Ignominious moments in Survivor history

Ignominious moments in Survivor history

I haven't seen every season of Survivor, so I need some help with this...Here is my current top 10 list of most ignominious Survivor moments. Maybe we can work to bump some of these off in favor of some better ones...

Off the board: Season 15: one tribe attempts to throw an immunity challenge in order to vote off a particular member. Lunch Lady Denise is unable to stomach the bird fetus dish she is responsible for eating. Eventually James take pity on her and eats his bird to win the event and, improbably, gain immunity for his tribe.


10. Season 15: James acquires two immunity idols and is voted off without using either of them.


9. Season 15: Jaime rifles through James' personal belongings while he is away from camp and finds his two(!) immunity idols. Eschewing the likelihood that he has the actual idols hidden in his extra pair of pants, she chooses to pick up discarded plaques from the ground and attempts to play them as immunity idols at tribal council.

8. Season 7: Rupert, acting out every pirates fantasy, steals the shoes and personal belongings of the other tribe and barters them for goods for his own tribe.


7. Season 1: Original series winner Richard Hatch is busted for tax evasion. Evidently he came to the conclusion that the million dollars he won wasn't subject to taxes...His claim was that he thought CBS was taking care of it. Somehow he also managed to forget about nearly half a million dollars in income from subsequent appearance fees.


6. Season 13: Billy mistakes Candice's optimism as affection and croons "I love yooouuuu" to her. Later he declares his new love at tribal council causing Jeff Probst to goggle his eyes and snap his head around quickly enough to give him whiplash. I mandate that this shall forever more be known as a "Billy Moment".


5. Season 15: Todd receives news during the show that his sister had lost her unborn baby. Many of the remaining tribe assume he is "Fairplaying" them and mock his efforts. I've not seen any indication, and the after-show did not mention whether this story was true, but the willingness to assume that Todd was trying to fool people was just a sad statement.


4. Season 7: Jonny Fairplay enlists the aid of a friend to bring him (completely untrue) tidings of his grandmother's unexpected demise. This leads to the reality-TV term being "Fairplayed".


3. Season 14: Dreamz screws Yau-man on the car-for-immunity deal. Dreamz later tries to justify it by saying he meant to keep his promise at the time, but later decided it would be in the best interest of his game strategy to welch on it. I have no doubt that this duplicity cost Yau-Man the game that season. Earl went on to win (over Dreamz) by a unanimous vote.


2. Season 15: Lunch Lady Denise lies about her work situation in the after-show. She claimed that her new fame caused the school she worked at to remove her from her lunch duties and take on a custodial role. In truth, she had applied for and received the custodial role (and a pay increase) before she left for the show. I assume she did this to curry votes for the fan favorite for the season. It didn't work and the pity money offered by executive producer Mark Burnett was given to an Aids charity. I list this as #1 because her deception was not part of the game. I'm surprised that it didn't occur to her that the school district she rolled over on for "taking away her job" wouldn't have anything to say about it.

1. Season 16: Erik, down to the final five contestants, gives away his immunity idol to Natalie in the hopes of garnering votes with the jury. He would never see those votes as the remaining members of the tribe immediately voted him off.