And I think that it's no coincidence that the second season when Phaedra was a trader, that was the season that the show really became a juggernaut. So first off, you need the Housewives for the trade. You can't do the traders without the Housewives. I did think that some of the things that Lisa and specifically Candace were saying about the game that Rob played that I don't think that Rob did anything that wasn't above board in the trade with that.

12:55Ronnie Karam: I thought that was super low of Candace to come on and accuse him of cheating blatantly. And it was it was so stupid. You know, for those of you who didn't see it, she was saying, well, I heard that you told Rob or you told Colton that I was a traitor. Well, dummy, even if he did, it wouldn't matter. it would only matter if he said yeah she's a traitor and i love because i'm a traitor well

13:17Rob Cesternino: i thought that was a nothing burger she did not really have anything there but i think that what i saw there at the reunion show and i hadn't ever been to any of these reunions with the housewives was that you're being talking to them and they're all normal and then they go into like reunion mode yeah and so that they are like they're they're working it and so they're doing their thing. They know what the assignment is. If you thought it was lackluster with that, it would have been even more boring if they were just like, hey, you know, tip my cat. That guy was good.

13:49Ben Mandelker: It 100 % would have been. And I think what Joe Reed seems to be missing from what I can tell here is...

13:56Rob Cesternino: And I know Joe Reed

13:58Ben Mandelker: is a nice guy. Is Joe Reed a... Is he a Housewives fan, do you know? Or does he watch the Housewives?

14:04Rob Cesternino: I think he's more of a strategy show fan.

14:08Ben Mandelker: So, right. That's what comes through to me, which is that what Housewives fans, what we all love is the excitement of these crackling personalities coming together. These sharp-tongued women who've had to kind of get by with their sharp tongues and their wits and clashing. And I think it's actually there's an interesting parallel with Survivor where I feel like maybe earlier seasons of Survivor, people just focused so much on those who had brawn. you know? And like, I think in later seasons, we have come to really appreciate those who can be a little sneakier and those who are really can use their wits.

14:46Ben Mandelker: And like, what I like about having the housewives on there is because we know what sort of personalities they have. We know that when they are, if they're put on the hotspot, they're, they're going to defend themselves in interesting and entertaining ways. And it's exciting to see them being thrown in the mix. And so when he says, When Joe Reed says, oh, they just want to have arguments that spill it onto social media, they're not trying to have arguments that spill it on social media. They are just used to the fact that that's the area where they litigate things. And so to be like, oh, they just want to have arguments.

15:21Ben Mandelker: I think it's actually so dismissive of a whole element of this game because so much of this game, yes, it's about strategy, but it's not purely about strategy, in my opinion. All these games, Traders, Mafia, all these games are about how you interact with people and your social game. And the Housewives, their strength is the social game, theoretically. And so I just feel like it's totally, I feel like it just totally dismisses a really valuable component of the game to just be like, oh, whatever with the Housewives starting fights.

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18:13Rob Cesternino: the problems that may have happened uh with this season if you have any issues like i don't think has to do with that there were too many housewives on the cast if anything it was more of an issue of the faithfuls not being able to put things together and be able to crack what was going on towards the end of the season and it really was an exciting end of the season so i don't feel like that there was any issue with the housewives being so prominent in the season i think that the show and i was the biggest person to be a um it came at my expense if anything where i ended up being murdered early because there was payback from that the housewives had been taken out so early in previous seasons they got power and it was a lot of like hey let's take out the gamers in this

19:03Ronnie Karam: season but the show needed to do that it's like sins of the father yeah the show needed to do that

19:09Rob Cesternino: because that it was getting too much where okay well we know the survivor is a traitor we know a big brother person is a traitor and so they showed this season they could do anything i would

19:18Ronnie Karam: actually love when you were talking about um when you were talking about the game you know not being as good as a game as a game you know a survivor what improvements would you make to the format of the game like have you thought i'm sure you thought about it i've thought about it a little

19:32Rob Cesternino: I think that they need to do more for the faithful to be able to protect themselves. Things like, I don't know, maybe if you get a traitor out, then the traitors don't get to murder. Or there could be more ways that players could get shields and try to protect each other. I know it's sort of like a werewolf type game. then maybe there could be like a doctor type character who is somebody who could protect one of the faithfuls if they think they know who the traitors are gonna murder could they try to save a person so i think that the faithful are often just sitting ducks and so that the traitors are looking okay who are the people who are the smartest people and then let's try to get rid of them and try to drag all of the people who are never going to figure it out to the end.

20:27Rob Cesternino: And sometimes that could be not as exciting to watch.

20:31Ben Mandelker: Yeah, I think that like the, you know, I play, have you ever played the resistance or resistance Avalon? It's kind of like, it's kind of one of these games, you know, and a lot of a common thing and whether it's resistance or mafia or werewolf or blood on the clock tower, there's like someone who knows like for sure who one of the traders is essentially but if they just are like i know it's this person then they are going to be at high risk of getting getting murdered so they have to like sort of like show that they know the information but they can't be too crazy about it and makes a really great tension and like when the traders premiered we're not premiered but after that first season i was like oh my goodness this format is so ripe for so many interesting variations because you can start adding in secret roles that these games all have you can have a season where it's like it is all housewives in the turrets or it is all survivor people and you can mix and match but like i think like aside from adding roles and things like that hidden roles where people have special powers i think the number one thing they've got to do is they've got to tighten up their approach to the competitions because they they just don't carry any wait for the audience.

21:45Ben Mandelker: And also I think it's the thing we all care the least about. If there were an element where the traders were actively in every single mission working to sabotage the ability to get shields, like if the mission fails or this thing doesn't happen, then no one gets shields, then that means that the faithful could look at the behavior of people in those missions and use that as actual building blocks to building arguments and breadcrumbs towards things.

22:14Rob Cesternino: That's a really good point. I think a lot of people throw out the idea of like, well, the traders should be trying to prevent them from getting money like it's the mole. But to have them be able to prevent the players from getting shields is actually something that they would want. And it's also, oh, that this person blocked me. I think that person's a trader. So it could lead to more interesting discussion at the roundtable. Because a lot of times the roundtable stuff where it gets ugly is sort of like you seem like a traitor you i think you said something wrong the wrong way so maybe if they had like a little bit more to go off of like that the discussion would be a little bit more uh substantive uh at the round table i don't know how much you're allowed

22:56Ronnie Karam: to talk about um of stuff that didn't really air but there was a lot of controversy this season well a couple things first was the um donna kelsey uh secret traitor thing and why she was so quiet A lot of people online were speculating that they just got her off early because she ratted herself out, basically, and told somebody she was a traitor. Is there any truth to that?

23:19Rob Cesternino: I mean, I hadn't heard that. I think that Donna Kelsey was probably not really thrilled to be a traitor. My read on it was that Donna was out of her comfort zone. She was a traitor. It was not a thing that I think that she necessarily wanted. it was sort of like randomly that we're going to make one person a traitor. I got the sense that she didn't necessarily want to be that person and then she was doing it by herself and I think that she was like overly cautious. I think she would have been better off if she was one of the normal traders and had like a support system but I think that she was a little bit just not ready for having that role and having to be

24:03Ronnie Karam: by herself and make those calls yeah another one was this dorinda versus ron um yeah ron stuff because ron once he came off the show you know we saw some of it where he she was saying you know you don't ask us about our families and stuff ron he's like i don't give a fuck about your family so we saw some of that stuff but um after you know he's been doing a lot of media and a lot of sets you know as a comedian talking about the show and suggesting that there was a lot worse side of Dorinda that they kept editing out and that Dorinda said a lot of really problematic stuff to him. And, you know, there's been a lot of stuff like that going online.

24:39Ronnie Karam: Did you feel like there was a lot of stuff that was left on the editing floor with those two? I mean, I wish I knew.

24:45Rob Cesternino: I was home when all that stuff was happening. So I definitely got that Ron feels that way in terms of what he got from Dorinda. I don't think that he would make that up, but I also haven't heard from a lot of other people. Oh my God, that Dorinda was horrible to Ron when we were there. So,

25:08Ronnie Karam: but you didn't see a lot of like Dorinda acting up that, that was in general that was being cut.

25:13Rob Cesternino: Dorinda from season three to season four. And you guys are the Dorinda experts. I don't know if Dorinda seems like that. She's totally just like chill and Zen. and I mean other than saying to Ron you didn't ask anybody about their families Dorinda was very quiet and was not at all like the person that we saw in season 3 come back from the mission and start yelling at everybody and maybe it was an adjustment but I don't know I think it was different

25:45Ben Mandelker: I think it was an adjustment and that's why I was like sad that she got murdered because I wanted her to be on the hot seat because I felt like if she would been on the hot seat then we would have seen that dorinda and it was definitely an anticlimactic second run for her for us because we were like we were so upset that we only got like a sliver of her last season and so when they brought her back we're like yes now we're gonna see dorinda and she's gonna be you know she's gonna oh yeah you want to see you better watch your ass bitch you

26:19Ronnie Karam: You know, you want to see Dorinda going cray cray.

26:21Ben Mandelker: Yeah, but actually she was really like on the defense. Like she had a few words with Maura, but it was really sad to see that. It was sad to see Portia go out early too. And I think actually seeing Portia at the reunion, you really could imagine like, oh, she would have just been just so fun to watch, you know, on this show and seeing her deal with people. You know, that was like a, that was a gut punch to lose Portia.

26:46Ronnie Karam: So many of them that were eliminated early were just good. I mean, you, Ian, poor Ian didn't get to do anything ever. Yeah. Yeah, poor Ian.

26:57Ben Mandelker: What did you think about the Donna Kelsey twist, by the way, in general? Did you think that's a good twist?

27:02Rob Cesternino: So when I found out what it was and how it all worked, I actually do think it could be something interesting where I felt like it was a little bit of a cat and mouse game between the secret traitor and the real traitors where the real traitors, Like I can imagine a world where they're getting pissed. Like they're not giving us the people that we want to murder. Like if the secret trader was like really messing with these people and like giving them only like their friends, it's like, oh, I don't want to kill them. Like it could be something. I just thought that with, you know, when it wasn't really a fair fight to have Donna versus the three traders who I think in their own way were all like pretty capable when they were working together as a group.

27:45Rob Cesternino: Like they were pretty formidable, those three. And then once the wheels came off, it fell apart. Yeah.

27:52Ben Mandelker: Yeah. I liked it as a viewer. Personally, I enjoyed that. You know, we had no idea who it was because, you know, for the past few seasons, I love that we know who the traders are and you have this amazing tension, but sometimes you think, Matt, what would this game be like if I didn't know? So to have just like one was like, I thought, really fun. And I would love to see them try it again and see if it sort of pops more the second time. But I enjoyed the guessing game just as a spectator.

28:20Rob Cesternino: It was something that they tried that, to speak to your point, that they really were trying to give you that, okay, so when you're at home you don't know when they go stand in the circle of truth are they going to say they're a traitor or a faithful can you figure it out at home but i don't think you really ever could have figured it out at home because i feel like that they weren't giving you a ton of clues as to

28:43Ronnie Karam: what to what to be looking for well it's kind of the fundamental problem in the game for me is that there's no real clues you know there's no clues for anything so it's just basically a guessing game to the end unless people are super dramatically acting suspiciously yeah it's you know

28:58Rob Cesternino: know it's kind of a carnival game but eventually like for the faithful if you can make it past like the initial couple of rounds that you could say okay why did this person do this how come when we brought this person's name up why are they defending this person and then especially yeah and then it starts to snowball then once you get that first trader it's like okay why this person voted with this person okay why did this person vote for this person and so i do think that there's a lot of ways it can unravel for the traitors once you get a couple of rounds in but it's always going to be a little unfair for those first couple of people who end up getting murdered just for whatever reason yeah yeah i mean so if you had if you had made it deeper into the game yeah

29:44Ben Mandelker: two-part question do you think you would have been able to suss out rob and second of all do you think you would have been able to um discern that candace was leaving a breadcrumb because one of my pet peeves on the season was how she left the biggest breadcrumb in my from my vantage point from a lot of people's vantage point and no one seemed to really you know do

30:09Rob Cesternino: anything with it you listen i was not on rob's trail when i was there he seemed like he was not even interested in being there he was like in the fridge eating cookies like getting drinks like he was in the very beginning of the game not doing anything that i thought was suspicious but as the game went along you had those two big votes that candace put where candace was like it's just it's just random and then she votes for him again but also the fact that he has the dagger and then he He doesn't end up being murdered. And it's like, okay, well, nobody in that group was a traitor. So I think that that was also a big tell that he has that dagger for so many rounds that he never has to use.

30:57Rob Cesternino: Where if you were a faithful, I think you'd want to burn that immediately just to get that monkey off your back where it's not another reason for the traitors to kill you. And he never really has a shield. So I think that that also would have been pretty suspicious as you got towards the end of the game. Yeah.

31:15Ben Mandelker: Do you think that his looks helped propel him to the wind?

31:21Rob Cesternino: And I don't want to take that away from him because that's part of the whole package. But he really had he had the women and he had the men all really just eating out of the palm of his hands. And he doesn't talk a lot. He comes off as somebody who doesn't seem like he's really scheming. he was good in the challenges he's polite so he did so many things right but in that castle the people were just swooning for rob yeah yeah i mean yeah um

31:59Ronnie Karam: yeah yeah bless him yeah but you can't hate on someone for being cute you know what i mean

32:05Ben Mandelker: So do you think if you were if you had been a traitor? Yeah. What how would you have how would you have handled yourself?

32:13Rob Cesternino: I didn't want to be a traitor and maybe mistake on my part. But I thought that coming into the game, I really wanted to bond with people. And I felt like that if I was holding back this secret that I was a traitor, I thought that that would have come off as shady to people. And I knew that the survivors were going to have a big target on their back. And I really was worried that people were going to come in and look at me as, oh, he's a gamer. It's always one of the survivors and we're going to banish him right away. But I felt like that if I could come in and be myself and be a valuable person to the faithful, I thought that would help me.

32:53Rob Cesternino: Turns out that I played in a season where there were no other game people that were in the turret. Nobody was keeping me safe. And so people all thought I was a faithful, but the traders didn't want to keep me around. Right.

33:07Ben Mandelker: I'm kind of like ready for a time when we can like not have this like Housewives versus Gamers war. Like I'm just sort of like sick of it because I like, I'm fans of people from both sides and watching them like take each other out and then you get stuck with Mark Ballas at the end. It's like really annoying.

33:25Rob Cesternino: Yeah. And Mark's a really nice guy also. So but I wanted to work with the housewives that, you know, we had, I thought, mutually aligned interests where there was five people from the games and five people from the housewives shows. And you had Michael Rappaport there and Michael Rappaport was like, OK, OK, let me I'm a math guy. OK, so there's five fucking housewives. OK, traitor. OK, five was five. One, two, three, four, five, five fucking gamers. OK, that's a fucking traitor right there. And I was like, I said to Porsche, I'm like, hey, do we have a Michael Rappaport problem? Like, I think that we need to like try to work together.

34:04Rob Cesternino: They have numbers. We have numbers. It should be the housewives and the gamers versus everybody else. Like, why not try to work together?

34:14Ronnie Karam: That is a great point. Because if you could just make it halfway through the game, you could do a survivor style. Just make it halfway through as a team and then turn on each other, you know? Yeah.

34:23Rob Cesternino: We're just trying to keep each other safe for a little while.

34:26Ronnie Karam: Yeah. I would love to see an all survivor season or an all gamer season and an all housewife season. I think that would be nice because the housewives could be actually be housewives. Because, you know, as people saying, oh, they're trying to make it so dramatic. They are so tame on this show compared to how they usually are. Yes. You know, I mean, and you can see in the reunion because Candace comes out a little more as Candace and Portia had the whole reunion. I mean, the whole reunion was Portia and she was on there like two episodes. So, you know, they could really take over the show. And if they were really ready to let their freak flags fly.

34:59Ronnie Karam: And then on the opposite end, I think the gamers would be able to be a little more vocal and not shy back from being as scary to the rest of the cast because they're big gamers, you know?

35:09Rob Cesternino: Yeah. Oh, I think that the gamers that play next time, I think, are going to be playing very scared from the start. Because now I feel like there's such a reputation and it's such a thing of we have to take out the gamers. I wonder how much also Dorinda coming into last season and then going off on Bob the Drag Queen if the housewives came in this season a little bit. Hey, I'm not going to create as much chaos or drama. I'm just here to get along with everybody. Because they really weren't having a lot of conflict in the actual time in Scotland.

35:43Ronnie Karam: Right. I'm sorry, but the Bob the Drag Queen thing, Dorinda didn't really go off on Bob or any of that. bob came for dorinda right away so dorinda didn't go off on bob until the reunion that's when she came in like how could you bob i was so nice wasn't she mad that they ate dinner without her

36:03Ben Mandelker: yeah yeah she because because they were stuck on that pontoon so i forgot about that yeah so she was just i love that but it is such a bummer though that that she came back and was so clearly it was like oh i can't go off on people etc i mean and what's interesting about i think especially the traders maybe even more so than survivor or big brother you do like develop a meta across seasons and so people are often reacting to what happened in the last season like oh well the gamers we seem too scary we have to come in to kind of chill this season you know and everyone has to sort of react what happened last season which is why like you know i don't want to kill the golden goose but that's why i kind of want to have more and more seasons of it like it's hard to wait for one like once a year because they're the seasons are actually really affected by each other so it creates an ongoing kind of like conversation between them um but i think it's like it's such a malleable format you really like ronnie said you can do a season of all housewives it would be great and you can have a season of the exact same players bring the entire cast back and play it in a whole different way that'll be really fascinating.

37:13Ben Mandelker: To me, it's such a good format. And that's why I just got so mad at that article being like, you know, it doesn't need the housewives. You need everything. You need everything. Yes, Candace and Lisa were being salty, but thank God they're being salty. How entertaining is it to watch that reunion and watch them be salty? Of course, Rob played a great game. They know Rob played a great game, but also they also let them go and attack him too like like he deserves that as well yeah at least they were upset with robbie that i

37:48Rob Cesternino: kind of thought like i was gonna go there uh and mora was like okay oh wow she's gonna really give rob a piece of her money and she's like oh well he's gonna buy me a purse so she was waiting for

37:57Ronnie Karam: that birkin i saw pictures going around today of her with the birkin oh her new birkin so she got I'm so dumb I'm so dumb the whole time

38:09Ben Mandelker: I'm so dumb here comes one right now

38:15Ronnie Karam: do you guys want to move on to some Survivor? sure let's do it season 50 Survivor like you've never seen it before three hours you guys no one told me that part when you were like hey let's talk Survivor 2 I was like I'm down I haven't watched that in forever I turned that on. I was like, three hours? Yeah. You had to catch up. It was a good three hours.

38:38Rob Cesternino: You missed so much that you were overdue.

38:41Ben Mandelker: Yeah, exactly. It was a lot. I have to say, since the switch to Survivor going to 90 minutes, I had a harder time watching it. I've watched every single season of Survivor. I'm never going to abandon it, but what will happen is sometimes I'll miss an episode, and you miss one or two episodes, and then you're in a hole. You're like, oh man, I've got three hours to watch. It's just sort of hard to, and I feel like so many of the quote unquote new era episodes are people going off to another Island to journey. I honestly, I, I don't want to, I don't want to piss off your audience. If this is not the way people are feeling, I can't stand the journey.

39:19Ben Mandelker: No,

39:19Rob Cesternino: I think that you are in like on the right side of history. I think that so Ronnie, since survivor came back after COVID, it's been the new era of survivor and so it used to be 39 days and that was the whole thing and now they made it 26 days so it's less days and they do a lot of different things just to keep it like more random and fast-paced because it's a shorter amount of time yeah and the journey part they seem

39:48Ronnie Karam: to have calmed down on that a bit um at least for this season i guess maybe because we know everybody but there were a couple where i was trying to watch where i was like what is this they're like well i lost a lollipop when i was a kid in the mall and then my dad's book got stuck in the escalator and he hasn't been able to walk so i deserve the rise i'm like what is this this is like you're supposed to be surviving not crying about every little thing in life you know a lot of

40:12Ben Mandelker: backstory a lot of backstory it's it's a very touchy feel i mean look i love jeff probst you know he is one of the he's one of the all-time great reality show hosts of you know he's just so good. But sometimes I feel like when I watch Survivor, you know, since his talk show is canceled, he's like, well, the talk show is canceled, but I'm not going to stop. I'm going to like, here's a talk show segment. And you're sitting there and he's like, what does it feel like? You're here. You're feeling the sand. Have you ever felt sand before? Blue scarf. Have you touched sand before? It's like, yes, I have touched sand.

40:48Ben Mandelker: And what does this sand feel like? I'm like, oh my God, let's go. Come on, let's go.

40:52Rob Cesternino: That's been another big change of Survivor as it's gotten towards the new era is that it really is much more about trying to tell a journey of self-discovery for all of the players. So it used to be back in the old school Survivor. It's like one person's going to win and then what are they willing to do to win and everybody else is going to lose, but one person's going to get a million dollars. Now Survivor, and Jeff will say this, is much more about what did every single person get out of this journey and this experience what did they learn about themselves on survivor and we're really telling that story in the backdrop of yeah one person's gonna go home every week

41:35Ronnie Karam: yes so i mean it's like every i think every reality show has done that in the past decade where it's like okay guys let's embrace like what makes us cry you know but it's not really what the fans want well i mean i don't know because they keep watching it so i don't know and people even talk like that in real life you know it's like how are you it's like well i mean triggered and traumatized do you want to hear about my week you know it's like oh geez you know for me i don't

42:02Ben Mandelker: i don't mind if there's like if there's scenes of someone who's like dealing with something with the death in their family what i don't like is sometimes like the like a challenge will end and someone has like came in dead last, but they like managed to somehow like push a ball up a ramp after many tries. And then we sit there for five minutes while Jeff has like a therapy session with them. Like, what did that ball mean for you? I'm like, it lost. It's okay. Like, this is not the moment where I need to have like a journey. What do you think? What do you think? Okay. So who are you rooting for anyone in this cast?

42:41Ben Mandelker: Right. Like who are your favorites? Who are your favorites that you want to win and who are your favorites that you think will win? Okay.

42:47Rob Cesternino: So I'm excited to see all of the legends come back in terms of the cast of what they ended up doing. I felt like they brought back too many people from the new era where there's 12 people that played from seasons 1 through 40. And they brought back 12 people who played from seasons 41 through 49. So it really is very lopsided in terms of the newer players that they brought back from the last couple of years. So in terms of the legends being there, you're very excited to see a lot of the four timers, five timers, Sari, Ozzy, Coach are all the mainstays and Colby ends up coming back. then also I really like Christian Hubecki who is back for this season from the new era I really like Q Q I think is just somebody who is an all time casting person and he's been so fun to have him come back

43:49Ben Mandelker: his meltdown on his season was so epic he was doing so well he was such a star and like he just he really was like he had his whole tribe I was like this guy's going to the end and then all of a sudden a flip switched and his meltdown was so wild i agree he is like one of the great casting choices um i don't understand i i don't have like a strong memory of tiffany yeah wasn't didn't she leave like relatively early in the she came in eighth in her first season she played with q right oh that's right she played with q yeah and sometimes when

44:26Rob Cesternino: they do the returning seasons of survivor they like to bring people back in pairs where it's like oh they fought the first time so we'll bring them back and they'll fight again yeah i would

44:36Ben Mandelker: have liked some you know what it would have been great to have some representation of those sort of like middle seasons you know you have you have like a colby which is great um although you know what i did not like about colby i did not like when um what's his face fashion show what'd you say? Riz God? Oh, God. I can't stand Riz God. I cannot. Please tell me he's not a real fan favorite because I keep on saying he's a fan favorite and I'm like, I do not. They say Riz's fan favorite.

45:03Rob Cesternino: I mean, he did a nice job. Ronnie, they have a guy named Riz God now. Okay. What does he do?

45:12Ben Mandelker: He's like young and

45:14Rob Cesternino: Yeah, he found a lot of idol or he had an idol and he didn't play it for a long time.

45:19Ben Mandelker: Oh, he drives me nuts. And he's like, I'm sure he's like a sweet kid. but nice guy yeah good god good god but um what what i don't remember who i was even talking about but whatever fashion show the guy who got um why am i playing his guy got medevaced out kyle kyle put like a survivor buff around his chest like a like a halter or a crop top or something or tube top and colby was like oh man i don't need to see that i was like wait a second i was

45:47Rob Cesternino: like i'm clocking that colby yeah well remember when he was on the tribe with richard hatch and

45:51Ben Mandelker: survivor all-stars oh my goodness it's i i don't remember that i mean i i watched them all but they also like blur together together yeah yes but was he richard hatch always blurred always always

46:05Ronnie Karam: blurred yes i mean they actually improved blur technology for richard hatch i think it actually got they got tracking on it because you had to with that guy geez man keep on your clothes keep it inside i would have loved you know you were talking about this oh i'm sorry ben go ahead

46:20Ben Mandelker: No, no, you go, you go. I'm just babbling.

46:22Ronnie Karam: I was just going to say, I loved kind of the juxtaposition of the annoying people in this episode being the oldest and the newest. At least for me. Because the one from season one was instantly annoying. Yes. And I just loved, it was just bossy. I wouldn't say annoying. Probably just came in there like, oh, really? You're going to see it from season one, missus. And everyone, you know, tried to get Sariah and tried to control everything. and then immediately got sent packing. Love that. And I can't wait to see it kind of happen to Savannah because I feel like Savannah has got that energy, but on the opposite end of the spectrum where she's a newer one.

47:02Ronnie Karam: She's like, oh my God, I'm new and they don't even know anything about me. And she's kind of coming in to control the whole thing too. So I'm liking it. It's set up to be pretty interesting.

47:12Ben Mandelker: Guess how well I did, guys. Guess how well I did. I've won it all. I'm like, oh my God. I'm so up and down with her like in some ways I love her bratty energy and to Ronnie her backstory is that she's a news reporter and she used to work at a newsroom and they all hated her so much that for two years no one would talk to her they bullied her she was like I was bullied in the newsroom and we would talk on camera and when the cameras were down no one would talk to me and she was so stressed out and like that's her whole journey was that she was bullied in the newsroom

47:45Ronnie Karam: that she's annoying. Which is not nothing. My journey is that I annoyed everybody at work.

47:50Ben Mandelker: I love that. She replaced a beloved member of the team

47:54Rob Cesternino: and they froze her out.

47:55Ben Mandelker: Yes.

47:57Ronnie Karam: That was truly her emotional arc. Who do you think is missing from this? Because I would imagine that there are a lot of hard feelings going around. I read Sari kind of dissing Carolyn. Rob is right here, Ronnie.

48:10Ben Mandelker: Rob is right here. No, I know.

48:11Ronnie Karam: Well, obviously, that's an answer. All of the shows are missing me. So who do you think really got shafted on not getting invited?

48:19Rob Cesternino: Well, Carolyn was somebody who was like one of the lockiest locks to come back. And then she went and did the traitors. And then they seem to really take exception to the fact that she did the traitors, even though Sari did the traitors. Stephanie did the traitors. But it seems like that they didn't like that Carolyn did the traitors and didn't talk to them first about going back and doing that. And then Amanda Kimmel was somebody who was supposed to be in the mix and then ultimately didn't end up coming back. Jerry Manthe really wanted to come back and she was gutted when she didn't ultimately get the call.

48:56Rob Cesternino: But to speak to your point, Ben, about not having anybody from the middle, I would have loved to have seen Malcolm come back where I feel like that he was somebody who had unfinished business from the last time that he played.

49:09Ben Mandelker: Yeah, I mean, wow. You know who I would have loved to have come back? Um, mainly because I, at the very least I could have just looked at him would have been James. Why? I was shocked that James was not in the mix. Yeah. Where is James these days? I feel like we never see any.

49:23Rob Cesternino: We never see him. I think he came out at the season 36 finale where they brought back the, the, some of the idols that got misplayed. And so they brought him back at the reunion for survivor 36 with Eric Reichenbach, but that's the last time he's been seen on survivor.

49:39Ben Mandelker: You know who I think would have been great? I feel like we don't talk enough about Fabio. Like Fabio is just one of the most random winners of this show. And he's such a bizarre creature. Like he should have just been in there. That would have been hilarious to me.

49:56Rob Cesternino: So they started and they said, okay, we have no winners. We're not bringing back any winners. And they didn't bring back any of the older winners. But then from the new seasons, they brought back three winners. So I don't know why they changed that. very late in the game because that's why they were like okay that's why boston rob's not here or parvati or tony or sandra we just did a all-winner season so we're not bringing any of those people back but then like right at the end they're like i'll bring back some of the winners yeah the people

50:23Ben Mandelker: that just won they'll bring them back yeah yeah like d and kyle and a fresh million person savannah oh savannah remember yeah um also you know from the new era as long as they're plucking from the new era there was also that uh i'm sorry i'm really bad with the names like i definitely when a survivor season or big brother season ends that's okay tucked away in a zip file and i have to like well you're with a wiki yeah just ask yeah but um the season when there was like the pastor she was a pastor but she was so sweet shan she would have been a great choice she would have

50:57Rob Cesternino: been really good she was a villain in that season and the whole season she was like really like propped up as like the main character but i i don't know if um whatever happened if there was like any falling out or whatever reason they didn't bring her back how many times have they

51:13Ronnie Karam: brought back susan the trucker from season one she was so she well she only came back one time

51:18Rob Cesternino: for survivor all-stars but she is of course uh an icon yeah yeah i made some susan isn't it crazy

51:25Ben Mandelker: to tell some people off isn't it crazy to think there's been a 700 and something people 51 show 751 that's that's just a wild number of people to go through it all i would love to have a season of all first people voted off because there's some really amazing they're cast for a reason they're interesting people let's get them all on there and like give someone a chance to go from having been voted off first to getting all the way to the end you could do it i mean there's some

51:55Rob Cesternino: story there in the people that i mean obviously you like them enough to have them on the show once so you could do a season about it i think that it would be good to do they always do three tribes do one tribe of first boots because i'm not sure if you have 18 great first boots that people would remember but if you definitely have six okay yeah you can see that's up six huh yeah

52:19Ronnie Karam: so because you guys are more familiar with all of these people who came back that is changed at all didn't who's the most changed did anybody actually come back as a different version of themselves

52:29Rob Cesternino: well Ozzy is trying to be a different brain he's going to be Oscar now instead of Jeff's regular

52:37Ronnie Karam: Ozzy so that's like I'm shaving my sideburns really high now guys yes Ozzy 5.0 crazy he looks

52:44Ben Mandelker: crazy now I'm sorry he's got actually he has inherited the hair of a former survivor contestant whose name eludes me but you know who I'm talking about Jambo Jambo Jambo yeah he has Jambo's hair now. Like that hair. I'm sorry. I can't.

53:02Ronnie Karam: Okay, so Ozzy. That's a good one. So who else?

53:05Rob Cesternino: Colby, the last time he played was cranky and joyless, and now he is this new person that's like, I'm going to appreciate every day that I'm out here because every morning, I thank God for two things. Number one, that I'm alive. Number two, that I'm on Survivor. And number three, that men don't

53:25Ben Mandelker: wear tube tops. Sorry, man. As long as I don't see any guys wearing a tube top halter top bikini that's rich and far he was cracking me up because you

53:38Ronnie Karam: can tell he's trying to be positive but he just can't do it he's like this kid won't shut he's annoying this kid needs to go how are we gonna get rid of him and then a few minutes you know a few hours later in the premiere he's like i'm your dad now yeah i'm your dad oh my god thank you so much because i love my dad so much it's like okay i regret that one that's so recently

54:03Ben Mandelker: angelina's trying to change so ronnie the angelina season angelina was hilarious because she just lacked any self-awareness and they showed a clip of it ronnie uh but but like this she basically was part of this woman getting voted off who then had a cameo in the white lotus i'd like to add and um and then as this woman's getting voted off angelina's like it's really cold can i can i have your jacket before you leave can i have your jacket your jacket it's like fuck you like how dare you ask me this right now yeah but she's trying to be like now like i'm aware i'm a mother now i understand things yeah speaking of people who's changed my mike white is changed that he

54:47Ronnie Karam: is ripped now i know that was crazy i was not expecting that at all yeah i watched his season I was shocked.

54:56Ben Mandelker: Yeah, he's ripped now. I feel like he's going to last a long time because I think everyone wants to get a part in the next White Lotus, right? There's a meta there where it's like, well, I don't want to be mean to Mike. I want him to get to know me long enough so that way he wants to put me on that show.

55:11Rob Cesternino: Well, he always puts somebody from Survivor in the seasons.

55:15Ben Mandelker: Yeah. I remember the first season. I was like, wait, isn't that guy look so familiar? Wait a second. I think he was on Survivor. Yeah, Alec Merlino. Yes. Alec, have you had Mike White on your show?

55:27Rob Cesternino: So there was one time, and it was one of the more famous moments in the history of Robert's podcast because Mike White reamed me out. For what? Oh, no. Why? Why? Because I was an asshole. I have to take ownership of it. We'll be the judge of that. So back in, you know, Mike White famously, many, many great films, School of Rock, and many others, but in 2017, the movie, The Emoji Movie, came out. And we made a lot of, we were goofing on the Emoji Movie at that time, and Mike White had done some rewrites on the Emoji Movie. And then when his season, his original season was on, I, on occasion, would ask guests, like, hey, what do you think of Mike White's movies?

56:19Rob Cesternino: What do you think of the Emoji movie? And that he, when I got to talk to him, and also he felt like I didn't give him enough credit for his game, which is also fair. He played a really good game and I didn't highlight it enough. But he also didn't get featured. His game wasn't really obvious in the edit. And so he really laid into me. And that said that he, you know, it's a hilarious interview, but nobody on the exit interview has really come in hot like that.

56:53Ben Mandelker: Wow. Well, listen. The emoji movie. Now he can kick my ass too.

56:59Ronnie Karam: Just with his abs. Yeah.

57:01Ben Mandelker: Now he can. And you know what? Look, he wrote a movie. Look, he wrote a movie that has 6 % on Rotten Tomatoes. My kids love it. You know what? I think actually my friend wrote it but there's also a writer on it now that I'm saying it. Oh gosh. Oh gosh.

57:16Ronnie Karam: i'm really rooting for these two ladies um just to watch their relationship because it was cracking me up aubrey and genevieve their whole relationship of just both of them are just staring at each other wasn't it it was aubrey and someone else i think it was genevieve wasn't it staring at each other and they're like um yeah well like i could trust you okay well i could trust you and then they cuss like i don't trust that bitch i'm gonna take her down i really like that was like housewives yeah it was and aubrey's got such a dark energy about her i only know her from this episode but i loved her dark her darkness so i'm gonna be an aubrey acolyte for now aubrey is

57:57Ben Mandelker: great but i love genevieve i just love i love a cold smart woman and she just like the way she the way she just like maneuvered through her season she was just so great she was like cold and corporate and um i just loved her i'm i'm worried that she's not going to make it that far this season because people are like you know they have their eyes out of her you know they're scared of her but i just think that she's she's great i was so happy that she was included in this well

58:25Rob Cesternino: ronnie one of the other things that people do a lot now on survivor is if you're a lawyer you have to pretend you're something else and now she was one of the secret lawyers and now they really know she's a lawyer oh can't have a lawyer well i just like this i think it should get her some points

58:40Ronnie Karam: that she's being played by tony collette i mean i would think that people would like automatically

58:44Ben Mandelker: be like oh my god i love you muriel yeah what do you think i know seriously what do you think about this twist of in the hands of the people i think it was a good idea but i think that they

58:58Rob Cesternino: didn't really give the fans that much to actually vote on like it was very specific things and a lot of the options were worded in a way that it was clear what they wanted the outcome to be and they didn't really let the fans vote on too many things that people really cared about like let there be should there be two tribes or three tribes should there be a final two or a final three and like there were i wish there was more things that we were actually voting on that people cared about

59:32Ben Mandelker: yeah it feels kind of like superficial and also it's like will there be no idols or tons of idols and of course the fans are always going to choose the hard option they're going to choose the idols and everything like that which is fine but i agree i feel like it's not it's not very impactful and what i hate is that jeff is like but this season i'm not doing anything because it's in the hands the fans. So the fans have voted and they decided they want you to win an Outback steak because you know that's coming. It's like, you're going to go to the sanctuary. Are they going to win a steak from Outback or a pizza from Domino's?

1:00:06Ben Mandelker: It's like, which corporate branding will the fans vote for? It just feels a little over wrought. Who do we think is... Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry, Ronnie. Do we know if the fans got to vote on any of the competitions?

1:00:22Rob Cesternino: they got to vote on what the final four competition was going to be because i have to say i'm getting

1:00:28Ben Mandelker: also a little i'm getting some some competition um on we i feel like it's sort of getting into a

1:00:37Rob Cesternino: we're going up what's the emoji for on we they were inside out blacklisted by mike white okay

1:00:44Ben Mandelker: it's just abs um yeah just abs but i do kind of feel like it's a grab something go go under go under some beams into the mud go up a ramp they're impressive though like how they had to go under

1:00:56Ronnie Karam: those logs and then dig a hole under and on the other side you know i kind of like them because you have to think like how would i dig it you know i would never dig it i would die i would just die but yeah give up just watching like one of them just reached over and was like doing doing this like kind of swimming through it which i thought was kind of cool but yeah there's just there's only so many you know ramps and and pulley things you can do yeah for whatever reason there's

1:01:20Rob Cesternino: less variety in terms of the types of challenges that they would do like for a long time on survivor they'd be like okay and now there's wrestling and now there's you know this you know one-on-one competition and and really everything in the pre-merge is some type of a race and then everything in the post-merge is like okay get ready and stand still for as long as possible

1:01:42Ben Mandelker: endurance challenges this is just a ben thing i hate endurance challenges on reality tv they stress me out, but also it is just standing around, but largely I just get stressed out. When it comes time for Big Brother to have them stand on a wall and lean over, I'm always like, oh. The holding onto things. The Big Brother classic. That's a hot take.

1:02:03Ronnie Karam: Hold onto a phallic object. It's like a flinging hot dog or whatever.

1:02:08Ben Mandelker: I want more, I would love to see, I don't honestly, I don't mind obviously if we have a mix of all these things, but post-merge there are so many endurance challenges that they just sort of become all the same to me. And I just like a mix. Like I love the auction when it comes up, the food auction. And they once had a challenge that I absolutely adored, which is that they had to like all get onto this platform in the water. And there was like not enough room for everyone. And so like if one wrong move and everyone would fall off the platform. And so you never really knew which group of people was really, which team was going to win.

1:02:41Ben Mandelker: And I liked that as a nice change up. But like the obstacle course thing, I'm just sort of getting a little over it. I feel like there's so many interesting puzzles out there and interesting ways to have competition that I would love to sort of see some more variety. For sure. So Rob, can you fix that for us, please?

1:03:02Rob Cesternino: Listen. That Rob designed one right now. We're going to complain about the same things every single season. That's one of the things with the new era where in the old days of Survivor, there used to be a lot more novelty and variety of like, okay, this season we're doing this, this season we're doing this and i know that they're stuck in fiji for you know a variety of budgetary reasons but it's almost like at this point in survivors history they're like we figured out what the show is every season we're gonna do it's it's this it's this it's this is this like well can you change it like no we this is how we do it now dictionary can we do dictionary i mean it's like well what about could you have like like uh what if you have like this versus this like no every season is the next number that's it we decided this is this is the show now

1:03:50Ben Mandelker: and now like that and now the challenges not only are they not really changing the challenges as much now some of the challenges have built in their own kind of mythology like in this season kelly kelly so and so went and she she did this in 35 seconds can you beat that record so now there's like lore behind the challenges which is kind of funny um which i actually i don't mind that i actually like that the show is not afraid to break that fourth wall but yeah let's just like i feel like there was a new challenge like last season they like sprung a new challenge on us

1:04:26Rob Cesternino: whoa a new challenge yeah it's exciting if they have a new challenge and it's fine but that they also like but they make the challenges easier also or or or i should say they make them like harder so that they last like eight minutes as opposed to that there used to be on Survivor, you'd have these endurance challenges and they'd go for hours and hours and hours and like, ah, that's boring. Just make it so hard that the challenge only lasts for five minutes. We got stuff to do. We're not going to sit around here all day and watch this for five hours.

1:04:55Ronnie Karam: We're going to have an endurance competition, so let's see who can endure getting hit over the head multiple times with a cast iron skill. Okay, one of you? Okay, great. Everyone else is knocked out on the ground. We are done. Let's wrap. All right. Where do you think this season is going to go? Let's do some predictions for the final. What do you want to do? Final three? Final three. Okay. Okay. Let's say final three. Rob, you go first. Go first. Wow. So I can copy all of your choices.

1:05:21Rob Cesternino: Copy all of my choices. So I'm trying to think of, I'll say.

1:05:36joe and

1:05:40Rob Cesternino: let's say uh joe tiffany is my winner pick even though ronnie doesn't know who she is uh and then

1:05:51Ronnie Karam: um i don't have to know things if we could only talk about things i know we'd have a very very

1:05:57Rob Cesternino: short show so don't worry about that and uh jonathan okay and tiffany for the win okay gotcha

1:06:04Ben Mandelker: ben go for it it's hard to say because i'm only trying to think of who seemed like they might be getting a winner's edit but like to the credit of survivor i think the thing that is so amazing about the show is they've become so sophisticated with their edits that i don't think people it's it's hard to determine the winner's edit versus the difference of like who is getting the act one of the season edit um i also for some reason tiffany was on my radar as well but like you know what i'm gonna say i'm gonna say in the top three i'm gonna put emily flipping even though she's totally bonkers but i just for some reason i see her kind of like bonking up to the top three i like her yeah she's great i love her she's a real is she's the one

1:06:47Ronnie Karam: that's like nobody really wanted to talk to me the first time but now it's things are different

1:06:51Ben Mandelker: is that her yes yes the first her first season thank you i really vibed with her energy

1:06:59Ronnie Karam: she was she just got so happy when that guy started talking to her so yeah someone's talking

1:07:04Ben Mandelker: to me you would have loved her first season she constantly had these like emotional breakdowns because no one liked her and then she had these because of her emotional breakdowns people just continued to not like her um i'm gonna say mike white because everyone wants to be on white lotus yeah that's a good one okay and uh this is hard where does it a third one let's say chrissy

1:07:29Rob Cesternino: hofbeck oh okay chrissy mike chrissy and who was the third emily mike chrissy and emily yes yeah

1:07:41Ronnie Karam: um i um i'm just gonna go with people that i want to see because you never know on these on these games especially in the beginning so i'm gonna say aubrey sari yeah and the guy who does the news just because he cracks me up he's like and then he gets really serious but he's always got that dad he's always got that dad like i'm just so glad to be here let's murder that motherfucker you know it's got it's kind of an edge to him like i believe maybe he's killed somebody and so he's kind of my dark horse and i'll say sari only because i think it would be so uh difficult i think it would be an uphill battle but i don't know i believe in her so i'm gonna

1:08:25Ben Mandelker: say her yeah i can't tell does she have a massive target on her back or do people is there ever a sense of like man she is so good i don't want to be the one to destroy her journey this time well

1:08:36Rob Cesternino: that's what jenna lewis tried to do that she needs to take her out but i think that there's a little of like the same sort of thing with Donna Kelsey where people like oh do we want to get the fans mad at us and take her out people love sorry

1:08:49Ben Mandelker: yeah yeah I was by the way I was sad to see Jenna go only because I was like man it's been 26 years she comes on to the beach for like one day and then she's gone like that is that was so mean of everyone I'm sorry

1:09:02Ronnie Karam: too hard though she came right on all right sorry we're getting her we're getting her she fucked up the competition well you're all gonna fuck up a competition you had to throw a stone on a rope through a little V, you know, who can do that? No, well, actually I've got, I've got one last question.

1:09:18Ben Mandelker: I know we're sort of trying to wrap up and we, for all intents and purposes, we should be wrapping up, but I'm opening it back up again. We're trying to apologize. I'm doing a big, a bad, bad podcaster, but Rob, you did come back on an all-star season. And in the season that you were on, you were like, I mean, you did, you, you, you, you got extremely far. You were just like doing all sorts of amazing stuff on it.

1:09:40Rob Cesternino: but then in the all-star season you did not last very long that's right so what was like coming into

1:09:46Ben Mandelker: an all-star season like this in season 50 what's different what's different when you come in there well and that these players should hopefully have been paying paying attention to yeah and

1:09:56Rob Cesternino: it's a great question the time that i came back i played on survivor all-stars which was season eight but nobody had ever been on an all-star season of a show before you didn't really know what it was going to be like. Now everybody is like these grizzled veterans that have been back as my fifth time playing. So people are like, I'm coming in with my game plan, but it's like, hey, this person is my friend. I can't vote them out. And that's why Boston Rob did so well. He was the only person that was willing to be like, hey, I don't care. I'm going to screw up everybody I've ever met and find my wife.

1:10:32Rob Cesternino: So it was, I think it was complicated, the feelings about like, wait, are we friends or is this a game? Whereas everybody's like very clear what this is.

1:10:44Ben Mandelker: Cool.

1:10:45Ronnie Karam: Yeah, everyone's coming in ready to rip each other on this one. I like it.

1:10:48Ben Mandelker: Yeah, they're ready. Maybe we should circle back midway through the season and see how all our predictions are going and our hot takes are, you know, because it's so fun to talk with you. And it is really cool. It is cool, the shared experience. Like the three of us were in the midst of the reality TV. We've seen it all. We've seen it all, guys. We've been there. We've been there since the old days.

1:11:10Ronnie Karam: Rob, so great to talk to you. Yes. This was really, really fun.

1:11:16Rob Cesternino: Yeah, and we're not washed. Okay, let's let the record show.

1:11:22Ben Mandelker: We're not washed. We're not cooked. No, no. We still got it. We still got it. We're still bringing the heat. We're old times. Remember back in the day, Johnny Fairplay

1:11:35Rob Cesternino: Remember that when Johnny Fairplay got slammed by Danny Bonaduce Sure do

1:11:41Ben Mandelker: Sure do

1:11:42Ronnie Karam: Were you there that night? I was there when Perez Hilton got punched Were you at that one?

1:11:50Rob Cesternino: Who punched Perez Hilton?

1:11:52Ronnie Karam: I think the real world guys

1:11:54Rob Cesternino: Oh it was? I mean he probably should have gotten punched a lot more He was drawing like wieners

1:12:02Ronnie Karam: on all these people's faces yeah he got punched at that award show and i was hanging out with johnny bananas that night who i loved back in that in that yes and we were saying he was wasted of course but we were just cracking up and he was just kind of being he came out just looking like tweet tweet tweet like literal birds around his head and people were booing him on the way out i was i was kind of proud of our culture that night yeah i i remember going to one of those

1:12:27Ben Mandelker: Fox reality awards and China, the wrestler was next to me. And then New York was there and Jeff Conway came on stage cause he was doing a lot of the VH one stuff. And then there was just, it was, you know, it was a time, it was a time to be alive. It was a time. It was a time. It was a, yeah, it was a special. Well,

1:12:45Ronnie Karam: everybody find a Rob has a podcast wherever you get your podcast. What's your personal Insta? Rob's sister Nino. Oh, there you go. I keep it simple too. Mine's Ronnie Karam and Ben Mandelker. you see we all did it right guys keep it right yes because back back when we started it wasn't hard to get your real name yeah exactly yeah well when we blogged we had fake names because we were like we're serious artists and we don't want to be known as tv bloggers and then we got thirsty

1:13:13Ben Mandelker: a couple years i wanted to be a tv writer and i was afraid that if i was blogging that um it would get in the way of me having gainful employment as a television writer so i was like i gotta have an alias.

1:13:27Ronnie Karam: Has that been proven wrong for any of us? Yeah.

1:13:30Ben Mandelker: The writing never really happened. Never happened.

1:13:33Ronnie Karam: Look at us now. Who needs it?

1:13:37Ben Mandelker: Maybe Mike White could read a script of yours. I know. Now that I've shaded the Emoji movie out of solidarity with you. You know, I did. That was me.

1:13:46Rob Cesternino: Leave Ben alone. Put him on the White Lotus.

1:13:49Ben Mandelker: Mike White was like, you know what? This guy's pretty funny on that podcast. I should put him in the White Lotus. Wait a second. He backed up Rob Cessarnino. He's got a Google Alert set up for you.

1:13:58Rob Cesternino: He platformed Rob Cessarnino, so he's out. He platformed it.

1:14:01Ronnie Karam: All right, Rob. Thanks so much, everybody. Thanks for being here. We'll talk to you next time.

1:14:06Ben Mandelker: Bye, everyone. Bye. Watch what Crappens would like to thank its premium sponsors. Ain't no thing like Alison King. Our way is the Amber way. It's the Foster and the Furious. It's Amanda Foster. It's Always Automatic with Ashley Otto. Put your hands together for Carly Clapp. Get on the right foot with Chrissy Offutt.

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1:14:58Ronnie Karam: Kristen the Piston Anderson. Get a bee in your bonnet with Lacey B. Que sera, sera, whatever will be will Lauren Sills be. She gets an A from us. It's Lindsay D. Let's give a kisserino to Lisa Lino. Fresh as a daisy, it's Maisie McHenry.

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1:15:40Ben Mandelker: Can I have a Kavanaugh? It's Anna Kavanaugh. Somebody get us 10 cc's of Betsy MD.

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1:16:01Ben Mandelker: Who, what, why, where, and Gwen Pentland. Nobody holds a candle to Jamie Kendall. We got our wish. It's Jen Plish. My favorite Murdo, Karen McMurdo.

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1:16:57Ronnie Karam: She ain't no shrinking Violet Kuchar We love you guys