MONDO EXTRAS

Greg (Borneo)
"My question is: I am too whimsical for anything as pedestrian as asking a question."

The first season of Survivor really does feel different from all the others. Nobody even knew whether it was, you know, right to form voting blocks and discuss whom you were going to vote off. Some people thought it should be an actual survival contest. (These people were flogged.) Some people thought it should be a contest for the nicest person. (These people were killed and eaten.) And some people thought it should be all about bringing your wacky personality along for the ride.

Greg is remembered for three things. (1) Faux-mance. (2) Coconut phone. (3) Jury question. The Colleen thing was a really weak storyline, especially compared to later couplings that actually included people making out. The coconut phone now feels like the "You Might Think" video, where you kind of can't remember that people thought it was imaginative once. "I'm pretending to have a conversation, but I'm talking into a coconut! Call me, Hollywood!" The third, however, lives on.

Greg asked Rich and Kelly each to choose a number between one and ten. Rich chose seven. Kelly chose three. And Greg proved that he is way too inventive to use question time for questions. They're just lucky he didn't use it to do the hula with an invisible dolphin -- wackadoodle-doo! It turned out (according to Greg) that the number was nine, and that's why Rich got his vote, and that is why Rich won Survivor, and if you think about it, that's why Rich went to prison.

The truly great payoff to the "pick a number" thing, though, came during the Africa season, which didn't have an especially hateful jury, but did feature Kelly, another person who unwisely went for the "I will be memorable by not really asking a question" approach. She tried to outdo Greg by asking Ethan and Kim to choose a number between one and one thousand. Kim chose three. Ethan, because he was and is a complete idiot, chose 888. Kelly's number, taken from something-something in The Graduate, turned out to be 568, but her whispery explanation of that fact while she was voting was nothing but embarrassing for everyone.