"I Survived a Japanese Game Show" - July 22, 2009 episode

This episode went back to starting the way they normally do - recap of the last episode and intro of the contestants. But, there's still no video from tonight's show on the website yet. Maybe I'm doing these recaps too early for them now. Oh well. No screen shots for you.


Jamie was glad she was still in the game, and she was sad that Drew was gone, but she was *really* mad at Justin and Dan. They tried to make nice with her, but she wasn't having any of it. Back at the house, Justin tried to explain how she and Drew were isolating themselves, and it made Justin feel left out of the team and that he couldn't trust them, but that did not sit well with Jamie at all. Meanwhile, the eavesdropping Green Tigers were eating up all the drama.

Game time!

But first, a derail. So, the show was starting, and they showed Rome making his way out to the stage. There was a part where he was looking at some kind of penguin costume or something - that part wasn't weird. But right before then, he walked past an open door, and walking in the room on the other side of the door was someone carrying one of the giant stuffed pink bears. That wasn't weird either. What was weird was that the person carrying the bear was wearing a giant rabbit head. Now, if it was one of the contestants wearing a rabbit head, that would be one thing. But why would random person be walking around in a rabbit head? Curiouser and curiouser.

OK, really, game time!

The first game was called "brain freeze fish breath". Did I mention that the Japanese are whack? Yep, this was pretty much bobbing for frozen fish. (One of the contestants, maybe Linda?, said that it was fish and squid, but I only saw fish. They were all frozen and giant in any case.) There were two aquariums full of ice and water and frozen fish. The contestants had to stick their faces in the water (they were wearing goggles) and try to grab a fish only with their mouth. Whoever got the most in 2 1/2 minutes won.

Oh, and when they were backstage, they had the contestants wearing inner tubes and arm floaties, but that was all just for show since they didn't wear any of them during the competition.

The contestants were having a hard time getting any fish, mostly because bobbing for them was difficult, but APPARENTLY, the ice and water were really freezing cold, because the interview clips showed all of them absolutely complaining about it, and after Justin stuck his head in and then pulled it out, his head was *really* pink and almost red from the cold.

The Green Tigers pulled out a win again, scoring 3 fish whereas the Red Robots only scored 1.

I can't remember if it started from the first round, but Rome has been doing this thing where he talks about being "safe" for whichever team wins the second game, and he does this slide thing, kinda like in baseball. They've been doing it pretty much every time now, with everyone joining in. It's funny.

The second game had the contestants dressed in baby clothes - giant diapers with a safety pin, bib and bonnet. The game was called "baby go boom boom" and was similar to a game played last season. Each team sat in a spinning disc, and after it had spun at least 20 times, the first person had to make their way down a plank and then while jogging on another spinning disc, fill two cups with milk and then make their way through an obstacle course with other spinning discs and spanking hands and shooting steam and such, until they got to a giant baby bottle, where they would pour in the milk they still had in their cups and then hit a buzzer. The other team members have been spinning all this time, and once the buzzer was hit, the next person could go. They had a total of 3 minutes to navigate the obstacle course and get milk.

So, umm, before the game, when Judge Bob was kinda doing the demo - what was with him in the baby clothes being spanked? Whack, I tell you, whack.

Since the Green Tigers won the first game, the advantage was that one of the Red Robots had to be "carried on grandma's back", which really meant they had to strap a stuffed person of grandma to their front. Dan volunteered to be the one strapped to grandma.

The Red Robots went first, with Jamie leading them off. She did really poorly, falling a lot and spilling most of her milk. She barely had a few drops to pour into the baby bottle. Justin went next, and he did a really good job, getting quite a bit of milk into the baby bottle, and when he'd gotten through about half the course, he poured the remaining contents of one cup into the other and then stacked them, so now, he only really had one cup to hold, and he could use his other hand to balance or whatever. This was a method that pretty much everyone else playing the game adopted. Dan then took his turn, but he was seriously hampered with having grandma strapped to him, especially when he had to crawl into the hole before getting sprayed by steam - he almost didn't fit through and pretty much had to flatten grandma to make it. He had a little milk left over, and then Justin took another turn. He did a great job, and he made it back to the baby bottle with almost a full cup right before time expired. The Red Robots were pretty happy with how they'd done.

Next up were the Green Tigers. The first two people did ok, not getting a ton of milk through but not spilling all of it either. When Brent took his turn, he started off a bit slowly down the plank, but he was able to keep quite a bit of his milk to pour into the baby bottle. Linda was then the last to go, and she also did really well, also having just about a full cup to contribute to the baby bottle.

They had a reveal of the contents of each bottle to determine the winner, but it was obvious from just watching the game that the Green Tigers won. It wasn't until they had the bottles side by side, though, that you could tell that the Green Tigers had twice as much milk as the Red Robots.

The Red Robots were dejected to have lost again. At the end of that game, when they were going out with majide, I kinda thought it was funny that Jamie was barely doing a half-hearted attempt at the majide hand signal. She was *not* happy. But, drama started again. She knew she'd be in the elimination round, but Dan and Justin were jockeying to *not* be the one in the round with her, and she realized that she would probably be the one choosing the other contestant for the elimination round. Meanwhile, the Green Tigers were eavesdropping on this conversation from their room.

But first things first - reward and punishment. The diaper costume from the last round was actually appropriate for the reward and punishment.

The Green Tigers were the guests of honor at a sumo school/sumo house. (OK, there was a sign on the front that said "sibatayamabeya aoki" [or it might have been "sibatayama beya aoki" - I couldn't tell because the "beya" was actually on a different line, so I didn't know if it was supposed to be a different word or the sign wasn't wide enough to hold all the letters so they just split the word up that way], which I took to be the name of the school, but a Google search turned up nothing, so I have no idea what that means. Heck, for all I know, the sign could have said, "beyond these doors lie giant Japanese men".) Mama-San also went along as the translator. The sumo wrestlers fought matches in front of them, and they learned a lot about them. I thought it was interesting that they blurred out parts of the sumo wrestlers. At first, I was wondering if they were blurring out boy bits, but in most of the shots, there shouldn't be any boy bits where the blurring was, so they were really just blurring out butt cheeks. Really, butt cheeks? That's all? OK, I know their butt cheeks are probably more substantial than regular butt cheeks, but women in skimpy bikinis showing their butt cheeks don't seem to be an issue being shown on TV, but sumo wrestlers' butt cheeks aren't ok? Whatever. After a little while, Brent was offered the opportunity to participate in a fight. Since he was the only male on the Green Tigers, he would have been the only one who could do that. He accepted and he let them strap the sumo diaper on him. He actually did quite well, holding his own against the fighter before pushing the other fighter out of the circle and winning the match. Oh, and yeah, they blurred Brent's butt cheeks too.

The Red Robots also had a day having to do with sumo wrestlers, but from a very different perspective. Their punishment was to be sumo servants for the day. Jamie was given kitchen duty (I guess because she was the female), and she had to prepare food and cook for them, which she complained about incessantly. Meanwhile, Dan and Justin weren't having too much fun either - they were given bathroom-cleaning duty, which was bad in and of itself, but while they were cleaning, one of the sumo wrestlers went in there and was taking a shower in the open room, as well as pointing out to them where they needed to clean better. Poor sheltered Dan was mortified at the naked man in the bathroom with him. After they were all done with that, all three of them then had to give massages to the sumo wrestlers. And yeah, Jamie bitched the whole time again.

Once their punishment was done, the Red Robots went back to the studio, and then it was time to decide who would be in the elimination round. Jamie decided that she had a better chance against Dan, so she picked him to play in the game with her. (But Justin was annoying me with his whole "puppetmaster" thing. Dude, lay off it.)

The game was called "up your nose, dragon". Each contestant had to slide across a slippery slope, with balls being released, and they had to knock the balls into the opening which was the dragon's nose. They then slid down into a pool of foam, and then they'd have to climb back up and do it again. They had 2 1/2 minutes to get as many balls into the dragon's nose as they could.

Dan was chosen to go first. He didn't do well in his first try, but he got the hang of it sometime. A few times, regardless of whether he got the ball in or not, he ended up slamming into the wall next to the dragon before falling into the foam. That looked painful. However, Dan did manage to score a total of 3 balls.

Then it was Jamie's turn. And there's really only one word to describe her turn. Fail. EPIC fail. (OK, that's two words.) Seriously. Her first attempt was really weak, not even getting half-way across the slope and nowhere near the balls being let go. For almost each turn, she barely made it across where she could even touch a ball. I think it was a combination of her being short, not getting a good running start to launch herself across, and landing too quickly on the ground, pretty much at the beginning, so she had no momentum to carry her across, high enough to touch the ball with some time to at least try to get it into the dragon's nose. From the footage they showed, she never even came close to even getting one ball in. When time expired, her score was ZERO.

But it was funny that the Sayonara Mob rose up out of the foam to carry her away.

I was glad to see Jamie leave. She was complaining all the time, and it was appropriate that she was the next to go right after her not-boyfriend, not-lover, nothing-was-going-on-with-him Drew.

Jamie Lewis
A "tell it like it is" kind of girl with a big mouth and no filter, Jamie is a spitfire from Philly who is sure to heat up this competition. "Being real" is what Jamie is all about, and whether or not people can handle the truth "isn't her problem." With her spunky charm, bubbly personality and electric smile, it's easy to see why Jamie describes herself as "a ray of sunshine." And with her feisty, in-your-face attitude, it's also easy to see why she adds that she's "a ray of sunshine that isn't afraid to burn you." Possessing the "rawness" that she feels embodies her beloved hometown of Philly, Jamie is "honest to a fault, opinionated and tough, but also has the biggest heart in the world." After the Eagles lost their shot at the Super Bowl recently, Jamie says, "Philly is hungry for a new champion, and she intends to be the Rocky of Majide!"
Age: 25
Hometown: Fairless Hills, PA
Occupation: Leasing Agent

Next week, more hijinks ensue. And, the teams are too uneven again - 4 Green Tigers and 2 Red Robots. Are they going to make a Green Tiger switch teams again? If they did, would the Green Tigers be dumb enough to let Cathy go to the other team? Is Cathy *ever* going to miss out on a reward?

Hai, Majide!