BJP: Thailand Season Awards

So Brian won. And in the pre-season, I had only picked him to finish seventh or eighth. It just goes to show that even seeing the game from the eyes of the host, you can never tell what people will do. Going into the game, and based on what I had seen of him in "person," I was certain that sooner or later some of the hungrier, smarter players would see right through Brian's "high-line" used car sales schtick.

Well, something happened that even I, the great Probstovich, couldn't have imagined: no hungrier or smarter players ever emerged.

And none of the other castaways™ -- excepting Ken, the cop -- ever caught on to the "high-line" used car sales schtick either. (Paging Helen and Ted) In fact, they all seemed to embrace it, lapping it up like a bunch of squealing pigs at the trough, just before they were lead to slaughter. Now Brian, as he likes to say, saw all of his competition as sheep, but based on the way these people had to live, and then how they were all sliced up and roasted by King Brian, I like the pig analogy much better.

But you have to hand it to Brian, whether he's the king, the shepherd, the slop master, or the butcher, he pretty much had his way with his fellow survivors, as he likes to say, and rightfully earned the title of Sole Survivor, and the $1 million that goes along with it. Congratulations.

I had a great time at the reunion show, and while I was in Jeff's head during the broadcast, that was exactly when he asked the toughest questions. And since this will be the last 15 minutes I get inside of Probst's head this season, I want to hand out the season-ending awards. And the sooner the better, so that I can start getting ready for Survivor:Amazon. In the Being Jeff Probstovich awards ceremony, everyone wins something, even if they don't deserve anything.

And so, without further ado, the awards for the Fall 2002 season of Survivor, also known as Survivor:Thailand:

	The "Richard Hatch Evil Twin" Award BRIAN Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. That's the name of the game, and no one did it better than Brian. He had Final Two deals with everyone on the island, except for Magilla the Monkey, and Penny, apparently. And his whole plan rested on the notion that no one would talk about the deal they had with him to anyone else. No one did. Only Hatch played everyone better. Brian's only problem is that he's going to have to live with himself... forever.
	The "(Jack) Ass Man of the Year" Award CLAY Clay will go down in the Survivor history as the "Ass Man." Whether he was admiring Erin's fabulous bum, or Brian's wife's shakin' booty on videotape, or even the butt of the elephant that took him on that reward challenge day trek, no award is more fitting for this diamond in the rough, what they don't know.
	The "Mama Kim Memorial Hitch Hiker" Award JAN This award goes to castaways who are just along for the ride. Someone needs to tell Jan there are better ways to spend summer vacation than wasting away on a beach with a group of people who want to vote you off.
	The "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned or Voted Off" Award HELEN Also known as the "Sour Grapes" award, Helen gets this one for stabbing Ted in the back, and then pouting when Brian did the same thing to her. Nyah-nyah-nyah!
	The "Gullible Is Not In The Dictionary" Award HELEN Days before being duped and voted off the island, Helen said that Brian was the only one she trusted and that he wouldn't mislead her. Even after her husband recommended that she cut him loose. Need I say more?
	The "Friends Don't Let Friends Play Drunk" Award TED Ted's drunken bender at the massage resort was a metaphor for his entire experience in the game. He said, "My body is drunk but my mind is clear." Actually, his mind was drunk too, since he thought his one deal with Brian was all he needed to get through the game. (Gets Honorable Mention in Gullible Award competition.)
	The "Choking the Chicken" Award JAKE He was choking the chicken alright, and shooting blanks. Jake's downward spiral began when he finished picking his "Dream Team." Jake's team rowed the boat backwards and he never really got things turned around from that point on.
	The "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful and It's All About Me, Me, Me" Award PENNY Penny's question to Brian on the final jury was, of course, about herself. Brian didn't rememeber much. But the funny thing is Penny would have probably known even less about Brian if he asked her the same question, since it's all about Penny, all the time.
	The "Deep, Deep, Deep Cover" Award KEN We need to put out an All Points Bulletin on a missing person: male, tall, athletic, one of the biggest immunity threats in Survivor history, has yet to be seen. Ken got a chance to win individual immunity when he faced off against Clay, and he lost 10-3. Next.
	The "Amber & Zoe Memorial Invisible Woman" Award ERIN Who was she, again? Oh yeah, the tall, pretty gal from Texas, a great team player with the big, big ... heart.
	The "Big Mouth" Award (Women) SHII ANN It took Shii-Ann all of about ten minutes to tell Clay all of Sook Jai's darkest secrets, even before a merge had been announced. But of course, it never was. Buh-bye Shii Ann.
	The "Dripping with Irony" Award SHII ANN Of course, Shii Ann, being the one who blabbed about all of Sook Jai's problems to Chuay Gahn before the merge had occured, was also the one who voted out Robb while saying, "A wise man knows much but speaks little, a fool knows little but speaks much." How about them apples, and chicken gizzards?
	The "Big Mouth" Award (Men) ROBB It's hard to figure out how Robb was ever able to say anything coherent on the show because every time he opened his mouth his feet got in the way.
	The "Beavis and Butthead Generation X Games Dude Who Grew Up" Award ROBB The most poignant moment of the entire season was when Robb got drunk on wine and then realized how important it is to have family and loved ones who really care about you, dude. He was totally stoked about that. In real life, he's a bartender. Do you think it's the first time he's had that kind of inebriated epiphany?
	The "Playing Survivor During That Time of the Month Really Sucks" Award STEPH Stephanie learned that Survivor is not really the place to go if you're trying to work out your bi-polar disorder.
	The "If I Don't Win At Least There's The Jerry Springer Show" Award GHANDIA Ted accidentally grinds on Ghandia while they're spooning. Ghandia protests next morning. Ted apologizes. Ghandia accepts. Then Ghandia goes and badmouths Ted to everyone else and sets off a powderkeg. If that doesn't sound like the lead-in to a daytime talk show, what does?
	The "Net Loss" Award JED It's alright if you go off and play by yourself with your own toys. But when you take community property, like a fishing net, for instance, and lose it, then there's going to be hell to pay. Some people may get so mad at you that they'll lose a challenge on purpose, just to vote you off. The galling part about all of this is that your tribe caught just as much fish with the net as without: none.
	The "Cast-Iron Stomach" Award TANYA Every year there seems to be a survivor or two who gets sick. And every year those people get booted before we ever get a chance to know them better. Beautiful Tanya coulda been somebody, she coulda been a contender.
	The "It May Have Been Funny If There Was A Laugh Track" Award JOHN Timing is everything, and John's joke about the watering hole, sprung on a group of dehydrated people he'd just met, was an example of poor timing at its finest.
	The "He Say, She Say, Hear Say" Award (3-way tie) HELEN, TED, GHANDIA Not only were these three involved in the infamous "Grind-Gate" controversy, where they took the phrase "heard it through the grapevine" to a new low, but then Ted and Helen turned around and used the same kind of high school shenanigans to bring up shocking allegations against Clay on the final jury. With no other distractions on the island, why couldn't any of these people simply talk to one another?
	The "I Shape-Shifted Into Clay" Award MAGILLA the MONKEY Did you ever notice that Clay and the monkey were never on screen at the same time? It wasn't a camera or editing trick. Clay had some real monkey mojo going on.
	The "Union of the Snake" Award SLITHERIN the SNAKE Did you ever notice that Brian and the snake were never in the same shot, and that Helen was afraid of snakes? Well...

... times up! There's plenty of other awards I could hand out, but once again, I've over-stayed my 15 minutes. Jeff is getting sleepy. Since the show is long over, and the champion, that being King Brian, has been crowned, it's probably best if I don't keep beating a dead horse. It is now on to the Amazon and the next group of castaways, 16 American men and women on the adventure of a lifetime. Hopefully, they'll be more interesting, and funnier than the castaways of Koh Tarutao, because trying to squeeze some laughs out of this last group was pretty difficult. So goodbye for now, until the Amazon.

What awards would you give to the Survivor:Thailand cast? Comments are welcomed.

UP NEXT: Amazon Survivors on the Moon?

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