The
Funny 115 - The Third One
#48. Brad Culpepper Does Math
Blood vs Water - episodes 1-5... and beyond
Okay now this is a fun little entry. And it's about
something quirky I bet not a lot of people caught over two different
seasons.
Naturally, it stars the punching bag of the Funny 115 himself, Mister Brad Culpepper
You
all know about the famous (and horribly unfair) "Fuck You Brad
Culpepper!" storyline from Blood vs. Water, which I was nice enough to lay out for you
in probably the most famous entry so far on version 3. But do you
remember Brad's OTHER famous storyline from Blood vs Water? Do
you remember that scene in episode one where he has problems with math?
"Welcome to Survivor: Blood vs Water. First off, somebody give me a number between four and six."
Oops, no, that's not it. Sorry. I was actually thinking of a different scene.
It
happens when the Tadhanas get to camp for the first time, and Brad
immediately gets to work putting together an alliance that can take
over the game.
If you don't remember it, here's how it all went down.
It's day one on Tadhana, and Brad Culpepper wants to prove himself as a work hard play hard type of guy
Here he is playing hard
And here he is working hard, as he splits this bamboo into three equal sections
And, of course, with all the working hard and playing hard, comes the all important part of the alliance building.
So Brad goes to Hayden, and he makes an alliance
Then he goes to John, and he pulls him in too
Then he adds Vytas
And finally, he pulls in Caleb as the fifth
And just like that, Brad Culpepper has successfully put together a five man alliance.
Brad's five
Which he will explain to people later in the episode in a couple of variously colorful ways.
Okay,
maybe that last one might not be the most elegant way to phrase
something. But in Brad's defense, the math in the four guys and a
gay guy equation DOES check out.
The Culpepper Postulate
So
Brad has his five. And at this point he can pretty much just kick
back and relax and chill out for a while. Because a five man
alliance on a nine person tribe is pretty much unbeatable.
A straight flush. That's, like, unbeatable.
And this is where Brad sits down for the derpy confessional that everyone remembers.
Speaking of which, this is exact face Monica made when she saw Brad do this on national TV
Okay, take us away into your magical world of explaining math, Brad.
The following confessional is presented to you 100% verbatim.
Enjoy. :)
"I got Caleb. I got John. I got Hayden. I got V. And I got me."
"That's five."
"Four..."
"...with nine..."
"...equals OUT."
(awkward, confused pause as he looks at his hands)
"....... But...... "
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah."
"No."
".... okay."
"Four."
"With nine."
"Equals out."
"But FIVE..."
"With nine..."
"Equals IN."
Any questions?
Now, first off, let's take a look at how Brad managed to fuck up that easy confessional. I'm going to pull a John Madden here as I whip out the Telestrator to diagram what happened.
As you can see, he starts off strong by accurately holding up four fingers to describe the minority alliance
And
here's where he runs into problems. He's talking about the nine
people in the tribe, but he inadvertently holds up ten fingers.
This confuses him
Now
his punchline of "9-4=out" doesn't make any sense. He's confused
because now he has suddenly developed an extra finger.
At this point he panics and appears to need some sort of a lifeline. Maybe he can call Monica using "phone a friend."
At this point he stops. Collects himself. And starts again.
Because damnit, he's got a punchline, and he's going to use it
FOUR. Good. So far, so good.
"With nine."
"Equals out."
Okay,
so far we're good. I wouldn't think to write it -4 + 9 = 5, but
then again I didn't go to the University of Florida. Maybe that's
just how they do it down there. Also I missed the part where you
apparently divide by the gay guy.
"But FIVE..."
Wait, what? That's not five. That's ten!
"But FIVE..."
"With nine..."
"Equals IN."
No!
That's not it at all! And get that smug little grin off
your face. You screwed it up again. This time you wrote
10-9=5. And that's definitely not gonna work. Not even if
you add in a couple of gay guys.
So
anyway, Brad isn't very good at explaining math. He blows the
confessional two different times, and then he gives this douchy little
David Pumpkins grin at the end like a two year old who just pooped in
the potty. And it's all just derpy as hell.
Pop pop gets a biscuit?
And
this would have been good enough. Had this been the ONLY time
Brad blows something that's related to math, it would have been a cute,
solid entry in the 80's or 90's somewhere on the Funny 115.
Here he hangs out with his three favorite people on Tadhana
Here he finds out that there are two different waterfalls
Here he realizes that Vytas spent eighteen years in prison
Like
I said, if it were just this ONE confessional, it would have been
enough. This would have just been a cute little forgettable
standalone entry.
Oh but wait.
There's more!
Mario, I hate you
Later in the season, we get to the duel in episode six where he is eventually eliminated.
You remember this duel, don't you?
It's the one where he has to compete against five other people
If
you don't remember how this duel ties into this entry, just let me
sum up Brad's Redemption Island experience with a couple of pictures.
He's really good at plank building
And he's really good at puzzles
And unlike Chris Daugherty, he's even really good at crossing a balance beam
But when it comes to simply counting from one to a hundred?
Sixty eight with a hundred equals OUT
That's
right. If you never caught the irony before, Brad Culpepper was
eliminated from Blood vs Water because of MATH.
Good news Monica, I got eighth place!
Okay,
so now this entry is getting fun. We had Brad blowing a
confessional about math in episode one of Blood vs Water. And
then in episode six math fucks with him again, and this time it sends
him out of the game.
Math fucked with him two different times
At
this point, there's enough material here that I would say this has now
moved up into an entry that belongs in the 60's. TWO different
instances of Brad fucking up math is now too good to ignore.
Oh but wait!
THERE'S STILL MORE!
Did you happen to catch Brad's bio on the CBS website as he was about to come back to play Game Changers?
Yes,
I know that including Game Changers is sort of cheating, since it isn't
in my range of seasons I am doing on this countdown. But my
friend Russ Bartlett pointed this out to me, and it's too good to
ignore.
Check out Brad's THIRD little misadventure with math.
Didn't catch it? Here, let me zoom in on it for you.
Keep in mind that Game Changers aired THREE YEARS after Blood vs Water.
In other words, Brad either fucked up the math again, or he's a vampire.
Castles, plus virgin neck blood...
Equals IN
Now,
this is the point where I can't really explain what happened here.
Did Brad really fuck up the math in his bio? Or was this
simply a case of him filling out his bio two years before he was asked
to come back?
Or... and this is the really fun
explanation... did Brad KNOW that the internet made fun of him for not
being able to do math in Blood vs Water? And was this him
pulling off one of those fun little meta jokes like he did later
with the disappearing reunion mustache?
"Suddenly, a mustache."
I
have no idea what actually happened here. So I'm just gonna go
with the theory that he played a little meta joke and he decided
to help me out with this entry.
And I'll never tell, either
Okay,
so that's now THREE different Brad Culpepper math moments. Over
two different seasons. At this point this has now turned into a
multi-season story arc entry that probably belongs somewhere in the mid
50's.
Brad trying to figure out microwave popcorn
BUT WAIT! I STILL HAVE ONE MORE!
Here's
the capper, my friends. When I saw this happen in Game Changers,
I knew instantly (tm Heidi) that this was going to be one of those odd
quirky Funny 115 entries that people would remember one day.
Here we go. Here is Brad's final little struggle with math.
This is why this entry wound up all the way up in the 40's.
It's the eighth episode of Survivor: Game Changers, and Brad's ally Debbie has just been blindsided out of the game
If you don't know who Debbie is, don't worry
We'll be talking about her in the future
So anyway, Debbie was just blindsided.
And Brad is pissed off.
And as Debbie exits the game and walks off to Ponderosa, what's the last thing we see?
There's Brad.
Sitting in his seat.
And looking confused.
And... you guessed it...
Trying to figure out the math of what just happened
At this point there's really only one final thing we can say about this.
Monica probably helps the kids with their math homework
P.S. From a reader of mine named Joshua Muir:
People make fun of
Brad's maths but what they don't realise is he was trying to solve the
Goldbach conjecture, but in his weakened state he forgot that it was
only even integers. His puzzled face was not one of defeat but of
hesitant triumph.
** Thank you to Cory Gage for one of my favorite FUBC pictures **
