It’s been a longstanding tradition that upon entering The Challenge house each new season, if Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio is a part of the cast (and, let’s face it, he usually is), he’ll give a warm welcome speech to his fellow contenders, new and old.
On last Wednesday’s launch special (embedded above) for The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras, though, it wasn’t Johnny Bananas who delivered the signature toast; instead, Rachel Robinson was seen raising a glass to the other ladies of the house to say, “Cheers to the women, who we all know for years and years who have been underappreciated, overlooked, underestimated, but clearly always the reason for the real ratings!”
Robinson told TV Insider, though, that the reason she even delivered the speech was that Bananas had already done his — it just didn’t make the cut.
“I actually wish they would have shown it the full thing… Listen, Johnny did do a toast and then that was one of the reasons why I did my toast because I thought that the two toasts together would work very nicely in the sense that Johnny’s was very pass the torch — very Johnny,” she explained. “And then I kind of came in and thought, okay, well, let me recognize kind of the way I feel a lot of the women challengers have felt in the past that we maybe don’t get a lot of the outside hype that some of the men’s eliminations have gotten in the past or the men winners, some of the outside excitement that they’ve got. Anyway, long story short, the two toasts would have worked very nicely together. However, on the editing floor, the one that made it was mine, which I think was really appropriate for the start of the season because it’s no doubt that the ladies of the season are extremely stacked.”
Bananas expressed some umbrage about the fact that his toast didn’t make the cut — especially because it wasn’t the first time it has happened… although he promises it will be the last: “I have done a toast every single season I’ve been on and for the last, I don’t know, five, they just have chosen not to show it. So I think whether or not Rachel would have done the toast, mine still wouldn’t have been shown. So I’m saying it right here, and I hope everyone listens: I’m never doing a toast again. This was the last time I did it, for 40. I’ll never do it again because I’ve literally had producers rustle me out of bed night one and be like, ‘Bananas, we gotta get your toast,’ and then I do it and it still doesn’t make it,” he explained.
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When asked what his unaired toast included, the seven-time Challenge champion revealed, “I thought that with Season 40, this really was such a special season. So I wanted to try and recognize everybody who has been there from the past, from the present, and unfortunately, from beyond. And I really wanted to show that it’s like without every single era representing without every single one there kind of said, era one lit the torch we’re carrying, we’ve kept the torch lit and it’s up to the new eras to keep it burning. So that was kind of like the theme behind it. And again, you know, I wanted to have everyone also recognize the people who weren’t there physically and then the people who, you know, like, like Diem [Brown] and [Ryan] Knight who are no longer with us, but are still very much with us in spirit.”
We’ll have to wait to see if the footage eventually makes it to the airwaves in the season’s official premiere (or perhaps even gets relegated to the blooper reel or reunion special)!
The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras, Wednesdays, 8/7c, MTV
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