The
Funny 115 - The Third One
The Monkey's Paw Tale
of Dan Foley - Happy Mother's Day!
Felt cute, might drop a platform onto Kelly's head later
"Ah, thanks for these Dan recaps. I wasn't using my secondhand embarrassment enough today."
Up to this point in the game, Dan has been portrayed as
basically a bull running loose in a china shop. He is being shown
as Chris Farley's motivational speaker repeatedly crashing down
through a table.
"Hey Mario, does Dan ever remind you of Matt Foley? "Here's you, here's Dan, there's you, there's [breaks through the bamboo]."
Tables are hollllllow. They will not hoooooold. Iiii... am a fattttttt guy.
Whether
fairly or not, Dan is being portrayed as a big dumb fat guy with
no real social skills, no strategic acumen, no idea how to negotiate
with others, and no real point of even being on the tribe. Dan, of
course, would later dispute this edit, saying the show made him look
worse than he really was. But for the most part I'm guessing his edit
through the first two episodes was probably pretty accurate. I think he
really was just this big loud overly-dramatic comic relief guy they all
loved to make fun of. I don't think the Blue Collars took him seriously at all.
This
wasn't the way that Dan saw himself, of course. But from everything I
have read about this season, I'm pretty sure it was the way that
everybody else saw him. And here's the important thing people need
to learn before they go on Survivor: Your story isn't necessarily the story that the episodes will show.
I mean, if you're a producer, which one of these two storylines is more interesting to you?
You know who I really love in this world? My wife.
Harry Potter's grandfathah, ha ha
In fact, here's Dan (and also a fan) weighing in on Dan's edit on the show.
"In a postgame interview, Dan said that he knew he was going to get a bad edit because on the second day
of the game it was his anniversary, and he was crying. And the producers didn't show it in
the episode. Dan had this thought in his head the whole game that he
was this outcast, fat/old guy, that missed his wife. And the game was
going to show his redemption after an early slow start.
I think when production saw him crying
and going on and on about how much he missed his wife that they
decided "Fuck this guy. He is not going to control the narrative. We
will show you what happens when this transparent bullshit happens!"
In
any case, yeah, Dan has basically been a walking disaster up to this
point in the game. And he knows it, too. This is just part of who Dan
Foley is when you throw him into a social game.
"I think my best characteristic might be my worst characteristic, which
is my mouth."
"I have a very hard time keeping my mouth shut."
"Hey Mario, you'll find this interesting. Dan
wasn't picked to play as a Survivor in Bob Crowley's Durham
Warrior Survival Challenge in Maine. This was attributed to
poor
behavior at several charity events, where he was way too competitive and
way too intense. He proceeded to show up at Bob's event anyway, as random Survivors tended
to
do, which was fine. But unlike other Survivors, he went to the players'
camps and attempted to spoil game twists and be an ass. Dan
was
subsequently banned from all future events."
"I can learn from my mistakes, though."
"Sometimes it takes an anvil to be dropped on my head, but I
can learn."
Episode three, however, is where Dan's storyline starts to change.
This is the episode where Mister Happy-go-lucky Goofy Fat Guy is suddenly gone.
Hey Mike, have you seen my diamond-studded man purse? I can't find it.
From here on out, he's going to be portrayed as much more of an asshole.
It's all going to start with this scene, which is one you probably remember
Okay, so it's the third episode of Worlds Apart, and the tribe is just hanging around in the morning.
And talking about rewards.
This won't surprise you in the least, but Rodney is hungry
The
Blue Collars are debating what they want the next reward to be. Do they
want it to be food? Or do they want it to be comfort?
Sierra: "I'd rather have comfort all day long."
Sierra: "I'd rather have a blanket."
"A blanket? Really?"
Sierra: "Rodney, it's because you can sleep. No one else can sleep."
As
you can see, this is just an innocent little conversation about
rewards. And it really doesn't even have anything to do with Dan. He's
just laying there, you know, in the hammock, like Chris Daugherty.
I bet they'd like if I made a joke about Sierra's back door
And this is where Sierra and Rodney start to needle each other a little bit.
"I don't sleep every night. I've gotten like five hours of sleep so far."
Sierra: "No way, you get five hours of sleep every night!"
"EVERY NIGHT??"
Rodney simply defends himself by calling everyone...
"Haters."
And this is where the rest of the tribe decides to stick up for Sierra, and they all call out Rodney.
"Haters? Cause we tell the truth?"
Sure
enough, where Mike goes, Dan will soon follow. You're going to see that
over and over when it comes to this season. Dan will almost always
follow Mike's lead, because Mike is pretty much the leader around here.
They all know that Mike is THE MAN.
So Dan follows up Mike's comment with...
"Just because you don't like the facts, Rodney, that doesn't change the facts."
And
sure enough, who is Rodney going to respond to here? When Mike AND Dan
both say you're full of shit, it turns out one of those two people is
much easier to respond to. And at this point in the game... that person
is probably not Mike.
Rodney immediately focuses his response on the big dumb ridiculous fat guy
Rodney replies, very innocently...
Again,
keep in mind that this is a VERY innocent conversation. There is no
anger or attacking going on here at all. They are simply hanging around
like all Survivor tribes do on their off days, and good naturedly
slinging shit at each other.
We even hear all three of them laughing after the "Oh go to bed, Dan" comment.
We don't actually see Dan's laugh, but it is probably an over-laugh
And then...
We get Dan's response to being told to "Go to bed, old man."
Which is so out of context for this conversation that it makes everything stop.
"Yeah, your mother's a whore, too."
And behold. The comment that led to eight thousand internet thinkpieces!
I mean, just pick your favorite quote out of the bunch here. I've got a lot of them.
"Person #1: It's sad how when I first saw Dan Foley I was all like OOH YEAH RUPERT 2.0!
Likeable big guy superfan!! Now he's just an ass."
"Person #2: So what you're saying is that he DID turn out to be Rupert 2.0? Ha ha."
"A lot of people compare Dan to Michael Scott from The Office. But the
difference between Michael and Dan is that although Michael wants
everyone to love and admire him, it's because he loves and admires THEM
first (not Toby, but everyone else.) And he wishes it were reciprocal. Dan
only wants to be loved and admired because Dan loves and admires himself. He
doesn't actually care about anyone else except for their potential to
recognize his self-proclaimed awesomeness. Dan is much more like David Brent
(the Michael character from the UK version of The Office), but even
David isn't as gross as Dan is."
"Dan
is harmless, yet is given so much power to offend by viewers. He
says problematic things because he's socially dense, not because he's
intentionally malicious. I don't really get why people take him so seriously."
"The
thing is, there's nothing compelling about Dan other than his sexist
behavior. He didn't play a good game, he was just generally kind of an
oaf that said dumb things. There's just not really anything else of
interest to ask him about regarding his experience on Survivor. Maybe
pretending to lose his manties or whatever, but after that, it's pretty
much... um.. so what is Mike really like?"
"Here's
what that momma joke scene reminds me of. One time in college, I was
with this guy I didn't know very well, and we were with a group at an
arcade. And they had these stress machines there, where you put your
fingertip on it and it apparently tests your level of stress. Anyway,
this guy puts his finger on the machine and he says, "Say something
stressful to me, I want to see if it works." So I (probably stupidly)
said, "Hey I heard about your father, that sucks." Well I didn't know
his dad had died in a car crash a couple of weeks earlier. I was only
making a joke. This guy turned, and he grabbed my by the shirt, and he
almost hit me. And that's when I learned a very valuable lesson that
day. One that Dan apparently still needs to learn. Don't make sensitive
jokes about people unless you know them really well. Dan thought
he was friendlier with Rodney than he actually was."
"Look,
if Tyson made that momma joke, people would have loved it. Because it's
so blatantly mean, and because Tyson is Tyson. But Dan makes it, and
suddenly the show throws in a record scratch, and they have to call in
psychologists. To me, it's really all about appearance. The show tells
us to like Tyson, it tells us to dislike Dan. And people love to obey."
Going back to the scene again...
Yeah go to bed, old man
Yeah, your mother's a whore
As
you can guess, Rodney doesn't take too kindly to Dan jumping from
single dare right to the coup de graces of all dares, the sinister
triple dog dare. But that's what Dan does. Dan jumps all the way up to
Defcon 1 with the ultimate momma joke.
Dan is SO bad with his social skills, that he doesn't even realize he doesn't know Rodney well enough to be making that joke.
I just cut down your mom. HA HA HA HA.
Say that again, dead man, and I'll cut out your tongue
And then, of course, we get all the fallout you'd expect when somebody says something and goes way over the line.
"Whoa."
Wow
Mike even whistles, in surprise
This little moment is so jarring, and so awkward, that it always feels like a scene right out of Arrested Development.
"Yeah Rodney, your mother's a whore."
And then, of course, we get Rodney's fallout. Which is perfectly justified.
"Never mention my motha, brotha."
"You're lucky we're on Survivor."
"Dude, watch your mouth."
"Watch your mouth!"
(stunned) Wow. What'd I do?
"Rodney
is at least funny on purpose, even though I also can't stand him. Dan
is just... socially inept, very arrogant, and extremely outgoing. Which
is a match made in heaven in being both extremely unlikable
and accidentally funny. He's like the perfect Survivor buffoon."
In
any case, yeah Rodney freaks out because Dan breaks the cardinal guy
rule. You don't rank out a guy's parents unless you're really good
friends with them.
As seen in the landmark case DuChamp v. the Guy at the Junkyard
Rodney
Rodney even sits down and he explains this to us.
Dan is SO bad at the social part of Survivor, that the guy doesn't even realize what he did wrong.
"Me and Dan were jokin' around. I forget what I said to him."
But he came back with, "Your mother's a whore."
"Dan is tryin' very hard, you know, to make us laugh."
"He's chiming in on all the jokes."
"But the matter of the fact is, Dan, you're not funny, bro."
And this is where we get the key to the Dan Foley
storyline. HE thinks he is funny. But no one else does. You'll see that
countless times over the rest of the season. He really thinks he's the
Rob Cesternino out there.
Shirin and that monkey are going to do it
Anyway, back to Rodney.
"You don't talk about my mother, that's number one."
"You don't disrespect my family."
"Back home, if somebody ever called my mother a whore, then
we're gettin' serious."
"Dan's picturin' like, he's one of my boys from back home.
"But he's just diggin' himself a bigger and bigger hole."
"I mean he crossed the line, big time, with that."
"Dan wanted
to come across as the star of the show, but his quotes were
alternately pompous and shallow and filled with awkward
sound-bytes that probably sounded much cooler in his head. That was his
problem."
By
the way, I have to say one more thing about the big Dan and Rodney and
the momma joke scene. And to me, this is probably the biggest takeaway
of them all.
The thing I have to say is, that scene is NOT in
the episode for the reason that you think it is. And I think it was
absolute bullshit how they brought it back up again at the reunion, and
they tried to make it about something that it wasn't.
A lot of people involved with the show would agree with me, by the way.
"That little gotcha at the reunion was a hundred percent the show
just wanting to make an example out of Dan Foley. They never reached out
to him during the
season, including after his rogue interviews where he criticized his
edit. They could have called
him, given him a verbal warning, took his prize or reunion money away,
or made any number of other formal steps to penalize him for breaking
the terms of his contract. But they didn't. Instead, they chose to
attack and humiliate him on live television, in
front of his wife and family members. That scene in the shelter wasn't even about Dan
being sexist, it was about Dan not understanding how ribbing works."
And
yeah, that's the takeaway I wanted you to have. That scene in the
shelter was only included in the episode because it was yet another
example of Dan being a moron who doesn't actually understand how
Survivor works. Like all the earlier scenes in episodes one and two, it
was a buffoon moment.
You know who sucks, Rodney? Your whole family.
And
it remained that way until... other things happened later in the
season... and then suddenly that scene WASN'T about Dan and Rodney
anymore.
Then the show retroactively went back and they made it an attack on all women.
You know what sucks, Rodney? The fact that women are whores.
Dan, why do you hate women?
Anyway,
I just want you to keep that in mind when you watch this scene again.
It's supposed to just be an innocent little Arrested Development moment.
Dan Foley. My god.
It only turned into something bigger later because the show (and also the internet) wanted it to.
"I don't like Dan Foley at all, but I do think
that he was mostly right in regards to the finale. It was a blatant
attack on him, and I don't think it was a good use of finale time or going to
accomplish much. It seemed like it was geared to scare people to not
bitch about the edit rather than actually get to the bottom of anything."
"I saw Dan backstage at the finale. He was so mad after the taping that the show psychologist had to be called in to
calm him down. Dan was just standing there, bellowing and gesticulating
like he was King Kong. It was the full Kong pose too:
both arms overhead, slightly bent, belly out, teeth bared. I think he
may have banged on a table at one point. It was simultaneously
terrifying and hilarious. I think he had on the "Mail Model" t-shirt at
the time, which just made it even stranger."
"According to an interview he did after the finale, Dan thinks Mark Burnett is a false Christian and there is nothing Dan
hates more than a false Christian."
And again, you'd THINK the Rodney scene would be
enough to get Dan voted out of the game. I mean, how can you rank out a
guy's mom and then not take a political hit for it? I'll tell you this
from personal experience, you can't.
Rodney, your mom is a loony, loony, loony
My mother stormed the beach at Normandy, you fat sack of shit
I don't disagree with that
AHHHHHHHHH!
But you'd be wrong about Dan's longevity in this game.
Somehow... yet again... he never takes the hit for it.
Like the Energizer Bunny, he somehow keeps going... and going....
The reason Dan survives episode three is actually twofold.
First off, the Blue Collars win immunity for the third straight time.
"You guys ready to get to today's immunity challenge?"
"HELLLLLL YEAHHHHHHH!"
Dan Foley Survivor sin number twenty-seven: Culturally appropriating the Egyptians
The audacity
And again, Dan is actually pretty good in the challenges.
Once again, he flew
Even though you can't say he is your classic Survivor challenge beast.
Uh Dan-o, you're blocking the water. Move your head.
But the Blue Collars win immunity, yet again.
And that's the main reason Dan hasn't had to face the Tribal Council gods yet.
We built America. And we're building a winning streak!
Oh yeah, and did I say there was a SECOND reason he somehow survives the third episode?
Well there is.
I think people forget about this one.
"This whole tribe is a bunch of drama queens."
That's right. Episode three is the one where Rodney starts to get into it with Mike.
Don't yell at me over chores, you wack job
And Lindsey starts to get into it with everyone.
YOU CAN'T SAY A HUNDRED MILLION THOUSAND PERCENT, MIKE! THERE'S NO SUCH THING!
And Kelly basically becomes a bar bouncer for a while, just trying to put out all the personality clashes.
I feel like I'm in Road House. This sucks.
It's not like Dan's social game suddenly gets any better.
Should I say mitigated gall, or unmitigated gall? Which one sounds better?
People just suddenly hate each other more than they hate the old Danimal.
Rodney even uses Dan to test out his new Mike impression
That's funny, thinks Dan. Almost as funny as me.
And that's how Dan Foley, despite all odds, somehow survives his first three Survivor episodes.
I DID IT FOR YOU, RUPERT!
Next up... episode four.
Where the Blue Collars finally face the wrath of Tribal Council for the first time.
And Dan puts on a master class on how to manipulate these low-level Survivor peons
Continue on to The Monkey's Paw Tale of Dan Foley - The Danimal Gets in Your Head
