Previously on This Week in Survivor History… Jerri’s ousting prevented a repeat Pagonging, Probst gave the girls some peanut butter, and Tyson voted himself out. The 3 Amigos alliance was formed, and Gabriel Cade found out that if you’re not there to play the game, you won’t be there much longer. Read on to find out what happened… This Week in Survivor History!
April 5th, 2001 (13 years ago this Saturday)
Where’s the rice?[/caption]
Nowadays Jeff Probst may come to a tribe’s camp if there’s concern over someone like Linsdey Ogle beating up an older women, but back in Survivor: The Australian Outback, he visited the Barramundi tribe for a much different reason. Apparently they had poorly rationed their rice, because they ran out with 12 days left to go. Jeff had noticed their lethargy from lack of food at the previous immunity challenge, and people like Elizabeth Filarski and Nick Brown struggled to operate around camp.
Jeff was not at the camp to just offer rice for free; however, he came to make a deal. He had a canister of enough rice to last them through the rest of the game, but demanded that he take something from them in return. At first Rodger “Kentucky Joe” Bingham offered up their blankets, but Jeff wasn’t having it. They only thing of theirs he felt was valuable enough to exchange for food was their shelter, more specifically the tarp and Colby Donaldson’s Texas flag.
While the tribe wasn’t happy about giving up their home, and barely had the energy to rebuild their shelter, they really didn’t have a choice. Jeff called the decision Food vs. Shelter, and in that matchup, shelter loses every time. Colby may be proud to be a Texan, but that pride isn’t worth starving over.
This is an important moment in Survivor history because it really set it apart from other competition based reality shows. In Borneo, the previous season, there were moments of hunger and of course the famous cooking and eating of rats, but not until this episode of Australia was there ever an episode in which the tribe had absolutely no food. I remember watching this scene on the couch and thinking that while these people were playing an awesome game for a million dollars, the struggle of being on Survivor was very real.
April 1st, 2004 (10 years ago this Tuesday)
After a tribe swap on Survivor: All Stars, boyfriend and girlfriend Boston Rob and Amber Brkich found themselves separated. Amber’s new tribe lost the immunity challenge, and she was the one on the chopping block. On the way out of the challenge site, Rob went over to his friend from outside the game, Lex van den Berghe, and whispered that he’d take care of him if Lex took care of Amber that night at tribal council. Lex took the deal, and along with his tribe voted out Jerri Manthey instead. More on this next week…
April 5th, 2007 (7 years ago this Saturday)
Have you been used and abused? Lisi Linares was by her entire experience on Survivor: Fiji. She served two stints on Exile Island, didn’t get along with her tribe, and finally asked them to vote her out during this episode. She subsequently changed her mind, instead wanting them to vote out Dreamz Herd, but her antics had become too much and they booted her like she had originally requested. This may or may not have had to do with her constant inquiries into their various sexual experiences.
This was actually an important decision for the Ravu tribe, as keeping Dreamz created the Four Horsemen alliance. Lisi would most likely refer to the guys who voted her out as little boys in tightie whities.
Memorable Firsts:
- First Survivor Auction! (April 5th, 2001 – Survivor: The Australian Outback)
- First time a hidden immunity idol clue is thrown into a volcano (March 30th, 2011 – Survivor: Redemption Island)
- Tarzan asks Chelsea if she doesn’t like him because he’s a plastic surgeon and she’s unhappy with her breast implants. This is the first ever boob-job related Survivor dispute. (April 4th, 2012 – Survivor: One World)
- Cochran wins the gross food challenge, his first individual immunity. (April 3rd, 2013 – Survivor: Caramoan)
Memorable Boots:
- Hey sports fans, Dave Johnson voted out after Rob Cesternino called him a show off in an earlier confessional. (April 3rd, 2003 – Survivor: The Amazon)
Odd man out. - Boston Rob voted out of the Villains tribe on a Coach throwaway vote, causing him to deny the Dragonslayer a hug and call him a “little man.” WHY COULDN’T HE HAVE CALLED HIM A LITTLE BOY? IT WOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT FOR THE WEEK IN SURVIVOR HISTORY IN WHICH LISI WAS VOTED OUT!!! (April 1st, 2010 – Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains)
- Friend of RHAP Corinne Kaplan voted out by Stealth R Us on the merge episode. (April 3rd, 2013 – Survivor: Caramoan)
Thanks for reading this week! Hopefully you either were reminded of something you enjoyed at the time or even learned something new about Survivor’s history. Also, I really enjoyed reading your tweets and comments from last week. I’d love to see what you thought about this edition @JordanKalish on Twitter and in the comment section below.
