The Amazing Race > The Racers

TAR18: Mel White & Mike White (father/son)

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slayton:
Mel glad that his son Mike insisted they quit 'The Amazing Race'
by: Sheri Block

Mel White says he would never have quit “The Amazing Race” if his son Mike hadn’t insisted. But as soon as the decision was made, the 70-year-old competitor realized it was the best thing they could have done.

The father and son team were the most recent pair to leave the race after deciding the conditions of the Detour in Japan -- looking for a plastic frog in a pit of mud in frigid temperatures -- were just too challenging to continue.

“There were all these people yelling at us and throwing mud, and the mud they picked up inadvertently had little rocks in it, and so I was bleeding from the forehead and both shoulders, not seriously bleeding, but it was adding to the pain, the misery,” Mel tells CTV.ca over the phone.

“Our body temperatures had fallen so much that we were officially diagnosed with hypothermia, that’s what disallowed us from going back into the mud to find a damn frog.”

Mel says he and Mike, who wasn’t available for the interview, were searching in the mud for almost an hour before his son (with the help of the producers) convinced him they had to get out.

By the time they got to the van to warm up, both Mel and Mike were shaking -- and couldn’t stop.

“We shook for about an hour after that,” says Mel. “They ‘de-muddified’ us and put us in electric blankets.”

Mel and Mike were well enough to make it to the finish line -- and even were ahead of last place team Jaime and Cara -- but since they hadn’t completed the task of finding a frog, they were the second team of Season 18 to be eliminated.

The pair didn’t get as far as they did the first time -- they placed sixth on Season 14 -- but Mel says this race was a lot more physically demanding and was definitely taking a toll on his body. He adds though that it was something that bothered his son more than it bothered him.

On the very first leg of the race, Mel says they travelled 28 hours non-stop from California to Australia and then ran about four and a half miles, did a scuba diving challenge and arrived at what they thought was the Pit Stop only to find out they were still racing and had to run a mile and a half back to the ferry.

“Michael was so scared … he’d been watching me run for at least four or five hours and he kept saying ‘You don’t have to do this. It’s OK, Dad’ because I was gasping but I said, ‘No I’ve got to do this’ and that’s when I tipped over … that’s when he cried because he thought I’d had a heart attack.”

All of this led to Mike’s decision that they had to quit the race, says Mel.

“We ran five miles the first day, then jumped on these kangaroo things (in Australia) and then got into that mud so physically Michael was seeing me wear down and I think he was just at the end of his rope.”

Mel says seeing how concerned Mike was about him really opened his eyes as to how much his son cares about him.

“That’s been kind of a lesson I’ve learned as to how much that kid cares. He loves this ‘Race’ … but when he said, ‘I’m outta here, this race isn’t as important to me as you are,’ I got another idea of how much that kid loves me.”

There will be no more “Amazing Race” in Mel’s future, but he says there are plenty of other ways he can spend quality time with his son.

One of these ways is watching his son -- a successful Hollywood filmmaker, who wrote and acted in movies like “School of Rock” and “Orange County” -- while he works.

“Mike is so up to his neck, he has a new HBO series coming out, he’s really busy so what I like doing as a retired person is hanging around him and watching him direct,” says Mel.

“I’ll (also) stay over at his house and we go out to vegan dinners. There’s lots to do.”
 

http://shows.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRace/article/Mel-glad-that-his-son-Mike-insisted-they-quit-e28098The-Amazing-Racee28099

slayton:
'The Amazing Race' exit interview: Mel

slayton:
From Andy Dehnart, Amazing Race stars will cameo on HBO’s Englightened.

slayton:
Last Call with Carson Daly
Friday, October 7: Mike White, Seven Grand Whiskey Society, Biffy Cly / Biffy Clyro

slayton:
Excerpt from Stuff Mike White Likes

--- Quote ---“Enlightened” was originally scheduled to make its debut in January, but when White was invited to the “Amazing Race” all-stars reunion, HBO agreed to postpone the show, and he and his dad went back on the road. This time around, the challenges were more grueling. Following a near-naked slog through a Japanese mud pit from which Mel emerged with hypothermia, Mike decided to call it quits. They were sent to an “elimination station” on an island off the coast of Thailand for three weeks, with no phones and no computers and nothing to do but sit by the pool. “Considering how much work I’d walked away from and how many people it had impacted — I was like, what have I done? But it’s fun to have an adventure.”
--- End quote ---

Excerpt from Mike White talks about freaks, sincerity and HBO's 'Enlightened'

--- Quote ---How many indie film auteurs get the green light to create a series on HBO, then postpone finishing it to compete in “The Amazing Race”? The correct answer is, just one: Mike White.

White has crafted a career out of off-kilter moves. As a screenwriter, he alternates between charming but uncomfortable films about awkward, lonely people (“Chuck and Buck,” “Year of the Dog”) and more mainstream, poppy hits (“School of Rock,” “Nacho Libre”). He got his start as a writer-producer on “Dawson’s Creek” before going on to “Freaks and Geeks,” and now has co-created the HBO series “Enlightened” with Laura Dern, who also stars in it.

But he says one of the best things he’s ever done is to compete in “The Amazing Race,” which he did in 2009 with his 70-year-old dad, minister and gay activist Mel White. When the show invited them back for an all-stars season earlier this year, just as White was starting post-production on “Enlightened,” he couldn’t say no. Just days into the race, however, his father collapsed and they were eliminated.

“As they were taking us away to the ambulance, I was thinking, 'How am I going to tell the people at HBO?'” he says between bites of brown rice and veggies at a vegan restaurant in West Hollywood. “They had to furlough our whole post-production team!” But being stranded in reality-TV loser limbo for two weeks with no phone or computer was kind of nice, he insists, “because I had to let go, accept.”
--- End quote ---

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