The 115 Funniest Things to Ever Happen on Survivor
#13. Rob Cesternino
Amazon - All Season Long
Rob Cesternino is my choice as the funniest Survivor player of all
time.
Sure, he may not make the Funny 115 as often as people like Judd, Robb
Zbacnik, and Chris Daugherty, but in my
mind Rob Cesternino is funnier than all of them. And the big difference
is that Rob is the only one of them who
was actually trying to be funny. The other three
guys I just named? Unintentional humor galore. You
laughed at them despite their best efforts to be taken seriously. You
laughed at them because they were so damn
dramatic and intense. But not Rob. No, Rob is the only one who was
actually trying to play to the audience. He was the
only one who was trying to get us to laugh at all the things that were
going on around him
in the game.
And he succeeded.
Quite a bit.
To this day, Rob C. remains the single funniest player ever to have
played Survivor.
It is a shame that people have sort of gotten tired of Rob over the
years, because it has overshadowed the fact that
he was such a special and unique player when he first burst onto the
scene during Amazon. People nowadays tend
to forget that Rob was the first comedian ever to be cast on the show.
He was the first normal run-of-the-mill
internet geek to be allowed to play the game of Survivor. And he was
the first player ever to go out of his way
just to entertain the audience.
See, Rob was well aware of the fact that Survivor was a TV show. And he
was one of the first players to really
grasp the fact that making entertaining TV was just
as important as winning the game. And this is an accomplishment
that a lot of Survivor fans don't really give him credit for. They tend
to focus on the fact that Rob came close
to winning the Amazon, and then he got his butt kicked in All-Stars.
And that's the only legacy they
tend to attribute to him. But you know what? None of that really
matters. Rob's final placement in Amazon and
All-Stars isn't remotely important. It shouldn't make the slightest bit
of difference in how we view Rob Cesternino
as a character.
And here's why...
(Note: This is the part of my essay that a lot of
Survivor fans will take issue with. They always do. But I stand by
these statements 100%. Always have. Always will.)
Survivor is, above all else, a television show. That's all it is,
that's all it has ever been, and that's
all it will ever be. And the sole purpose of a TV show (indeed, the
only purpose) is to make money for its network. If the show brings in
good ratings, the network can charge more money to its advertisers, and
that's really the
only reason that television shows even exist. They exist solely to
bring in more money from the potential advertisers.
So what makes a show get good ratings? Easy, it's the characters. If
the characters on a show aren't interesting
and/or relatable, for the most part the general viewing audience isn't
going to care. I can't think of a single
successful TV show that has ever had uninteresting
characters, and this applies to Survivor just as much
as it applies to normal non-reality TV. Survivor lives and dies by its
characters, just like any other TV SHOW,
and the fact that Rob understood this is what made him such a valuable
commodity all around.
Rob was funny, Rob was likable, Rob was a normal guy, and Rob was
interesting. And on top of all that, he went
out of his way to try to entertain the audience. And this is exactly
what you want on a show like Survivor. After all, you don't get players
that understand the TV side of the business every day. In fact, I can
maybe
name only two or three players who seemed to grasp this concept prior
to Amazon (Greg and Colleen being the main
two). But then here comes Rob Cesternino. He comes at a very crucial
point in Survivor history (remember that
Thailand had just bombed), and he turns out to be everything the
producers were looking for, and more. Rob was
the first true comedian ever to be cast on the show. And on top of
that, he was someone that the audience at home
could relate to. See, Rob Cesternino wasn't some triathlete who liked
to run 100-mile marathons. Nor was he an
ex-navy fighter pilot. Nor was he a buff muscle man who could
bench-press 700 pounds. And Rob Cesternino was not,
I repeat not, a drop dead gorgeous bikini model.
Rob Cesternino was just a goofy kid who learned the game from watching
it on TV. And he lived at home and ran
a website from his parents' basement. He was just a normal kid with
nothing particularly special about him. And that's what made him a
casting director's wet dream!
Just like me!
(Note: I say that Rob was the first comedian ever to
be cast on the show, because there's really nobody
else you could say that about. Greg Buis in Borneo was probably the
closest. Like Rob, he knew that this was
a TV show, and like Rob, his antics generated a lot of laughs. But the
big difference is that Greg was mostly
interested in entertaining himself, not the viewers
at home. Greg probably didn't give a rat's ass about
the television audience. But Rob did, and that's a big
difference. The only other candidates I can think of
for "first Survivor comedian" would be Big Tom in Africa, or Boston Rob
or Sean Rector in Marquesas. All three have somewhat legitimate cases
for this title, but I don't necessarily think they went out of their
way to make good TV. They were funny just because they were funny, but
I don't think most of them played up their
character just to get more screen time. None of them consistently tried
to make good sound bytes for TV like Rob
C. would always try to do).
So anyway that's Rob Cesternino's legacy in the world of Survivor. He
was the first comedian ever to be cast
on the show. He was also one of the first Survivor players to
understand that YOUR PURPOSE ON THE SHOW IS TO
BE A GOOD CHARACTER. Without Rob, we never would have had
later Survivor legends like Jonny Fairplay, Shane
Powers, James Miller, or half the cast of Guatemala. Rob Cesternino was
single-handedly responsible for all of
them. Especially his protege, Jonny "Cesternino v 2.0" Fairplay.)
I apologize for Fairplay. Sorry, guys. Didn't mean for that to happen.
Note that I didn't even mention that Rob was also a fantastic player.
Some may find that aspect of his Survivor
legacy important, but honestly I don't think it is in the slightest.
Because, after all, you can be a fantastic
player on Survivor and sometimes the audience won't even care. I mean,
I can name countless players who got really
far in their respective seasons, but never really resonated with the
audience at home. And do you know what that
makes them? Failures. Because if you get far in Survivor, but you
weren't interesting enough for the producers
to do anything with, you basically didn't do your job. You failed to
give yourself an interesting story. And
you cheated yourself out of a lot of airtime. Because even though you
may have made it to the final four, you
didn't do anything to ensure that the audience was going to care. And
that means that in the business of television,
you officially failed at what you were supposed to do.
For future reading on this subject, please see Brkich, Amber.
Or Towery, Vecepia. Or Famie,
Keith. Or Johnson, Darrah. Or Boatwright,
Danni. Or Rogers
Jr.,
Ted. Or Hall, Cindy...
Don't compare me to those freaks. Please.
So that's the legacy of Rob Cesternino. He was the first Survivor
comedian, he was one the first players to embrace
the concept that he was PLAYING A CHARACTER ON A TV SHOW,
and every Survivor fan should respect the fact
that he really was the first of his kind. Rob wasn't recruited off a
street corner, he wasn't an award-winning
triathlete, he never served in the military, and he wasn't a CEO who
ran a successful corporation. He was just
a kid sitting at home who (like most of us) read Survivor columns on
the internet and thought it would be fun to
be on the show. Rob was one of the first Survivor players who actually
came from the internet fan base, and that
means he has always been one of the viewers. Unlike most Survivor
players, Rob Cesternino has always been one
of us.
And it's too bad that people have forgotten that over the years.
The People's Champion. Sitting in the People's Boat.
So in honor of the first comedian to ever be cast on the show, I am
proud to present Rob Cesternino's Funniest
14 quotes from Survivor: Amazon. Hope you enjoy.
(Note: This would have been a top 20
list, but I'm still annoyed that Rob bumped me from his radio
show in April 2006. I was scheduled to be a guest on The Fishbowl to
talk about my countdown, but Rob's show got
canceled right before that so I never got to publicize The Funny 115
before I started posting it.
Prick.)
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ROB CESTERNINO'S TOP 14
SURVIVOR QUOTES
(In no particular order)
1. "I don't like Joanna. She's always yelling about Jesus, and how
Jesus loves Jaburu. I didn't know that
Jesus had a vested interest in Survivor. Cause, as far as I've seen
every picture of Jesus, he's a guy. And I
think that he would want the guys to win." (Amazon, Episode 3)
2. "I don't see the women working well together. I know that their
shelter is not gonna be as good as ours. I see them all crying,
panicking, trying to build a cell phone, so they can call their
boyfriends to come over
and help them build a shelter. Outside of that I'm sure they've got
maybe three sticks together." (Amazon,
Episode 1)
3. "I said that the only way Roger is gonna win immunity is if it's a
contest of 'Name that Perry Como song.' Or perhaps 'What type of prune
is this?' Or some sort of other thing that only an old man like Roger
would be
able to determine." (Amazon, Episode 7)
4. "Heidi has been bitten by some insect. And it has now reached the
size of one of her breasts on her knee." (Amazon, Episode 9)
5. "I don't know if it's such a great idea to give Matt bows and
arrows... Great, Matt is gonna orgasm." (Amazon, Episode 9)
6. "I really cannot wait to watch it when the girls are all taking
baths. Heidi, do you need some help with,
uh, your bosom? Oh sure, Jenna." (Amazon, episode 3)
7. "There's no 'I' in team, but there's one in Matt's mouth" (Amazon,
episode 4)
8. "I don't think all the firewood in the forest is gonna keep your
torch lit tonight, buddy." (Amazon,
Finale)
9. "Since day one, Heidi has always been my favorite. But she looks
like she could really use the conditioner
and, uh, maybe some of that soap. She looks a little rugged and
beat-down. But, look, I'll take what I can get. She's probably a 9 1/2
in real life. And right about now she's closing in on a 6. So that kind
of levels the
playing field for a guy like me, which is an exciting prospect."
(Amazon, Episode 3)
10. "He sits and sharpens the machete for an hour at a time. Why does
he need the machete so sharp? I think
he's gonna kill us. I'm afraid that when he is voted
off, he's gonna take the machete and kill us after
the vote." (Amazon, Episode 8)
11. "I don't know how I necessarily became the junior deputy firewood
bitch." (Amazon, Episode 12)
12. "Jeff, I was lucky in this game that I'm not handsome. So I didn't
have any handicaps like the girls
found." (Amazon, Episode 11)
13. "I really am very happy for Matthew. I'm very happy that he got to
win the car. And I asked him that
if he ever goes to Asia, or if he ever returns to the planet that he
came from, that he said I could borrow it
and go cruising for chicks." (Amazon, Episode 12)
14. Rob's vote for Roger Sexton: "Here comes tonight's long distance
dedication. It goes out to Rob from
New York. He writes: 'Dear Casey, there's a mean old man in my life that's
about to leave. Could you please play
something appropriate for me?' Well Rob, here's your request: 'Na na na
na. Na na na na. Hey heyyyy hey. Gooood
bye." (Amazon, Episode 7)
P.S. Here is some Survivor trivia I once heard, about when Rob cast the
above vote for Roger. Apparently Rob was
a little too loud in the voting booth when he started singing "Na na
hey hey goodbye," and all the players
back at Tribal Council heard him. So when Rob came back to sit with the
group, Probst game him a dirty look and
said something like, "Nice job, smartass. Like hell that's ever gonna
make the final episode." But,
lo and behold, the producers ended up liking Rob's vote so much that
they actually went over Probst's head (and
dimples) and used it anyway. I think I heard Rob tell that story on a
radio show once.
P.P.S. If you want to hear some really funny Cesternino jokes, listen
to episodes 1-4 of the All-Star DVD commentaries. It's not so much that
Rob is cracking jokes. No, what makes those commentaries really
funny is that Rob
is totally making fun of Rudy, right to his face, and Rudy doesn't even
realize what he is doing. Rob just sits
there during the commentary, baiting Rudy to comment on insignificant
parts of the episode, and Rudy takes the
bait nearly every single time. It's actually quite mean when you hear
Rob do it, but who says comedy has to be
pretty? In my opinion, it doesn't get much funnier than listening to
Rudy randomly comment on the most inane,
insignificant moments of first two episodes. "So... did you get that
machete sharp, Rudy?" "Rudy,
were you mad when Jenna made that face?" "Rudy, what did you think when
Ethan dropped that coconut?" "Rudy, you like eating fish, don't you?"
P.P.P.S. Unfortunately, Rob Cesternino changed a little bit between
Amazon and All-Stars. In my opinion he got
a lot less charming, a lot less likable, and I'm guessing it's probably
because he started to believe his own hype. The second time around, Rob
really did believe he was the second coming of
Survivor strategy. And this
was evident every minute he was on screen during Survivor:
All-Stars. Gone was the big grin and gone were
the witty remarks. Rob didn't seem to be that same happy-go-lucky kid
the second time around. He started to
take his reputation a little too seriously, and that's why he ended up
looking like this when he got blindsided
at the end of episode four:
Old Rob wouldn't have made that face. In fact, Old
Rob was quite gracious in his final words at the end
of Amazon. Go back and listen sometime. But the second
time around, I feel like Rob had more of a sense
of entitlement, and it made him a lot less fun to watch. Oh well. We
can still go back and watch Amazon, though. That was Rob C. at the very
very tip top of his game. And (as you could have guessed), no I'm not
even talking
about his success as a strategist.
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