Survivor Host & Executive Producer Jeff Probst joins Rob Cesternino to celebrate the 5000th episode of Rob Has A Podcast.[00:00:00] Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring.
[00:00:05] Laundry? Ooh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh?
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[00:01:43] It's Rob has a podcast interview? I saw Jeff back in November. It went well, and I didn't know what they were going to say.
[00:03:04] They got back to me and they said, Yes, Jeff would be up for it. time to start listening to Rob as a podcast. We've got everything going on here with our coverage of survivor 46. We invite you to subscribe. Rob is a website.com slash subscribe or search for Rob has a podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you could watch this episode on our YouTube channel where we try to put as much
[00:04:21] video out there around our podcast.
[00:04:24] Rob is a website.com slash YouTube,
[00:05:25] I'm doing great. Look at my life. I got one dog here, one of my feet. I'm talking to you. We got a new season of Survivor coming up. Life is good.
[00:05:28] Yeah, I feel like I don't hear you talk too much about your dogs.
[00:05:31] Well, you know why? Because I'm a new, I'm new. I, here's the short version. I didn't
[00:05:37] want a dog. We have a big life. We had two kids living in the house. We like to go places
[00:05:42] and do things. I travel and one day I could this. I'm honored, for real. Let's get into it. Let's do it. Let's make it a good one. OK, good. So I would just love to talk a little bit about, you know, I just was trying to think of, you know,
[00:07:00] we had this time, and I was just really trying
[00:07:02] to think about, like, big picture.
[00:07:04] And I didn't want to do a ton of, like,
[00:07:06] but when are you going to explore it. There is the break that we got creatively, which
[00:08:21] I didn't really realize we needed. There was the shift in tone that came directly from everything
[00:09:26] they were gaming the game and we didn't know if we could sustain it in that version. And so
[00:09:33] when it was over we decided let's go into winners at war, excuse me, we decided let's go into winners at war and make it as great as we can and every single player that we brought back brought it.
[00:09:38] I could feel it from the beginning that they were in on it with us. We're going to make this season
[00:09:43] amazing. We threw everything, fire tokens, everything we could to just give the players Yeah, and while it was so terrible for so many people, it just came at really a perfect time for you guys to have that break in terms of, you could have had it after some random season where it wouldn't have made any sense or before Winners at War, but it was,
[00:11:01] in some ways, very fortuitous for the show to be able
[00:11:04] to have that time off right after Winners at War. like and I know maybe I was over the top with survivor 41 and the open. But I could probably recite that still today it was so personal to me and I remember saying to myself. I'm going to say I've missed you because I had and I knew I was speaking for our team we had
[00:12:21] missed it. We just needed to take a little bit of a break
[00:13:26] kind of job, but I see the phoning it in and a lot of people I know and they kind of look at it like I landed the greatest gig. I work this many days. I make this much money and it allows me a lot of
[00:13:31] time to travel. I don't look at Survivor like that at all. I feel I have stress dreams about Survivor
[00:13:37] because I want to do my job. I want to do my part and that means bringing a point of view to the show.
[00:14:44] of our team, it's full tilt. Full tilt, let's go. Full tilt boogie, yeah.
[00:14:45] Full tilt boogie.
[00:14:47] How do you just keep up that passion for it after all this time? And you've seen it all,
[00:14:54] and you've done it so many different ways, what drives you to keep going back to it and have that
[00:15:02] love for what you get to do?
[00:15:05] This will be the most boring answer to agree to play the game. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because that's something us. We wanted the show to bring positivity in a way that families could sit down and say, this will be fun, let's watch it. The kids wanna watch it, we wanna watch it. That doesn't mean you can't still talk about sensitive topics. Clearly we do and we did in Survivor 41
[00:17:40] and we did in Survivor 42.
[00:17:42] It also doesn't mean you can't root for and against people
[00:17:45] because you can and you change our casting process. He forced us to look in the mirror and say, are you really a representation of our country? You're not. Why don't we do that? And it changed everything because we started finding all these stories
[00:19:00] of people who said, well, I never would apply.
[00:19:03] But then I saw somebody who looked like me or talk like me or had a background
[00:19:06] like me.
[00:19:07] And then those stories felt important.
[00:20:04] of the show, it's almost like that over 25 years that Survivor has kind of shifted from,
[00:20:07] okay, this is what it could be like on the negative side
[00:20:12] to where there's a lot of negativity
[00:20:15] in the rest of the world.
[00:20:16] And Survivor has sort of shifted to,
[00:20:19] you kind of wished that there were other people
[00:20:22] with important jobs that behaved in the manner
[00:20:25] of which the Survivor contestants treat each other.
[00:21:24] more villains, more negativity, more yelling at each other. It's just not where, it's not gonna happen
[00:21:26] when I'm part of the show.
[00:21:27] I'm just not interested in it.
[00:21:29] There's too many other things we could do
[00:21:31] and still have fun.
[00:21:32] And I get, I hear all the time from people, I'm too soft.
[00:21:37] And I am bringing back my edge.
[00:21:39] I'm aware that I got a little soft.
[00:21:41] And so I am gonna put a knife in the bag of rice
[00:21:43] every so often.
[00:21:44] I can still find it be personal. Because I used to get upset and then I would sit in a hole
[00:23:02] and be like, oh, why do they hate me?
[00:23:04] Why do they think that that idea?
[00:23:05] And then one day that was a terrible
[00:24:23] decision by me and we pulled it out. But you only know you're
[00:24:27] on the edge of the cliff when you fall off.
[00:25:24] and ultimately Paramount Plus, and then Netflix really changed everything in 2020. So Jeff, how has it changed the way that you all make the show, where that you have these
[00:25:31] contestants... First, just I wanted to ask about the contestants. It would be wild if somebody
[00:25:37] like on Survivor 35 said, oh yeah, I just watched the whole show, like oh my god, you just blew my
[00:25:43] mind. Where now every single person who comes in has binged the whole show.
[00:26:41] how to take somebody else's weakness and make it your advantage.
[00:26:43] The other thing I would do is ask your friends,
[00:26:45] what are my weaknesses?
[00:26:47] Tell me the truth.
[00:26:48] What drives you crazy about me
[00:26:50] so that you can try to catch it?
[00:26:52] I mean, it's hard to overwhelm your own personality
[00:26:55] and be somebody else,
[00:26:56] but those are the things I think watching 45 seasons
[00:27:01] of Survivor can help you with is because Rob,
[00:27:03] people used to say to me in the early seasons,
[00:27:06] why do they keep making these same mistakes? of a kind beats two pair. And so it's going to mess up the game. And that's really why we still meet people who apply and say, I'm due. I just watched the season and I saw Jeff say I should apply so I'm applying. You can still get on, but we tell you, you've got to learn the game quickly because you won't have a chance. And I like where we're at right now.
[00:28:21] And I don't the other part, Rob, is I
[00:28:22] don't think you could do a season where nobody had ever
[00:28:26] heard of Survivor and you got to re-experience season one.
[00:29:24] there if you're going to watch Wednesday night at eight o'clock the second it comes on, we want it to be there for you in the way you want it.
[00:29:27] And if you're going to wait four weeks, that's fine.
[00:29:29] CBS has to figure out how the ratings work and how what to charge advertisers.
[00:29:33] I don't worry about that.
[00:29:34] I love our audience.
[00:29:36] I know they're loyal.
[00:29:37] I know they'll come back and let us try again.
[00:29:39] So we just want whenever you watch it, one hour at a time, 90 minutes at a time, the
[00:29:44] whole season at the time you have 20 of the best winners come back? It's a great problem to try to solve and I don't have the answer I don't know if that's the way you should look at it because Form follows function in the survivor world and I drive everyone crazy by repeating that over and over and over
[00:32:01] this doesn't happen. Let's shift the story that way.
[00:32:02] And then we all look at it and go,
[00:32:05] that feels like the story we wanna tell.
[00:32:07] So we're really inside it most of the time.
[00:32:10] And then every swap, we step back out and go,
[00:32:12] okay, 50's coming, what are we gonna do?
[00:32:14] Yeah, I think it's also hard where,
[00:32:16] there's so much of a focus on the journey of the players
[00:32:19] to then do that with returnees,
[00:32:22] where I feel like that so much of their journey
[00:32:25] is already, we will feel that. Okay, well look, you don't need to sell us because 100% of the people that listen to this
[00:33:41] are going to be there for you for Survivor 46.
[00:33:45] I'm not worried about that, I'm just saying-
[00:33:47] We're excited. Behind everything we do. I mean it it may sound like just words, but there's a reason anytime we do a game There's a reason like there's a game coming up in 46 and there was a it's a very simple risk-reward game But there was a reason behind it the very simple reason but there's a reason so I would say you can still be an armchair Quarterback you can still sling arrows saying I hated that I think the season sucks that player should have never been on
[00:36:02] 46 that you want to tease us with today?
[00:36:09] 46 is definitely an eclectic group. And I know you could say,
[00:36:10] well, they're always eclectic by design,
[00:36:11] but this group just, it just has a funny sense of humor
[00:36:17] about it.
[00:36:18] And there's a lot of music this season,
[00:36:19] just weirdly either people who play music or sing.
[00:36:23] And so there's kind of a, just a loose musical thread,
[00:36:27] a lot of this. We anticipated that, but our thought was if we can get the players to understand you're going to live in a world of uncertainty, then that'll give you the freedom to just play. Let it be the wild, wild west because you can't predict. And so that's what I think is happening, is that the uncertainty reigns supreme and that gives someone like you the permission to say,
[00:37:43] if I can't predict, let me just adapt quickly. Jeff, I really appreciate you making time to You have one on yours. You have one and I'll tell just a quick story as we hang up We did a a screening in New York several months ago For a few people you came and we did a silly game where we were gonna give away some tickets to something But I asked you what do you think of that and without missing a beat? You said it was too long. You were right
[00:39:00] I could have done it in one round, but my why
[00:39:04] My why was we're only doing this once. Let's let's make it fun And you know, just keep on, you know, stabbing those bags of rice and and doing what you love to do. All right, Rob, talk again. All right. Take care, Jeff. Bye. All right, everybody. They have a Jeff props here on the podcast. Okay. Boy, that was exciting.
[00:40:21] I have a pit in my stomach, which I think is probably is good.
[00:40:28] It's normal. Jeff has had, I do not think that there is another person who could be at the helm of this thing and have Survivor still be on the air for 24 years. He has been guiding this ship to this point, and I you. I appreciate you all so much. Thanks again for listening. Can't wait to start Survivor 46. Take care everybody. Have a good one. Bye. Judy was boring. Hello. Then Judy discovered jumbacasino.com. It's my little escape. Now
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