The Real Reason Fear Factor Was Canceled

Would you be willing to confront your deepest, darkest fear for the right price? $50,000, to be exact? That was the promising premise of the original Fear Factor, a show that demonstrated how some folks will do anything to win a bit of extra cash.

While Fear Factor isn't a show that anyone would mistake for Prestige TV, it was certainly entertaining … particularly if you like watching people eat superworms.

The show originally ran between 2001 and 2006 on NBC before a plunge in ratings led to its cancellation. Then it was unexpectedly brought back to life in 2011, enticing viewers with the promise of "even bigger stunts." Unfortunately, one of those stunts was perhaps a little too out there. In fact, it could safely be labelled "disgusting."

This particular challenge occurred in an episode titled "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!" … and it's very likely the reason Fear Factor was abruptly canceled a second time. The episode never aired in America, and there's a very good reason for that. This is some truly nauseating content.

The contestants in this case were three sets of twins — and the challenge involved gulping down a bunch of fluid… which the show coyly called, quote, "donkey juice." These were two different bodily fluids — one yellow, one white — that both came out of a living, breathing, presumably mortified male donkey. How much of the stuff did they need to swallow? Well, that pesky detail was decided through an impromptu game of horseshoes. As In Touch Weekly reports,

"The number the horseshoe landed on became the amount of donkey [juice] they had to drink (in ounces)."

Impressively, one member of each team did indeed guzzle down the "donkey juice" and lived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, Fear Factor didn't fare quite so well. On January 30th, 2012, Deadline published a story that strongly suggested the writing was on the wall.

On January 31st, 2012, Bob Greenblatt —then the entertainment chairman of NBC — released a statement to TMZ that read:

"I reviewed the episode late last week and decided it was a segment we should not air.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, twin sisters Brynne and Claire Odioso opened up about their ordeal in an interview with The Cowhead Show on that exact same day.

"Wow, yeah, I'd say it was the hardest fifteen minutes of my life."

Elsewhere in the interview, the sisters really get into the nitty-gritty.

"Um, if you vomited, you would have to start over. So what I ended up just doing was just vomiting in my glass and just drank that."

Later on, one of the Odioso sisters revealed,

"The cameramen were vomiting."

By May 2012, it was official. Despite its impressive ratings, Fear Factor had been cancelled once again. The controversial episode did eventually air in Denmark in June 2012, but as far as American TV was concerned, Fear Factor was finished.

But much like Robert DeNiro's character at the end of Cape Fear, Fear Factor simply refused to die. In 2017, the squirm-inducing show returned from the grave once more - this time on MTV.

The third incarnation of the show is hosted by Chris Bridges, otherwise known as Ludacris. The concept remains more or less the same, but MTV may be playing it a bit safer this time around … not that there's anything "safe" about being buried alive in wet cement. Contestants are still giving it their all: Getting down and dirty with rats, thrashing around with slithering snakes, and enduing... whatever fresh hell this happens to be.

Much like previous versions of Fear Factor, each episode is divided into three equally upsetting parts. First comes "Beat the Beast," in which participants face off with various creepy-crawlies. The next round is "Face Your Fear," which finds contestants confronting something that frightens them to their very core. As Ludacris explained to GQ,

"We study what they're really scared of, and try to cater to their worst fears for what they're going to do, challenge-wise. It's not mean-spirited, but it's fun. And definitely scary."

The "Final Fear" usually involves some intense physical challenge… and whoever wins "Final Fear" finally gets that $50,000 prize. We gotta say, all these stunts looks positively peachy when compared to guzzling down several ounces of … you know. It seems for most viewers, the only thing to fear is Fear Factor itself.

#FearFactor #GameShows #Ludacris

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