The Paris Olympics, which were fantastic by the way, ended with a little nod toward Los Angeles’ upcoming hosting gig in 2028. The movie star of all movie stars Tom Cruise jumped from the top of the Stade de France and landed in the middle of the stadium, where he took the Olympic flag from Simone Biles and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and then jumped on a motorcycle. After boarding a plane, he was later shown skydiving onto the Hollywood sign and doing some alterations to make the iconic landmark look like the Olympic Rings. The over the top spectacle was well-received by most viewers and went viral immediately, but for fans of Survivor, it generated some additional feelings too.
The process of grabbing something in a really showy and outrageous manner and dropping it off in another location via an elaborate video package involving strange modes of transportation is the Jeff Probst special. At the end of every season of Survivor, each member of the jury votes for who they want to win. Those votes are then placed in a distinctive urn. Nowadays, they’re read immediately at Tribal Council, but when Survivor was at the peak of its popularity, they would be read during a reunion special. For awhile, the show went through a phase where it would have Probst grab those votes, walk off set and travel back to The United States in an elaborate video montage that would involve an unusual method of travel.
Entertainment Weekly reached out to Probst after Tom Cruise’s Olympics bit, and of course, they weren’t the first people to hit up the longtime host. He had friends texting almost immediately, and he obviously had fun with it. Here’s what he told the outlet…
I did love the comparisons. I had a lot of people text me and say, ‘Probst, Tom Cruise is doing a Survivor! Tom Cruise is doing his version of bringing the votes back from the island!’ And the first question I had was: Wait a minute, is he imitating me or have I been imitating him all these years?
Survivor fans will never stop arguing about what the best/ most ridiculous stunt Probst ever did was, but for my money, it’s gotta be Season 6. At the end of Survivor Amazon, he grabbed the votes and jumped on a waiting jet ski. He then did a fun little quick turn to shoot up water and a montage purported to show him jet skiing to New York City from Brazil. That’s more than 3,000 miles if you’re counting at home. Afterwards, he used the subway to get to the Ed Sullivan Theater and head into the reunion special.
Perhaps more on the nose with the Tom Cruise stunt, however, he also once took a prop plane back to The United States where he parachuted out and got on a motorcycle, which he drove to CBS Studios in Los Angeles. It was a really fun bit, but in retrospect, Probst is ready to admit he’s not exactly Tom Cruise, which he said on reflection after watching the Olympics…
Man, I'm no Tom Cruise. That dude jumped on his motorcycle and rode through the streets, and then jumped out of a helicopter. I'm surprised he didn't catch a bad guy in the progress! That was super fun.
Some fans have been clamoring for Survivor to bring back the elaborate vote deliveries for years, but there hasn’t been a need for it since the reality competition show changed formats during Covid. The seasons shortened in length, plenty of new twists were added (arguably too many new twists) and most importantly for the context of this story, the reunion show with the vote reading started being filmed immediately.
By doing that, the contestants are much more honest and raw in their feelings, and the finalists don’t have to wait months to discover who won/ who may have betrayed them in the final vote. It’s also presumably much cheaper to film, but with the much hyped Season 50 coming up that’ll feature all returning players, some fans think we may get a more standard reunion show. If we do, there’s a good chance we could get one more epic montage with Jeff Probst. Fingers crossed.
