Time to cast Amazing Race All-Stars!

Cafe Society
1

Hey, if survivor could do it…

I move we start with a pool consisting of the runner-ups and final Philiminees (just 2nd, 3rd & 4th, none of the winners) from the previous five seasons. Reasons for this:

  1. All have shown what they’re made of, and the show would be compelling
  2. The winners of each race already have their million
  3. It eliminates Flo from even being considered, A GOOD THING!

That gives us:
From TAR1:
Frank & Margarita (reconciling couple)
Joe & Bill (Team Guido)
Kevin & Drew (The original wiseasses)

From TAR2:
Tara & Wil (The original abuse couple)
Blake & Paige (down homey brother and sister)
Oswald & Danny (The Cuban Team Guido)

From TAR3:
Teri & Ian (Abuse, like everything, gets better with age)
Ken & Gerard (Wunza homo, his brother ain’t)
Derek & Drew (dumb-as-two-posts twin brothers)

From TAR4:
Kelly & Jon (she was the redhead always ready to collapse)
David & Jeff (two guys who have left no impression whatsoever on your memory)
Jon & Al (The clowns)

From TAR5:
Colin & Christie (C&C Abusic Factory)
Brandon & Nicole (Team Blue Lagoon)
Linda & Karen (Bowling Moms)

So eliminate three or four to get to 11 or 12 teams. Or, elminate more and add your favorite also-rans.

My picks:

Everyone from seasons 1 and 5. How could you not?

Lose Tara & Wil, and Oswald & Danny (redundant, once you have Team Guido and C&C). Keep Blake & Paige, I liked them.

So now I need to eliminate 1 or 2 teams from Seasons 3 or 4. Hmmmm…

Teri and Ian might seem redundant, but could provide an important life lesson for Christie and Nicole, and what’s AR without life lessons?

Ken & Gerard might come across as a hybrid of Team Guido and Kevin and Drew. They weren’t bad, but I’m booting them.

And of course Jon & Al need to stay, they were great.

So it’s down to Kelly & Jon, or David & Jeff, or Derek & Drew. I didn’t like Kelly but they did well, and David & Jeff were good competitors who might be able to give Colin a run for his money. Why do the twin teams always come off so dumb? I boot Derek & Drew.

So mine’s an 11-team race (I always preferred those) consisting of:

Frank & Margarita
Joe & Bill
Kevin & Drew
Blake & Paige
Teri & Ian
Kelly & Jon
David & Jeff
Jon & Al
Colin & Christie
Brandon & Nicole
Linda & Karen

So all that’s left is, Where do they start, Where do they go, what do they have to do, and who wins?

2

No no no no no – I adore Oswald and Danny; good racers and a lot of fun.

Here are my picks:
Frank & Margarita (reconciling couple)
Joe & Bill (Team Guido)
Kevin & Drew (The original wiseasses)

Blake & Paige (down homey brother and sister)
Oswald & Danny (The Cuban Team Guido)

Teri & Ian (Abuse, like everything, gets better with age)
Ken & Gerard (Wunza homo, his brother ain’t)
Derek & Drew (dumb-as-two-posts twin brothers)

Kelly & Jon (she was the redhead always ready to collapse)

Brandon & Nicole (Team Blue Lagoon)
Linda & Karen (Bowling Moms)

These are process of elimination picks – I got rid of the teams I hate and this is who I was left with. Colin and Christie (who I had my money on last season) – excellent racers, but the meltdown if he lost again is too horrifying to contemplate.
My poor shattered nerves can only take one Team Abuse, and Ian at least was competent. (Remember the Detour where he had to put together the bike?) I never got into the Clowns the way most people did – they always seems like a cut-rate Kevin and Drew to me, and with the real Kevin and Drew, who needs 'em?

As for where to travel – they should start in Philly with a run (a la Rocky) up the steps of the Art Museum. From there? Wherever – surprise and delight me. Have they been to Japan yet? And I loved the Aussie slang challenge, whenever that was – Season II? III? I love when there’s a more mental element to the challenges, like with the Venetian masks in Season IV.

As to who would win – might be Frank and Margarita – that race was a squeaker. It’s interesting to note that by eliminating two of the three majorly abusive teams, I’m also eliminating obvious contenders.

3

I agree that we gotta keep Danny & Oswald, they were the anti-Guidos.

The Clowns bored me. In fact, most of the teams from Season 4 bored me.

I’d like to add a few “dark horse” teams that finished worse than 4th place, just to keep it interesting. Nancy & Emily from S1, the most heartbreaking elimination to date. Perhaps Jim & Marsha from S5, assuming they’ve learned how to work the airports since then. Who else? How about the ATC’s from S4, for good humor, and Tian & Jaree – for eye candy. :smiley:

As for destinations…they should pull a fast one and make the race course go counter-clockwise, that is, from east to west. First stop Japan, then Mongolia, after that who knows where? Not a lot of places left that they haven’t been to and are safe for Americans to travel…

4

Must Haves

Guidos (TAR1)
Momily (TAR1)
Drew and Kevin (TAR1) “Run, you fat bastard!”

Cha Cha Cha (TAR2)
Tara and Wil (TAR2)

Ken and Gerard (TAR3)
Jon Vito and Jill (TAR3)

The Clowns (TAR4)

C&C (TAR5)
Charla & Mirna (TAR5)

and a yet to be decided team from Tar6

No previous winners.

5

As long as it’s not Jonathan & Victoria!

6

Realized I shoulda included some links to make things easier

Season 1 (This one’s telling me to get Flash Reader 5, but you can read the history to remind yourself of the teams and what place they came in.)

Season 2

Season Three

Season 4

Season 5

And, just in case the thread lives long enough for it to matter,
Season 6

7

Season 4 WAS pretty lackluster. I think I even missed the first and last episodes.

HATED Tian and Jaree. Not pretty enough for my tastes to overcome how annoying they were.

I always wondered why they never go West. Of course, East makes for more jarring jet lag, which the producers love to see the results of.

8

Although I agree that it’s probably a good idea that winning teams not compete, I personally would love to see Chip & Kim and a few other past winners again. Yes, even Flo.

I’d like to see the winning teams and some of the more memorable contestants (like the father/daughter teams) from TAR 1-5 greet the teams as they each come into the Pit Stops, along with Phil and a native representative.

9

Depends on the teams though. Already, most of the TAR6 teams see a little edgy. Wouldn’t want them any angier.

10

I’d structure it diffently, and take every team that started out a leg in first place only to get eliminated that episode (it happened three times in the past two seasons, if I recall correctly), and I’d take teams that got wiped out on the first day, just to see if they’ve learned anything.

Getting all the incompetents together would make for great TV, instead of watching all the mildly competent and competitive teams.

11

It would be cool to see Marsha McCoy from the last season get another chance, along with her father Jim, but that’s only because she was a friend of mine from law school, and a really sweet, smart, and gorgeous girl.

12

I was thinking back to the commentary that Team Guido used to do on a particular website related to reality TV on later TAR seasons. They often mentioned specific things that the producers made happen in an apparent attempt to get people to do exploitation-television worthy things.

Making them fly West-to-East, which gives VERY shortened day-night periods, as opposed to East-to-West, which simply extends the daylight or darkness, screws more with the body’s natural diurnal rhythms, which would affect mood more drastically.

13

I thought that early fall set them further behind than they might have achieved, but then again, their gullibility makes me question how much of a contender that team really was.

In a regular TAR season, the producers always seem to include teams that are more or less obvious cannon fodder. In an all-star show, I’d want to see the best of the best, for the most part.

That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing them myself.

14

Let’s see that would give us:

Matt & Ana from season 1
Deirdre & Hillary from season 2
Mary & Peach from season 2 (who would be good to see again)
Gina & Sylvia from season 3
John Vito & Jill from season 3
Derek & Drew from season 3
Debra & Steve from season 4
Amanda & Chris from season 4
Steve & Josh from season 4
Dennis & Erika from season 5
Allison & Donny from season 5
Avi and Joe from season 6

That’s 12 teams. It could be called “Amazing Race: Grudge Match”

15

I had posted this long ago (well, a month or two) in a thread dealing with the pending AR6, so with permission from myself, a re-print of who I came up with for Amazing Race: All Star Edition.

A secondary note, in the response to this list, people asked where the clowns were. My response? The clowns shoes are already filled by Kevin/Drew and Ken/Gerard who seem funnier with less of an “We’re on camera, act goofy” feel.