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In response to
"Challenge 40 chart: -- (pic)"
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NYT: How ‘The Challenge’ Made Reality TV a Real Career -- (edited)
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mud
Aug 14 '24, 12:57
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Over 40 seasons, the MTV series has become the grandfather of reality-competition shows while helping create a new brand of permanent semi-stardom.
Jonathan Abrams
By Jonathan Abrams
Aug. 14, 2024
Updated 12:06 p.m. ET
When Johnny Devenanzio swiveled in his chair and playfully called for his mother to bring some meatloaf, he knew exactly what he was doing. In his impression of Will Ferrell’s man-child from “Wedding Crashers,” he was really evoking Johnny Bananas, the Peter Pan-like alter ego he has played for much of his adult life on the grandfather of all reality-competition shows: MTV’s “The Challenge.”
Devenanzio, 42, said he’d likely be a stay-at-home-son had his life not so permanently veered into the world of reality television. Or maybe he would have used his Penn State college degree to enter the world of finance. Of his large flock of one-time castmates, many have forged ahead with new careers, gotten married, started families. Not Devenanzio.
“When I die I’m going to donate my brain to science to study what the long-term side effects of reality TV has been,” Devenanzio said over a Zoom interview. “Because I have literally clocked more hours than anyone on the show.”
Devenanzio spoke just before embarking for Vietnam to film the 40th season of “The Challenge,” the flagship show on which he has appeared in more than half the seasons. Subtitled “Battle of the Eras,” the new season (premiering on Aug. 14) will feature 40 cast members representing various generations of the show vying for a slice of a million-dollar prize.
That’s a long way from the show’s summer camp-vibes origin. The series premiered before the first Real Housewife ever chucked a drink, ahead of any chef-judge barking, “Hands up, utensils down,” and earlier than anyone surviving to outwit, outplay and outlast their competition. “The Challenge” even outstayed MTV predecessors like “The Real World” and “Road Rules,” which initially served as feeders for contestants to enter the show.
ImageA man wearing a harness and a helmet leaps from the hood of one car to the trunk of another. The vehicles, each a bright color, have the word “Challenge” written across their side exteriors.
The often harrowing daily challenges may be the underpinnings of the show, whether leaping from cars suspended over water or trying to fling fellow castmates off moving trucks.Credit...MTV
Bill Simmons, the podcaster, founder of the Ringer and a superfan dating back to the show’s earliest days, called it “America’s fifth official sport,” a moniker MTV has embraced. Its durability is reflected in the formula the network pioneered, one that is now a staple of reality TV: run back popular contestants — like Devenanzio — who viewers have formed an emotional bond with season after season.
It has birthed a Challenge-verse with spinoffs and iterations like “Champs vs. Stars,” “All Stars” and “The Challenge: USA” while providing a niche form of celebrity for mainstays like Devenanzio, C.T. Tamburello and Aneesa Ferreira, who have spent more time as reality television stars than nearly anyone on the planet, making it their primary vehicle of income and employment.
Dedicated “Challenge” viewers have watched Tamburello, 44, age from an aggressive 20-something into a teddy bear-like father. Ferreira, 42, has gone from a boisterous personality to a confident confidante for many castmates. And Devenanzio … well, he’s still mostly Bananas, cup raised and always ready to deliver the perfect toast as the life of the party.
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A man in all black, wearing glove and gear associated with climbing holds a helmet in one hand as he sternly surveys something offscreen.
MTV pioneered a formula that is now a staple of reality TV, bringing back popular contestants season after season. Viewers have watched C.T. Tamburello, 44, age from an aggressive 20-something into a teddy bear-like father.Credit...MTV
“They’ve had the ability now to hang with us and watch us grow up and live vicariously through us, watch us take our lumps and watch us make our mistakes,” Devenanzio said of the show’s viewers. “I feel like Jim Carrey on ‘The Truman Show.’ I feel like I was born on reality television and now people have watched me grow up, sort of. Physically not necessarily mentally.”
“THE CHALLENGE” PREMIERED as “Road Rules: All Stars” in June 1998, just days after Carrey’s “The Truman Show,” about a man who is unaware his life is being broadcast as a reality television show, landed in theaters.
“We were literally a group of 20-somethings putting together outrageous challenges, anything our brains could think up, and then creating a road trip,” said Julie Pizzi, the president of Bunim Murray Productions, who got her start on “The Challenge” as a segment producer.
Pizzi credits Mary-Ellis Bunim, the co-creator of “The Real World” and “Road Rules” whose background was in soap operas, with foreseeing that the cast’s narrative would carry season after season.
“I always look at this as a modern-day soap opera because you constantly have these story lines,” Pizzi said.
The series’ general premise has remained the same for years. A theme — exes, rivals, ride-or-dies — guides a season filmed in a faraway country like Thailand, Iceland or South Africa. Televisions and personal phones are not allowed in the house. Petty grudges and familiar friendships are. Alliances continue or are dismantled. Contestants vote one another to compete in elimination rounds. Once cast members are whittled down, the winner or winners are decided after a strenuous finale.
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Two people dressed in diving apparel are in what appears to be a motorized kayak; one of them, a woman with curly hair, is holding two oars.
The series has birthed a Challenge-verse with spinoffs and iterations like “Champs vs. Stars,” while providing a niche form of celebrity for mainstays like Ferreira, above.Credit...MTV
Pizzi recalled an early stunt in which cast members bungee jumped from the Strat (then called the Stratosphere) in Las Vegas. At the time, it seemed like a massive feat. By Season 33, the show hired an engineering firm to fabricate the bearings to roll a plane upside down. “Those are the kinds of things that they experiment with before they make Tesla rockets,” said Justin Booth, the show’s longtime showrunner.
The daily challenges may be the underpinnings of the show. Other harrowing ones include: leaping from cars suspended over water; trying to fling fellow castmates off moving trucks (don’t worry, there were nets) and holding your breath under water for unseemly amounts of time. Plus, there are the occasional eating contests. You will have a hard time finding another group of people who have guzzled a pint of blood and devoured sheep skull and ram testicles.
If Booth is reality television’s Martin Scorsese, then Devenanzio is his Leonardo DiCaprio.
“He’s the first player that ever took the game seriously,” Booth said. “Leading up to that point, most people were out to have a good time.”
Devenanzio entered MTV’s orbit via 2006’s “The Real World: Key West.” In his “Challenge” debut, he was the first contestant eliminated. Not long after, Tamburello transformed Devenanzio into a human backpack during a showdown — an image that became one of the show’s most enduring.
Devenanzio went on to win the show a record seven seasons and estimates he has made around $1 million. “But here’s the mistake I made,” he said. “I did all my winning back in the day when we used to literally murder each other for a T-Mobile Sidekick. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, here’s $50,000 split eight ways.’”
He cemented himself as one of reality television’s most conniving players with a permanent heel turn. “The Challenge: Rivals III” aired in 2016, pairing Devenanzio with Sarah Rice. The relationship between the two had shifted throughout prior seasons, alternating between alliance and alienation.
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A wide shot of several contestants standing on a platform. Different groups wear matching T-shirts, seemingly indicating different teams.
The new season of “The Challenge,” subtitled “Battle of the Eras,” will feature 40 cast members representing various generations of the show, all vying for a slice of a million-dollar prize.Credit...MTV
As teammates, they settled into the tenuous territory of frenemies, with mutual trust seemingly building each episode. They won the season when T.J. Lavin, the show’s veteran, steadying host (just don’t quit on him), announced a twist: The $350,000 prize money could be split or the player who amassed the most points — in this case, Devenanzio — could take it all.
The runner-up teams divided their money. Devenanzio, who regarded himself as an embedded producer and not just a contestant, thought, How lackluster would it be to have the potential for a great TV moment and have nobody take advantage of it?
As Lavin looked on like a “disappointed father” and Rice crumbled on the peak of an Argentine mountain, Devenanzio savagely announced he would “take the money and run.”
“It might be the number-one worst thing that anybody could ever do that is so bad, and it’s so iconic,” Lavin said.
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In an outdoor pose that recalls a game of tug of war, a man in a black baseball cap is casually holding one end of a rope as four others (one man and three women) playfully pretend to strain to pull the rope from the other end.
“He’s the first player that ever took the game seriously,” Justin Booth, the show’s longtime showrunner, said of Devenanzio (center). “Leading up to that point, most people were out to have a good time.” Credit...OK McCausland for The New York Times
It took another reality television star, Omarosa Manigault Newman, to put into words for Devenanzio what he had become a master of. On the set of the E! series “House of Villains,” Manigault Newman suggested that Devenanzio insert himself into as many scenes as he could, even if the initial conflict did not involve him.
“I’ve always enjoyed pushing people’s buttons and watching the reaction that you get from it,” he added. “I was a pyromaniac when I was a kid. I feel like I’m still a pyromaniac, but instead of lighting real fires, I light proverbial fires on the show.”
The show has dealt with its own controversies and emergencies over its long run, a perhaps unsurprising result of dropping young people thousands of miles from home and putting them through a physical and mental wringer.
Contestants have confronted issues including addiction, death, anxiety and depression, sometimes with cameras rolling. In 2011, Tonya Cooley, a contestant on 2009’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Ruins,” filed a lawsuit that accused two male cast members of sexually assaulting her while she was passed out during filming. She named the two men, MTV and Bunim/Murray productions as defendants. The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2012 with none of the details made public.
Rice, who now works as a therapist, credits the show with helping her learn about herself and described her persona as the “camp counselor who will try to make the best out of any situation.” But she has not appeared in the flagship series in years, in part, because she believes the show should include an American therapist while on location.
The show, Pizzi said, has created space to address mental health, an issue that has taken on great cultural resonance over the series’ run. When a recent cast member was experiencing anxiety, the crew found a quiet space for the contestant in the house. Another member needed to breastfeed during the competition and they devoted a room to her.
“It is a pressure cooker being on this show,” Pizzi said. “It’s incredibly difficult, they’re literally competing every other day. Even pro athletes don’t play games every single day.”
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A woman in diving gear is holding onto rungs from a rope ladder while partly submerged in water.
Aspiring contestants sometimes see “The Challenge” as the major leagues, biding their time in the TV minors to make the cast. Nurys Mateo, above, joined from the dating show “Are You the One? 6.”Credit...MTV
“THE REAL WORLD” WAS GROUNDBREAKING when it made its MTV debut in 1992, but a quarter century later, in a landscape dominated by reality TV and social media, the show had lost its impact. Its last episode on MTV aired in 2017. That’s around when “The Challenge” was reinvented with higher stakes game play, elevated camera technology and celebrity reality cast members to create a new golden age for the show, which has evolved into a pillar for Paramount+ as the service looks to gain ground in the ongoing streaming wars.
Some aspiring contestants see “The Challenge” as the major leagues, and are willing to bide their time in the minors to make the cast. Take Nurys Mateo, for example. She joined the MTV dating show “Are You the One? 6” with the hopes of springboarding onto the series she really wanted to appear on.
In 2014, “Are You the One?” contestants became the first participants who did not arrive from a show produced by Bunim Murray Productions. “The Challenge” has since pulled from shows like “Big Brother,” “Survivor” and “Geordie Shore.”
The swirling of contestants from different shows added new types of familiar faces and new types of strategy. A cast member from “Big Brother” might rely more on social acumen to avoid elimination. A “Survivor” alum might thrive in the competitions.
“The challenge on ‘Survivor’ is you’re kind of battling yourself and your own demons and that hunger, whereas the challenges on ‘The Challenge’ are more physical and there’s still mental aspects as well, but it’s overcoming fear,” said Michele Fitzgerald, who won “Survivor” before appearing on “The Challenge.”
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Three couples in harnesses and protective gear are seen suspended over a cityscape that includes high-rise buildings and roads.
Michele Fitzgerald, center (in profile), won “Survivor” before appearing on “The Challenge.”Credit...MTV
Mateo, 29, is part of the younger generation of contestants who grew up watching the show and developing favorites over seasons. She gravitated toward the likes of Nany Gonzalez and Ashley Mitchell — underdogs who led with their hearts. Devenanzio said parents often tell him their children want to follow in his footsteps. “All right, hold on,” Devenanzio said. “That wouldn’t be good parenting. I don’t know if we want them to follow exactly in my footsteps.”
Mateo finished as a runner-up in “The Challenge: Battle for a New Champion,” earning a $60,000 prize.
Had she won, Mateo said, she’d most likely have taken a break from the show. She will not be a lifer. Each season, she weighs the cost of being away to film against other career goals. She models, takes acting classes and wants to host her own show.
Filming also extracts a cyclical mental toll, Mateo said. She lives the experience, watches it when it airs to catch the conversations she did not hear in real time and then it seems like it’s time to film again.
“A lot of people walk in those doors and have a guarantee, and if they leave the first day, they’re making five figures,” Mateo. “For them it’s great, but for people like me, it’s really not.”
Mainstays like Devenanzio, Tamburello and Trishelle Cannatella have found success in other reality television shows like “House of Villians” and Peacock’s “Traitors,” which have all become part of the permanent-reality-star industrial complex.
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The five cast members of “The Challenge” pose on a playground contraption.
Credit...OK McCausland for The New York Times
Aneesa Ferreira is happy about the impact she’s made on her more than 20 seasons on “The Challenge.” Occasionally, people tell her they named their child after her, she said, noting that she tries to reflect a strong woman of color on television.
“I’ve helped more people than I ever thought I would,” Ferreira said.
She applied for graduate school with thoughts of becoming a therapist. “It’s like, Do you take the check and the opportunity or do you go on with your life?” Ferreira said. “I feel like if I stop, I know I’m going to miss it.”
When Rice first started on the show, it seemed like a simpler time, when the first tweets and the first Instagram thirst traps were just being sent out into the world.
“Now it’s a business, now people go on there and who they are, their persona, their image is a business that then is sold afterward,” Rice said. “I went in as a regular person and then left the show and went back to being a regular person.”
Not everyone can resist the pull of the cameras and the spotlight, though. Tamburello estimated that he has retired from “The Challenge” three times. He returned, he said, because he wanted his son to watch a more mature version of himself.
“I don’t know if it’s Stockholm syndrome, but the shoots, they can be really, really long,” he said. “Then after, you end up missing it. It’s weird. It’s like, what do you call it? Masochist. It’s like all of a sudden, I look forward to being turned into a test dummy.”
Jonathan Abrams writes about the intersections of sports and culture and the changing cultural scenes in the South.
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