The ‘Race’ is on, All Star style!
Article copyrighted by Gary Levin, USA TODAY
And they’re off! Producers chose the all-stars returning to The Amazing Race from more than 200 former contestants. Seven of the show’s 10 seasons are represented. Back: Eric and Danielle, left, Oswald and Danny, Uchenna and Joyce, and Drew and Kevin. Middle: Bill and Joe, left, Teri and Ian, David and Mary, and John and Jill. Front: Dustin and Kandice, left, Charla and Mirna, and Amber and Rob.
The Amazing Race is back with its first all-star edition as 11 teams of competitors go on their second world trek.
CBS’ three-time Emmy winner returns Feb. 18 (Sundays, 8 ET/PT) with teams from seven of its 10 seasons, to be unveiled today. From among the 200 or so previous contestants, “it was very hard to pick favorites,” executive producer Bertram Van Munster says. Producers chose partly “in terms of where their life went” since they left the show. “They’re not necessarily the winners, but character-wise, they’re all-stars in our book.”
Only one team — Uchenna and Joyce Agu — was a past winner, in Season 7. But others are standouts: height-challenged Charla Faddoul and cousin Mirna Hindoyan; Joe Baldassare and Bill Bartek (the first season’s “team Guido”); Rob and Amber Mariano, who parlayed their Survivor stint into marriage and reality-TV careers; and Kevin O’Connor and Drew Feinberg, amiable, bald best friends from Season 1. Also repeating the Race are two teams from the latest season: coal miner David Conley and wife Mary, and beauty queens Dustin Seltzer and Kandice Pelletier.
Also in the hunt: Eric Sanchez and Danielle Turner, who competed on separate teams in Season 9 but later became a couple; Oswald Mendez and Danny Jimenez (Season 2’s “Team Cha-Cha-Cha”); John Pietanza and Jill Aquilino, a now-split couple from Season 3; and Teri and Ian Pollack, the oldest couple to finish as runners-up (she’s now 53, he’s 54), also in Season 3.
How did Race challenge contestants who knew the drill? “We had to throw them curveball after curveball, because they all thought they knew what we were doing again,” Van Munster says. So the 45,000-mile, 28-day race, which ended Dec. 19, sent them “from extreme cold to extreme heat,” a desert in northern Chile to “borderline South Pole” in Antarctica.
Van Munster says he and co-creator Elise Doganieri had “reservations” about an all-star edition, but he’s happy with the results.
“There is a lot of friction right off the bat” between teams, he says. “I’m confident we laid something on the table that will be very unexpected, and story-wise, there were plenty of fireworks.”
CHARLA AND MIRNA FOR THE WIN BABY!!!!!!!!!!!1 <3 <3 <3
View Charla & Mirna on innertube now
Click here to go to the Official Amazing Race All Star website
January 17th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I seriously can’t wait for this to be aired! It’s going to be a great season!
Charla and Mirna for the win too….. Yay!
January 18th, 2007 at 11:35 am
wtf the blondes are back
January 18th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Romeo : February 18th MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!!
Suanie : LMAO!!! The producers were actually hinting that David/Mary and the blonders were coming back from the finale episode of the last TAR. After Tyler/James won and during the closing segments, the camera focused a lot more on these two teams than the winners themselves. I don’t like them, but they were pretty good racers. Can’t wait to see them have catfights with Charla/Mirna.
January 18th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Charla/Mirna…iyuck!
And the blondes are pretty good competitors, it’ll be interesting indeed…
January 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Gailivanter : Oh come on! How can you not love a 4′ woman lugging around a 20-pound slab of meat on the streets LOL but yeah, the beauty queens are one of the best all female racers ever, so I’m kinda glad they’re on All Stars.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
go blondes! didn’t like ‘em the first time around cos they were a threat to tyler/james, but they were good & since there are no hot male teams in the all star i’m rooting for them
January 19th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Freako : They’re really tough racers, hopefully we’ll see some of that again in this race. All that I ask for is to see the fireworks between them and the other teams
January 19th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
OMG, it’;s coming it’s coming!! exciting one ever!
Where is BJ and TYLER? i wish to see them !
January 20th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
btw since you saw the shoot at KL, does this mean charla & mirna are still in the race midway?
spoiler please
January 21st, 2007 at 1:04 am
cely : From what I heard the Hippies really wanted to be on All Stars but unfortunately the producers said they didn’t make the cut
I personally would’ve loved to see them instead of Jeremy/Danielle (although I probably won’t mind seeing Jeremy with Eric.. but Danielle? Urgh)
Freako : I’m going to refrain from posting spoilers here.. but if you want to know.. I’ll link you to it http://p085.ezboard.com/fsurvivorsucksfrm23.showMessage?topicID=7459.topic Be careful not to post spoilers here though (some people may not want to know).. unless you post a warning before you do
January 21st, 2007 at 11:19 pm
yay! thx!!! i owe you one!