Sept. 16, 2008 issue
Reichenbach reveals "Survivor" secrets

By Ron Podell

 

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted from the fall 2008 issue of Exemplar. This article includes information that was left out of Exemplar, due to space constraints.

Erik Reichenbach, the Eastern Michigan University junior who became a worldwide celebrity after appearing on "Survivor Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites," is transitioning back into his life as a student-athlete and ice cream scooper in Hell, Mich.

SURVIVOR TREAT: Erik Reichenbach, an EMU junior, displays an ice cream-in-a-coconut concoction that is sold at Scream's Ice Cream in Hell. The treat was created in honor of Reichenbach's appearance on "Survivor Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites" which aired on CBS last spring. He placed fifth on the show.

After fielding more than 100 interviews — some from countries as far away as Singapore — Reichenbach said he expects, over time, that the fervor over his appearance and exit from the game will eventually die down. But the affable 23-year-old, who finished fifth on the show, recently took time out to dish with FOCUS EMU on some of the things viewers did not see on the show.

These included:

• Although you didn't see much actual interaction on the show, Reichenbach's closest friend was Alexis Jones. Like many other Survivors, he said he couldn't stand Jason Siska during the show, but things were fine between the two once it was over. Of Parvati Shallow, the eventual winner, he said he "thought of her as a false person."

• Natalie Bolton, a self-described member of the scheming "black widow brigade," appeared that way from the start to everybody, but edits on the show painted her as a quiet wallflower until the last four or five episodes.

"She was like that from the beginning. It's kind of who she was," said Reichenbach, describing her as the villain with the handlebar moustache.

• When a "Survivor" contestant was voted off at Tribal Council and sent walking back to camp, they were, in reality, sent to the "Ponderosa," basically a resort where contestants were sequestered until that season's episodes were shot.

• Reichenbach lost 13 pounds (he went from 160 to 147) in 36 days, but gained it back and more after he was booted off the island.

"After it was over, I didn't go to the bathroom for four days," he recalled. "Your body wants to hold on to everything you put into it."

• Survivor host Jeff Probst is around the contestants a lot and converses with them. During the show, viewers only see him showing up to shepherd reward and immunity challenges, hold court over the infamous Tribal Council and occasionally listen in when there is a medical emergency.

"You get to ask him questions about the challenge before it starts," Reichenbach said. "He really liked me. He liked that I was from the middle of nowhere. He thought I was a little naïve, but had a lot of energy that got me far."

Preparing for "Survivor" stardom

Before the show, Reichenbach and the other contestants received training to learn how to live in the remote locale. The group learned everything about the endangered species and poisonous plants and animals of Micronesia to the basics on how to build a shelter.

IDOL MOMENT: In a scene reminiscent of "Survivor Micronesia", Erik Reichenbach sits next to a tribal idol on the Scream's Ice Cream property in Hell. The use, or lack thereof, of immunity idols played a huge role in the season's outcome. Two players, who possessed the immunity idol, did not play their idols, and were subsequently blindsided. Reichenbach also had the immunity idol and gave it up, hoping to score points with the other four remaining players as well as members of the jury, who vote on who will win the $1 million prize. Instead, he was immediately voted off.

For his own preparation, Reichenbach said he camped at Sleeping Bear Dunes and in Florida, so he could simulate living on a beach and practice starting a fire. He said it helped when he got to Micronesia.

In a game that has the catchphrase, "Outplay. Outwit. Outlast," Reichenbach had to essentially lie before the game even started. As part of his contract with CBS, he said "Survivor" contestants are not allowed to tell anyone where they are going or that they're even on the show. He left for Micronesia Oct. 24, 2007, and returned Dec. 8. During that time, he had no contact with his family, and missed celebrating his birthday and Thanksgiving with them.

"I told people I had an internship. Only my family knew because they had to sign some papers," Reichenbach recalled. "Then, when I got back, I told people I was on "Survivor." They didn't believe me until they saw the first episode."

Life's a beach

His preparations helped him some, but couldn't really simulate what to expect half a world away.

"If you win at a track meet or in cross country, you get cheering," Reichenbach said. "When you're out there (Micronesia), you don't have that at all. You just hear jungle noises and the birds chirping. There's tons of paranoia. What are these people thinking? You're on guard all the time."

During the early Tribal Councils in which he had to help vote out fellow fans, Reichenbach said he "felt sick" doing so.

But, there was some sense of normalcy when it came to camp life. Instead of scooping ice cream, he climbed trees for coconuts or went spear fishing for food.

All that walking around on the coral rock beach led to multiple cuts on his feet. His solution was to soak them in the ocean.

For some situations, there really was no solution.

"You can't sleep at night. You're on the hard ground or just a lump of sand. There are rats everywhere. It's raining. You could only sleep two hours at a time."

While the show would only show a few minutes of a powerful thunderstorm, Reichenbach said it rained many days and nights, for hours on end.

"Some days, you just felt physically done. In terms of everyone else, I felt stronger," he said.

And, it's true. Outside of reward challenges where the prize often included food, the show did not provide any food or water to the contestants. To get drinking water, contestants had to start a fire and boil the water, just as viewers see on television. To eat, the survivors had to gather coconuts and hunt for crabs and fish.

Reichenbach said he was lucky to consume 1,000 calories a day, if that.

"Eating a coconut was pretty much like a salad. We ate fish if we caught them," he said. "We had a chicken that laid eggs. If we got a hard-boiled egg, it was split between four people."

And, if he were lucky enough to partake in a feast after a reward challenge?

"The next day, you were starving twice as bad," he said.

When he wasn't doing work around camp, he found time to put his artistic talents to use. When the Fans and Favorites merged into one tribe, he designed the "Dabu" flag. He also made a checkerboard out of a log to provide his tribe mates some temporary relief from the game of "Survivor."

As part of a reward challenge Reichenbach won with Ozzy Lusth, Amanda Kimmel and Cirie Fields, the group enjoyed a large feast and a visit deep into the jungles of Micronesia to a village called Yap. During the show, Reichenbach described the place as "being out of time." But, for him, the experience was a welcome relief from the day-to-day strategy of playing "Survivor."

"Everybody there (in the village) was happy. Up until then, it was a game," Reichenbach said of his favorite experience on the show. "Up until then, you looked as everyone as threats. But, Yap reminded me of home."

One thing that is not offered in Pinckney are betel nuts, a Micronesian delicacy that Reichenbach described as similar to chewing tobacco in the U.S. Combining the nuts with drinking alcohol, as Reichenbach found out, was not a good thing.

What schemes may come

During the early portions of the game, Reichenbach said he tried to stay low-key and let others grab the attention, thus making themselves targets for elimination.

"I was just hiding pretty much. I hid behind Joel (Anderson), who was a big guy with a big mouth. I hid behind Ozzy until he was gone."

SNAKES IN THE GRASS: Erik Reichenbach said he found himself doing things he would never do in real life to remain in the game of "Survivivor." When the show aired, he couldn't believe some of the things he heard and saw from other contestants.

And what, if early in the game, Reichenbach, Tracy Hughes-Wolf and Ami Cusack had convinced Chet Welch not to give up, but rather help them vote out Ozzy? How much would the game had changed?

"I think I would have still gotten to the final five. I would have been on the majority in the tribe," he said. "It would have changed the game. I definitely thought it could happen. Every single decision along the line changes everything. It's woulda, coulda, shoulda."

He's right.

When Chet failed to go along, the Fans were picked off one by one, until only Reichenbach was left on a tribe of five other favorites. Backed into a corner, he ratted out Ami's prior plans to oust Ozzy from the game. Unhappy with that news, Ozzy led a vote to boot Ami off the island.

Hidden immunity idols — or Survivors' failure to use them — were a big theme in Season 16 of the show. Both Ozzy and Jason had hidden immunity idols in their possession, but did not use them to protect themselves from the vote at Tribal Council. Confident that they were in no danger of going home, both did not play their idols and were summarily booted off.

"I was thinking about whittling a fake immunity idol," Reichenbach said.

If he had, his version probably would have been more convincing than Ozzy's rendition of a face on a stick, which convinced no one but Jason, who found it and offered it to tribe mate Eliza Orleans. Orleans was all too happy to take it, until she saw the pitiful creation.

"It was hard to maintain stability with all of the craziness going on," Reichenbach said of his final days on Micronesia where he was the only remaining male surrounded by four women plotting to get rid of him. "Cirie (Fields) called me a weasel. Those women were really ganging up on me. I was under a lot of stress. I should have just hid and let them fight it out."

"I was shocked about how gung-ho they were about getting rid of me and talking like that," Reichenbach said when he saw some of the final episodes air. "I was their friend up until seven days before the end."

That plotting and constant talking made Reichenbach do what everyone knows you shouldn't do: give up immunity when you have it. In what he thought was a move that would earn him goodwill with the jury, he gave the immunity necklace to fellow fan Natalie Bolton. In reality, it earned him a one-way ticket off the island.

While Reichenbach took it in stride, he said many others, including his Dad, took it hard.

"My Dad couldn't believe it. He lost it," Reichenbach said.

Life on the Ponderosa

After Reichenbach made his infamous guffaw, he went where other Survivor castoffs were sent: the Ponderosa.

He described it as a "resort" where you are fed five to six times a day.

"When I got there, Ozzy and Jason felt worse for what they did. I told them they've got to be kidding. I made the biggest blunder on the show," Reichenbach said. "I felt lucky to get past the halfway point, past the merge. They had this expectation they would win. They were very disappointed."

Ozzy and Jason both fell to the same fate. During consecutive Tribal Councils, each had the hidden immunity idol, did not play it because they trusted other tribe mates, and then were blindsided when they were voted off.

Reichenbach said he wasn't as disappointed because, for him, it was a victory to even be invited and icing on the cake when he was still in the game past the halfway point.

The Ponderosa pecking order works like this: When each of the first nine contestants was voted off at Tribal Council, they were sent to the Ponderosa. Two days before the first jury member (the final seven contestants voted out comprise the jury) is sent packing, the previous nine contestants are sent on a cruise, Reichenbach said.

Getting on with his life

Reichenbach is grateful for his "Survivor" experience, but is glad to be back home in Pinckney.

"I don't take anything for granted any more. Food, a nice bed, a car to go somewhere," he said. "It really makes you appreciate the small things."

WELCOME TO HELL: Erik Reichenbach is in familiar confines in Hell, Mich. But, he admits there were moments on "Survivor" when he felt he actually was in hell. Rain and rats at night made for many a miserable evening.

He has resumed working at Scream's Ice Cream in Hell, where he designs T-shirts and is helping the owner design a putt-putt golf course on the property. In honor of his "Survivor" experience, the store now sells an ice cream-in-a-coconut concoction.

"I've been able to support myself and pay for school without taking out loans," he said of the benefits of a "Survivor" paycheck. "I plan to invest some of it, so I can retire some day. I also plan to hold on to some of it for the day when I have a family and buy a house."

Although he did not disclose how much he earned through his appearance on "Survivor" (the word is contestants earn $40,000 for just appearing on the show), he did say monetary prizes were handed out based on order of finish. In addition, all contestants were paid $10,000 just to appear on the reunion show, which aired on CBS May 11.

Reichenbach said he wasn't clear when he would be eligible to resume running cross country and track for EMU, but did not expect his appearance on the show and being paid for it as a violation of NCAA rules.

"Because it's ("Survivor") not an athletic event, I should be able to keep running. I wasn't represented as a track athlete on the show," he said.

He said the show has helped bring his family closer ("my family is spread out"); he has been stopped and recognized on campus often; and admits he has received more interest from females since he has returned, a situation which he said is "not bad at all."

However, he admits he questions some of the motivations and has issues of trust, a lingering mindset still present from when he was played by the remaining four females in the tribe.

Even though he is adjusting back to life before the show, "Survivor" will continue to be a part of it for some time. Just in a different way.

He is under contract to the show for three more years and will receive personal appearance money for showing up at various charity events attended by previous "Survivors" and other celebrities.

"I'm going to a thing in Kentucky this month (June), a firefighter and police charity event to help with child abuse. The cast of 'The Sopranos' will be there," he said. "They (CBS) pay for your flight and hotel, and you sign autographs."

"I'm in contact with everybody — Alexis, Eliza, Jason. It's like a family, just extended all over the place," he said. "You're there 24 hours a day, dealing with them for a month-and-a-half. You get really close really fast."

And, if he were asked back to appear on a future edition of "Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites"?

"No question I would go back. If I went back, I'd have a huge advantage to go all the way. Even with all of the bad stuff that goes with it," Reichenbach said. "When you're in it, you want out. But, when you're home, you want to stay."