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"Around the World in 80 Ways"

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The 10-part series premieres 4th Quarter, 2011 on the HISTORY Channel and is created by Thom Beers and his Original Productions team starring Rob Mariano and Dennis Anderson.

Whether rushing down Victoria Falls in a barrel, hang gliding over Rio, or crossing the Kalahari by ostrich, Rob and Dennis had to employ 80 different forms of transportation without repeating any vehicle. It's an extreme expedition that took the hosts not only across the miles, but through time as they explore the history behind the many ways people have gotten around throughout the ages.

This adventure took Rob and Dennis through Brazil, Peru, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Dubai, India, Thailand, and the United States. Sometimes they must join forces, while at other times they work against each other. At times they even have to invent and build their own means of transport.

But these macho men are both accustomed to being champions and have been known to torment, boast, and battle their way to the top. Although AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS is not a competition, these two can't resist turning everything into a good-natured dare of their own. In their playbook, nothing is off limits when humiliating consequences await the loser.

Peace, Love, TAR! :D:
Around the World in 80 Ways will premiere Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 10 pm EST. The website for it is
http://www.history.com/shows/around-the-world-in-80-ways

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It's on! The first episode was telecast by the History Channel on Sunday night at 10pm, repeating at 2am Monday.

This is the epic adventures of Boston Rob Mariano and Dennis Anderson, the Monster Truck guy. The rules of this are to circle the globe using 80 different forms of transportation, never repeating any form. They are off and moving:

1. Rob drives an old Cadillac convertible into the desert somewhere and Dennis comes along with a Monster Truck and smashes it.

2. They take a tow truck some distance to reach the next one.

3. Dennis has constructed a Walking Beast with 8 legs, 454 hp and 13,000 pounds going 2 mph. they find that is just too slow.

Next, not shown and not counted is however they chose to get to LAX airport.

4. They fly to Cuzco, Peru mimicing Rob's start of Amazing Race 7.

Next, there was no indication of how they got from the airport into the heart of the city.

5. From the municipal bus station, they get a long-distance, high-altitude bus to Lake Titicaca. this is Dennis' first trip out of the U.S. but he plays the role goodwill ambassador, leading the local in American folk songs that they didn't understand but could do the gestures for.

6. However, they got off 35 miles short of their destination so they can take a special route that cuts out that distance. It involves a series of 3 zip lines that took them across valleys and down. Dennis went first without luggage and Rob, a supposed expert on zip lining from his Amazing Race days, came with Dennis' backpack as well as his own (although he had neither on the second zipline). Then they both had to climb down a harrowing set of ladders just to reach the start of the third zipline.

7. That took them to a village where they bought 2 horses and navigated part of the short remaining distance to Lake Titicaca. That did not get them there, so they traded the horses for a small motorbike which did finish the job.

8. A Water Taxi took them on Lake Titicaca to a floating island.

9. At the floating island they got reed boats and raced them back to the shore. Dennis got a ticket by the water police for some obscure reason.

I can recommend this show. The antics of Boston Rob and Dennis are very entertaining.

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This show is running on gimmicks and gotten much less interesting. How do you bridge maybe 4000 miles from Cuzco Peru to Rio de Janeiro? If you are the producers of this show, you simply ignore them and hope nobody notices. So, how do you get from Cuzco to Rio on new forms of transportation? You don't; it's that simple. So Rob and Dennis were taken somehow (airplane, anyone?) to Sao Paulo, Brazil and placed on the top of a tall building. I don't think they had officially used an elevator yet, so that would have been possible. However, it's not as photogenic as being lowered on a window washer vehicle down the side of a 25 story building. That doesn't get them any closer to Rio but it does get them off the building.

We discover that, despite his time on various Survivor locations, Rob is not an adventurous eater. Next, they walked (or more likely took an unshown taxi) to the outskirts of a 20+ million metro area to find a truck stock. There they caught a rail train which has maybe 4 hopper cars hooked to a locomotive. That took them maybe 400 miles closer to Rio, only 50 miles away. In that area there was an ostrich farm, so Rob and Dennis had a race with ostriches hooked to a different cart they each sat in and then took that same mode of transportation into the local town. For their next trick they took a harvester aka combine on a sugar cane field and put the collection vehicle and the combine into a race to the lengthy end of that field.

Next, they somehow were allowed to paint the lines of a road with yellow paint, which they botched pretty badly. They found a handcart on railroad tracks that their producers had conveniently arranged to be there. It was easily to move downhill and hard uphill. It got them to the suburbs of Rio on the beach and there there was a waiting swanboat to take them the last segment to Ipanema Beach. However, it was too difficult to navigate in the surf, so they abandoned that.  All of a sudden they end up on Sugarloaf Mountain (another instance of cheating, I think). It is possible to get there on 2 cable cars from somewhere in Rio, but not from where Rob and Dennis were.  I would have been photogenic, but the producers missed an opportunity there. Finally, they were ready to come down and Rob elected hang gliding, but Dennis would not consider it. He was shown running down (yeah, for how many inches would that be viable?) and then buying up an ice cream cart. He rode that cart to Ipanema Beach and supposedly beat Rob there. I don't believe it. That had to be totally staged, as Rob would have gotten down in any 15 minutes including the mandatory safety lecture. Given the distance, Dennis was just not going to beat him.

This is the summary of the new forms of transportation:
10. Window Washer Vehicle
11. Rail train
12. Ride an ostrich cart
13. Combine/Harvester
14. Paint road lines
15. Handcart
16. Swanboat
17. Hang gliding (Rob only)
18. Ice Cream cart (Dennis only)

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I have decided that this series is too hokey for me to continue watching. Without watching, it would be impossible to do any recaps of it, so I urge anyone interested to pick the ball up and run with it.

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