Instrewad of asking Hoagieboom, or higgenbottom, or whatever his name, if he was in the NFL they should ask if hes ever been a butler to a creepily dark family by the name of Addams.

Brandon had it wrong; I think the "butt crack of dawn" must have been when they played tug-of-war.

Rafe is a "wilderness guide"? Must be a virtual reality wilderness guide. Most pathetic ladder-climber ever! And Rafe's pained expression at tribal council must have been due to the realization that Morgan was taking the fall for him. She might have been worthless, but he was less than worthless. He, Brandon, "Idiot" Jaime and "hypersensitive" Judd can go form their own tribe on some other show.

LOVED Operation Quarterjerk--that is classic. That and Rafe falling off the ladder were the best parts of the show. I was laughing so hard when Brian asked Gary about it. The well-laid schemes of mice and men... Like the dork I am, I've been calling people I know who watch the show to discuss it and starting off with "Excuse me, are you a former NFL quarterback?" My sister said, "No, But Gary from Survivor is." Surely he was second-string? Rafe has got to go. He is seriously getting on my nerves.

EdHill: I completely agree! He is creepy. And apparently the NFL didn't pay enough to cover dental back in the seventies, because he has some f***ed up teeth.

Were Lydia to hold a Furby, would you be able to tell which is which?

Blake is a pussy. My 90 year old Grandma could do better than him. pussy!!

There is no way that Danni recognized Gary Hogeboom. I don't for second doubt that Survivor fed her that information.

Gary retired in 1989...she is 30....Gary was predominantly a backup his entire career. There is just no way she would have looked at him and said 'hey he looks like a backup up quarterback from 16 years ago.'

And now I'm angry about this all over again. Damn it.

Danni was a Miss Teen USA and Miss USA contestant:

www.misskansasusa.com/ ks_formers/boatwright.html

Thanks for the re-cap B-side!
I actually was quite proud of Judd in the one on one tug of war. He waited for Jamie to take a rest and then BAM! He's my new favorite, at least this week.

Clearly someone had been listening to some hot 80's jams before writing their recaps...

I am guessing the reason behind the big huge mud pit was because they had to fill in the water hole/pool from the day before.

I want to see an alligator. They said the water was full of them, but all we see are those nice nature shots. Makes me think that there might be some cbs help going on in the water.

? - does anyone know if any of the survivors have been bitten by anything (spider/snake/etc.) on any of the past seasons?

Gary's obnoxious. If you played in the NFL for a decade, you have enough money.
Let's give others a chance to get some too Gary, K?

I agree, Todd (#7) I thought that immediately. It seems like too much of a stretch. And B-Side, you ARE a method blogger! You are the greatest! Excellent recap as usual.

Was I the only one who was quasi-disturbed by the crotch shot of Stephenie while she braided Morgan's hair?

Rafe definitely shoulda been the one to go. Wonder why his name never came up??

My family and I rewound and slo-mo'd Judd bouncing off the net and then nailing his breadbasket on the platform for his stint in the spiderweb. HA! I love Judd.

RE: Shelley (#12)...I don't believe that contestants should be removed (or advance) based on need. I always hated that line of thinking.

They did that on all stars too...they decided that were immediately voting out all of the previous winners because they didn't 'need' the money.

With that said, Gary as a back up in the 80's probably made a nice living but, he was not making anywhere NEAR the kind of money athletes make today. That is a relatively new phenom...

Thank you for restoring my faith in the TVGasm recap. (I just got finished reading J-Unit's OC recap.) This was hysterical (as well as concise and not littered with typos).

Todd:

Relatively new phenom? Don't think so...athletes in the 80's did very well.

Anyway, I don't like it when people compete for money on a show when they're well off enough to begin with. (i.e Brian the Porn Star)

I'm not usually one to pull the sexist card since, you know, I'm a guy, but would everyone really be questioning Danni's ability to pick Dan Quarterjerk out of a crowd if she were a fat and ugly man? Huh? Huh? What do you think of THAT? Gloria Steinem RULES.

i'm sooo not winning the survivor pool, i voted for rafe to come in second. in his picture he doesn't look like a total pussy!

Shelley-
I guess this comes down to the definition of 'very well' then...The NFL average was somewhere between 80-150k during the mid 80's. You are talking about a career backup...he most likely had one decent contract (little endorsement money) and a couple of min (or close to) one year deals. Like I said before, He did fine but, its not like he is driving bentleys and counting money in his spare time. The guy most likely DOES need to work still.

NB - I totally would have called BS if Danni was a man. I knew the name and remember his career but, I would have never spotted the face. Football players don't show their faces as often as other sports and you are talking about a backup from years ago.

I don't know how I got myself in the position of defending Danni since she (and her abs) vaguely annoy me, but she's not a joe-schmoe off the street recognizing football players willy nilly, she's in sports broadcasting. And not the Lisa Guerrero T&A wing of sports journalism either, she had a sports radio show. Not that I listened to it.

Don't shatter my Survivor dreams, people. IT'S ALL REAL. IT HAS TO BE.

I hope for the next Survivor All-Stars they put Rafe and Katie (from last season) on the same team. That way they can have trouble swinging on ropes and climbing ladders TOGETHER.

Gary is going to go "Sling Blade" on this tribe before this thing is over. Jeff should tell him he has just been benched in favor of Danny White. This guy is more of freak than the guy who finished 2nd on Amazon

Yeah, we didn't get Blake's dramatic recovery thing either. And I was proud of little Brandon for pointing out how stupid it would be to vote off Lydia. It's weird to see the voice of reason come out of a mouth you wouldn't expect.

gotta back up todd on gary's NFL pay scale. he certainly got paid a lot more than he deserved, but it probably wouldn't average out to more than the annual incomes of any number of former survivor contestants, which have included a number of doctors, lawyers, owners of successful businesses, executives, etc. i'm sure he's rich, but it's fair to say that, even if you factor in inflation, hogeboom never made anything close to the kind of money even the backup QBs are making these days.

and let's bear in mind, gary is not really what i'd call a former NFL 'star.' admittedly, you have to be an exceptional player to even get drafted, much less to start at QB. but gary was sort of a chump back in his playing days--briefly running the offense for the cowboys at the nadir of their post-staubach/dorsett decline, and then fading into obscurity in indianapolis back when the colts couldn't beat their own dicks.

nevertheless, i hope he gets the boot, and i think this whole quarterjerk conspiracy is going to bite him in the ass. the fact that he feels the need to hide it suggests guilt more than strategy (if i were in the game, i'd consider gary the perfect person to end up against in the finals, since the jury might share the opinion that he's already loaded and doesn't need the money).

lucky for gary, stephenie could kick every other guy on his team's asses (with the possible exception of jamie), so they'll probably need him for a while just because he's big and strong and fatherly. but his ass is grass as soon as the merge comes, if he makes it that far.

Morgan's statement about the "hardest decision she will make out here"...OK, it's like five days into the game. What does she know about hard decisions at this point? She went with what she thought was the group decision. Ha!

And what were those guys thinking when they tried to tackle their opponents in the tug of war? Obviously they didn't understand the rules of the game.

Why wouldn't a professional sportscaster recognize a professional football player, no matter how old he is or how long ago he played. I could tell you things that happened in Nascar history before I was born, and it's not even my job. I just love the sport.
I think the people here debating whether Gary really needs the money are forgetting the main other reason people come on this show: exposure. Gary and Danni both are looking for exposure so they can parlay this turn on Survivor into other TV gigs--most likely in sportscasting. Depending on how Danni does, this could work well for her. As for Gary, good luck, you're no Troy Aikman.

Victoria - Its the age of the contestant more than anything, not her career. He RETIRED when she was a Freshman in High School...Whether or not its her career, there is no reason she would be able spot him on site. At least not someone that obscure.
And also, are we sure what type of sports radio she does?? Not to pass judgement or anything, but there are ton of people in sports radio that are not sports historians. I mean, Topanga from Boy Meets World has a sports radio show.....

I feel like I'm defending Gary now and attacking Danni....I don't like either of them equally :)

I just think that Survivor fed her the information. And if Tvgasm goes to the wrap party for this, I want that question asked!!!! (PLEASE!)

Todd, I have to agree with you that it's awfully fishy that she would recognize his face. If he was using his real name then that would make sense, but how would she know his face? It's not like he was ever on a Wheaties box or anything.

Carol (#11) - The only time I can remember off hand is when a couple of people were stung by jellyfish. Unless, of course, you count the millions of malaria infested mosquito bites they have all endured.

LONG LIVE SURVIVOR!!

The Febreze moment is also one of my new favorite moments of the show. Morgan’s mother with dyed-red bangs sat by Morgan’s camera-shy father in what looked like a Zen meditation room. She said she missed Morgan and she already had a spa appointment for her…….WHA??? What an odd thing to say. Do they run a spa? Judging from Morgan’s mom’s crispy-fried turkey-neck, they must; she must tan ev-ver-ry day. Also, is balancing things on her head part of Morgan’s job at the spa? If I remember, Morgan balanced large bags of corn on her head thorughout that entire 11 mile hike.

Re #11: Robb was bitten by a fish during the ShiAnn season. His reaction would have been appropriate for a shark bite, but the actual wound looked like a guppy bit him.

I almost fell off of my chair laughing and my co-workers think that I'm losing it (well, more than usual). Great recap- worth the wait. The Rafe pic w/ caption almost sent me over the edge, and the Quarterjerk comments are classic!

And didn't Richard Hatch get bitten, appropiately enough, by a shark on All Stars?

By the way, did Rafe ever get his left shoe back?

i just graduated from brown with rafe. he's a student, not a wilderness guide. he did some outdoor leadership program at school. he didn't get the boot cuz he's gonna take it to the end!

Sigh. Rafe is my unfortunate pick in the office pool. How sad is it to want your own player to be voted off first. I'd rather lose my money than have that big baby win.

Who was Morgan? Did she even get one confessional in this episode other than her saying voting for Lydia was a hard decision? Has this EVER happened before -- the boot without a single confessional?

Rafe -- climb.

The immunity challege was dumb. It didn't work and the idiots that ran onto the other side allowing the other team to be closer to their flag . . . come on. Were these guys for real? Which brings up the obvious fact that these two tribes cannot possibly compete against each other in physical challenges. Look at the two teams. One is much stronger than the other. Stephanie appears to be the ONLY strong one on her tribe. Sadly -- the smarts department doesn't seem to be working in their favor either. With two Ivy League grads you think they'd be a bit brighter.

I didn't agree with your initial description of Lydia as being everyone's foreign language teacher "rolled into one" because my Spanish teacher was clearly an evil warlock that caused a solar eclipse one day while I was sitting in her class. But then you showed Lydia's picture at the bottom of the recap and I had to agree with you -- evil indeed.

Rafe -- climb.

And as for Danni -- I am from Kansas City and you guys don't know your KC football fans. We don't always have a team to cheer for but, believe me, they know football. It is totally believable that she could know who Gary was. And B-Side, sorry, but you were wrong about when Danni does her sit-ups and crunches -- I believe that she actually does them while working on sports radio as well.

Great re-cap. I missed the first half. Thank the sweet, sweet Lord for TVGasm! I was instantly annoyed by Quarterjerk (or as they are calling it in D.C. "Quarterjerkgate.") WTF? So stupid. And Gary's voice is a timbre which renders it nearly unintelligible. Like all the grown ups in Charlie Brown cartoons. At any rate, this is my first Survivor with TVGasm and I am exceeding excited! I do have one complaint about the show. It has driven me insane since the very first edition. I can not STAND it when Jeff Probst says "I'll go tally the votes." He doesn't go tally the votes. He goes and gets the votes. Then he tallies them. He doesn't do a secret vote count and then come back. Somehow I want to bitch slap him every time he says it. Anyhow, love the show, LOVE the Gasm!!!

Liz -- I have actually read that Jeff does indeed go "tally the votes" and he leaves the tribe sitting by the fire sometimes for up to an hour while they determine how best to reveal the votes. I read Morgan's parting words the other day on a website and she made reference to how awkward it was waiting for the votes to be presented to the tribe. Sad -- putting 8 votes in a specific order is more complicated than brain surgery.

Hi Liz, I'm with you on this one. I always thought that was weird that he would say "tally the votes."

Interesting comment by TWilliams. It does seem that they always show you the votes that were revealed to the camera during voting as being the first ones out of the box.

I would love to know more about the behind the scenes of these shows. I wonder if there is a lot of waiting around for the right shot. Like, stay here in the jungle until we are ready to have you walk out. I wonder if the cast gets frustrated like Morgan did with all the technical issues of producing the show.

B-side: I can't believe you didn't mention Rafe's missing shoe! All I kept thinking of was Eddie Murphy's Delirious when his Aunt fell down the stairs..."My Shoe!!" Classic...

I live in Rafe's hometown appartently he was voted most likely to be on Survivor in 2001, upon graduation form highschool. He's also a genius he and his brother scored a 1600 on hteir SAT's

I found this site by 'accident' and can't believe the things being said about Morgan who also happens to be my neice! First let me clear up the 'Febreeze' moment. For some reason, the TV crews cut out the rest of the family, her brothers, her grandparents, and HER mother. That 'turkey-necked' woman beside the camera shy dad is actually Morgan's step-mother who is one of the nicest and most caring woman I know. And yes... they do own a spa but it is also has physical therapists onboard too. Considering how many people do business with them, who are you to judge? Then the comments about Morgan's face were shameful! How many young people don't suffer with acne sometime in their life? The heat/humidity caused this to be severe for her as it could anyone. Since she is back, the acne has cleared up and she again has beautiful skin. Laziness? From what they showed, somewhat, but please remember before judging, that Survivor has been known to edit players a certain way. Knowing Morgan, I highly doubt that she just sat around the camp and let everyone else do all the work. And remember who was shown out front during the 11 mile hike encouraging the tribe! Anyway.. there is so much more I would like to say but highly doubt if most people will believe what I know. Only the family members know the real Morgan.

Where is the recap of last week's Survivor? Is there somewhere to look that I've missed?