Season 11: Ayn Rand Would've Loved This Season

Without a Super Bowl to dampen ratings, The Network knew that the 11th season of Tossed Off stood to be a knockout, even if -- maybe especially if -- they left the formula alone.

Of course, that's exactly what The Network did not do.

For the first and last time, Tossed Off would have no teams -- for the entire season, each contestant was playing for themselves. While this may have sounded good on paper, in real life things quickly dissolved into anarchy. It seems that the team-based structure gave players at least some sense of society, and therefore a sense of social order. With no teams to rely on, Season 11 quickly devolved into Lord of the Flies meets Running Man meets Caligula.

By episode seven, half the players had been eaten by the others, not for the purposes of staving off hunger, but instead purely out of malice. At one point bricklayer Tommy Burroughs announced himself as "King of the Universe" and had to be put down by Mike Tanley, who saw the proclamation as a threat to his own autonomy.

Possibly the bloodiest season of Tossed Off on record, the finale ended with an unforeseen twist: as entertainment attorney Doug Reffle was awarded the prize, he was then immediately carted off to a US Federal holding cell, where he would await trial for mass murder... not for the fifteen people he killed during Tossed Off, but for the 425 he had killed prior to appearing on the show.

The Network later implemented improved contestant screening procedures.

Season 12: Tossed Off in Space

The bloody gore of the last season proved a ratings bonanza, but things like "laws" and "human rights" prevented The Network from repeating the formula. So Network executives did what any executive does to an aging franchise, and set the next one in space.

Using Chinese launch vehicles to get the players into orbit, Team Sputnik and Team Nostromo found themselves aboard an abandoned Soviet-era space station, where they would spend the next few weeks battling each other in microgravity, eating only powdered mealworms and freeze-dried grubs.

Mike Tanley controlled the events from his plantation house on Pariah Island, as The Network did not want to risk the life of their much-loved host. Using state-of-the-art communication technology, Tanley was able to directly control much of the space station's systems, including life support and orbital declination. During the "Weightless Taser Fight" challenge, Tanley intentionally reverse-flushed the station's waste back into the main living area; "I wanted to see if shit would float," Tanley later explained. As viewers found out, it does.

Sole survivor and gay waiter Danny Richards won the prize, which was reduced to only $125,000 for this season, since the cost of getting Danny back to Earth in one piece was worth about $750,000. After splash down, Danny told viewers, "It was great. I will miss all my teammates, and every time I look into the night sky, I will be reminded of their cold, dead bodies floating inside that dead satellite."

Well said, Danny.

Image (c) 1989 20th Century Fox.

Season 13: Lessons Learned

Having blown far too much budget on a space-bound season, The Network learned an expensive lesson they could have learned far cheaper had they only watched Hellraiser: Bloodline, Friday the 13th: Jason X, Muppets in Space, Fortress 2, Highlander 2: The Quickening, Airplane! 2, Moonraker, Cube 2: Hypercube... well, you get the picture.

Actually, if you watched a DVD of every failed sequel set in space, you would probably have spent more money than The Network did on season 12, so maybe they made the right decision after all.

In any event, it was back to the island for Team Asschimps and Team Rapeyourmom, where the contestants slowly chipped away at each other (sometimes literally) in such competitions as the "Let's See Who Survives a Nuclear Bomb" challenge, the "Drink This Unspecified Bodily Fluid" challenge, and the "Stand On A Pole For The Rest of the Season" challenge.

Catholic priest Father Michael "The Killer" O'Donohue came out the winner, and promised to donate his $1 million prize to his parish. Oddly, O'Donohue never returned to his parish after winning, and has not been heard from since.

Image (c) 1967 Granada Media.

Season 15: Tanley's Time Off

With Mike Tanley spending most of Season 15 coming down from a really bad "medicinal drug reaction", the players were largely left on their own to compete in challenges. Without Mike to provide guidance, the players merely stumbled upon the challenge sets and had to figure out the rules for themselves, with the occasional assistance of Topo, who would point at stuff.

It proved interesting to watch the players navigate the "Maritime Maze of Water" challenge without boats, which had never been delivered to the island. Six contestants drowned that day, and viewers couldn't have been happier.

By episode 18, Mike had regained his strength, if not his lucidity, and took back control of the show. To make up for lost time, Mike put the contestants through the "Reenact Scenes from the Movie Deliverance" challenge, which reduced the remaining players to only two. Tanley later said, "The challenge had called for lubricant, but I felt it would work better as a creative expression without it." Fans agreed.

It was high school soccer coach William Klapp that took the final prize, but who's win was short-lived (literally), as he died a few months later of a sexually transmitted disease. Wonder how that happened.

Season 15: Mech Battle of the Battle Mechs

Clearly it was time to bring out the giant robots. Or at least that's what some overeager Network executive came up with at one of their late-night, drunken "pitch sessions."

Most of the 15th season was comprised of dull, typical Tossed Off challenges, such as the "Perform Surgery on Yourself" challenge, or the "Boil Your Best Friend Alive" competition. Then, in episode 18, Mike Tanley revealed that the final four would slug it out in giant "Mechs" -- huge anthropomorphic robots, each piloted by one player.

This spectacular battle made for exciting, shocking television -- or would have, if bartender Dennis Landry hadn't stepped on the entire camera crew five seconds into the battle. From there on, we had nothing but Mike Tanley's audio-only description of the action, with the sounds of mechanical crashes and hydraulic pistons in the background. The lack of video proof of this incredible war of machines has led some conspiracy theorists to suggest that The Network never actually had any giant robots, and that the few seconds of footage that were shown were filmed on a table top with stop motion animation. Fooey on them, this writer says. The Network would never pull a stunt like that.

A stunt they would pull, however, was saved for the final two, where male stripper Kyle Angel fought lesbian bartender Kris Gerhhandennen in the "Boxing Ring of Radioactive Fire". Kyle came away the winner, but had to spend at least half of his winnings on skin grafts. Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?