Tomorrow, many of us will participate in the Thanksgiving Day holiday, filled with family, festivity, football, and of course, food. Lots of food. In fact, the average American will consume more than 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day alone, according to the Caloric Control Council. Thus, in the spirit of gluttonous gorging, it seems only appropriate to focus my billiards TV review on the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment of NBC’s sports/stunt/dare reality show, Fear Factor.
To the uninitiated or ill-informed, Fear Factor aired from 2001 to 2006 (and had a brief revival in 2011). The show pit contestants against each other in a series of three stunts for a grand prize, usually of $50,000. The first stunt often tested the players physically. And the third stunt often resembled a scene from an action movie, such as traversing moving 18-wheelers or jumping a race car off a ramp. But, it was the second stunt, which was meant to mentally challenge contestants, that became the stuff of television lore. For these stunts often involved ingesting vile animal parts (e.g., raw ostrich eggs, sheep eyeballs, horse rectum) or eating live animals (such as the favorite Madagascar hissing cockroach); interacting with animals (e.g., getting covered with snakes); or occasionally enduring physical pain (e.g., walking on broken glass, outlasting competitors in a tear gas chamber).
In the “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment, which aired in April 2002 as part of the Season 2 episode, “Twins: Sky Surfing/Billiards for Gross Eats/Container Ship,” teams of twins were asked to “play pool Fear Factor style.” As producer Rick Brown explained, “we set up a four-ball diamond formation at one end of the table. Each ball had one of four custom-made Fear Factor patterns: a chili pepper, a squid, an ant, and an egg. The contestants were given a cueball and five shots to sink the four balls into the pockets. Any balls left on the table would represent the food they would have to eat.”
In actuality, those four Fear Factor patterns depicted a far worse gastronomic fate. The “chili pepper” was a Habanero pepper, the hottest known pepper at the time. The “squid” was shikoara, a very salty Japanese dish of fermented squid guts. The “egg” was putrid duck eggs, or what is commonly known in some Asian communities as 100-year-old eggs. And the “ant” was just that…a vial full of live ants. Producer Rick Brown referred to this as the “Combo Meal from Hell.”
Though I was unable to find the full segment online, an excerpt of “Billiards for Gross Eats” segment is below. But, I remember seeing the episode when it first aired and thinking to myself, ‘Five shots to make four balls? That’s pretty damn easy.’ Let’s just say for these contestants, billiards is probably not their God-given talent.
But, if the contestants sucked at pool, one person on the show most assuredly did not: Fear Factor host Joe Rogan. For as many readers well know, Rogan is not only a martial artist, stand-up comedian, actor, and UFC commentator, but also a billiards enthusiast and crackerjack pool player. (Check out Rogan running a 9-ball rack in this YouTube clip.) Rogan’s appreciation of pool has been well-documented, and he has been lauded for appearing at and/or commenting on tournaments, whether it was the Efren Reyes IPT 8-Ball Challenge in April 2009 or, more recently, CSI’s “Swanee 17” where Jayson Shaw played Dennis Orcollo in the Hot Seat Match.
In fact, just a few months ago, Rogan created a mini-buzz on the AZ Billiards Forum by responding to an online thread, saying “I’ve entertained several billiards ideas for TV shows [including one like the Late Show with Johnny Carson adding a pool table to the set and guests gather around the table and talk pool.] The problem with that idea, is that most celebrities SUCK at pool. The numbers that can get out at all are pretty small. I think there may be 6 celebrities all told that are capable of breaking and running a rack of 9 ball. My favorite idea was one involving me traveling around to pool halls playing local shortstops and local pros in a sort of impromptu game show type scenario where I just show up and play the best guy/girl in the house.”
Given how much personality, passion and humor Rogan brings to everything he does, let me add myself to the choir and say, “Joe, if you can make any of these billiards television or internet series happen, I’ll be watching from the front row.”
