NBC to drop celebrities off in the woods as America watches in air-conditioned comfort
Want to watch Zac Efron eat a snake? How about Tom Arnold drinking his own pee? NBC bets that you do, and it’s enlisted Bear Grylls to help make it happen. The rugged celebrity survival expert/literal Boy Scout has been tapped to host Running Wild With Bear Grylls. The show premieres July 28 and will feature Channing Tatum, Ben Stiller, NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, and Today Anchor Tamron Hall—as well as Efron and Arnold—in “dangerous” outdoor situations.
Like pretty much everything Grylls does, the show’s premise is that he (and, in this case, a celebrity pal) have been dropped off in the woods/desert/mountains somewhere and must survive for 48 hours using nothing but their wits (and pee). Of course, there is a camera crew there, and the IATSE probably doesn’t consider snakes and pee “craft services,” so there is some suspension of disbelief involved. However, Grylls swears that the experience will be sufficiently rugged to expose the celebrity guests for the soft, pink, defenseless creatures they really are: “Running Wild allows viewers to see inside the hearts and minds of these guests in a very open, honest, and vulnerable way, pushing them out of their comfort zones and seeing what they are like in real life when stripped of all the benefits of celebrity,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. In other words, not a Starbucks for miles.