The 115 Funniest Things to Ever Happen on Survivor

#39. Wake Up, Maraamu!
Marquesas - Episodes 2 and 3


When the cast for Survivor: Marquesas was first announced, Jeff Probst went out of his way to say that the Marquesas cast was the funniest group of players the show had ever cast. I specifically remember him saying that, and it made me tremendously excited to watch the season. After all, I'm a big fan of people who can make me laugh. And I was thrilled when Survivor went out and cast a bunch of comedians for their upcoming season. Because if nothing else, I knew that this season was now going to be an entertaining one.

I later found out that what made Jeff (and the producers) laugh so hard was Maraamu's morning wake-up show. And I have to say I agreed with him one hundred percent. We'd never seen something like this on Survivor before. We'd never seen a tribe that dedicated all their morning energy to putting the game aside... getting away from all the stress and the drama... and improvising a fictional radio show. It was an aspect of Marquesas that I've always particularly loved.

I mean here you have the hapless slacker tribe Maraamu. They can't win a challenge to save their lives, they have no work ethic whatsoever, and to make matters worse, they have a pair of alpha-male wannabes (Sean, Rob) with chips on their shoulders who are about to stage the most ridiculous coop d'etat in Survivor history (ousting Hunter in episode three). Maraamu has absolutely nothing going for them, they will eventually go down in history as one of the most pathetic tribes ever... but the beautiful thing is that they really don't even care! All Maraamu cares about is relaxing, staying out of the sun, avoiding the stress and drama of Survivor, and putting together their hilarious morning radio show. In fact that's all I think people should remember when they think about Camp Maraamu. Forget about the in-fighting, forget about the slacker mentality, and forget about the fact that they never actually won a single challenge. Just remember them for their morning wake-up show. Because that was one of the highlights of an already spectacular season.

The Maraamus reportedly put on a radio show every morning during the game, but sadly for us we only saw two of them on TV. (Note to CBS: Please give us two or three other morning shows when you actually put out the Marquesas DVD. That would be a wonderful extra! Please?!) But here are the highlights of the two morning shows we actually got to see. Note that most of the pictures are of people sitting around and laughing. That's not a coincidence. The Maraamus really were having a lot of fun when they did this.

Maraamu Morning Show #1 - Marquesas Episode Two

Hunter giving the morning weather report

* Today's show features Hunter "MacGyver" Ellis on weather, live from Happiness Cove. The former Fed Ex pilot takes valuable time away from building a funnel to study the prevailing winds and inform us that "we will reach a blistering 160 degrees according to Rob today."

Gina laughing

* Harlem's Sean Rector is the emcee for today's festivities. He runs the morning program, he provides the music, and he brings down the house with a raucous rendition of "Aint too Proud to Beg" that the rest of the tribe is able to dance to.

Vecepia dancing

More dancing

* Boston's Rob Mariano is in charge of the food portion of the show, and he provides us with a colorful description of blueberry pancakes topped off with maple syrup. Of course since this is delivered in a thick Boston accent, it makes it far more interesting.

* Sarah "Cleopatra" Jones is in charge of fashion. We don't actually see her report, but odds are it has something to do with swimsuits that can cover two very large breasts. The producers wisely decide not to show her extemporaneous attempts at humor.

Rob enjoys the morning show

Maraamu Morning Show #2 - Marquesas Episode Three


Sadly this is the last morning show that we get to watch But on the plus side, it does happen to be the funniest. For one, this is the morning show where Rob goes on a tirade against the dreaded no-no bug. And in one of my favorite Marquesas confessionals, Rob carefully explains to us that the no-no is spelled "N-O. N-O." Thanks, buddy. I get it now.

"It's spelled N-O. N-O."

Hunter then comes back for his second weather report. This time he's in a weather copter, along with his man on the street Jose ("Or Julio, or whatever his name is today.") Hunter claims that it was cold last night and Sean agrees, adding that his "balls were ice cubes."

Sarah is reportedly in charge of fashion again, and once again Sarah is wisely banned from speaking on camera. Good call.

But the highlight of the second Maraamu morning show is definitely Vecepia's talk show. This is the scene that brings down the house. It features Vecepia doing a radio show about the nasty little no-no bugs, and how much the players all hate them. The title of the program is "No-nos: Are they in, or are they out?"

Rob starts off by saying that he hates no-nos because they're a thousand times worse than mosquitoes and they're so small that you can't even see them. Hunter "calls" in to agree and that's when Vecepia turns the tables on him. She says that she's heard there are two types of no-nos, the black ones and the white ones. And she asks Hunter which ones are the ones that do all the biting. Hunter, of course, says the black ones are the main troublemakers, and that's when Vecepia's phone lines start ringing off the hook.

"RING!!!", screams Sean, "RING!!!! RING!!!!!!"

The whole groups starts cracking up because Sean is about to turn this into yet another racial tirade. And, sure enough, that's what he does.

"This is Al Sharpton," Sean says, "And this is an outrage! Why are the black no-nos being blamed for everything? The black no-nos get blamed for all the bad stuff and it's a conspiracy!"

Vecepia and Hunter laughing at Sean's racial tirade

Rob and Sarah laughing at Sean

This is truly one of the funniest scenes during Marquesas and I always understood why the producers were so high on this cast. Because it's like they cast seven comedians (plus Sarah) and threw them all together on the same tribe and let them just riff every morning. And even though the Maraamus went down in flames, even though they were mostly horrible players, in the end I think it just made this tribe all the more endearing. Screw Survivor, we're just here to chill out, enjoy the beach and have a good time. And that's exactly what they did every morning at Camp Maraamu.

P.S. I remember reading that Sean and Rob tried to put together a morning show over at Rotu, the day after they were switched over to the enemy tribe. I've never personally watched this scene, but I've been told it was on the Marquesas recap show. I never watch the recap shows (just on principle alone), so obviously I never saw it. But I do have to say this is my #1 most requested scene if they ever put out a Marquesas DVD. So please put out that DVD, and please show us the failed Rotu morning show! Pretty please?! I want to watch a scene where Zoe has to do something that actually involves smiling!