The first time I watched a person hop across a bunch of bright blue pillars before gloriously falling into a pool of water below, my first thought was: how did he get there?
It turned out, "American Ninja Warrior" is really, really popular. In the show, contestants subject themselves to insane-looking obstacle courses, trying to get across a complicated, cartoonish terrain as fast as they can. It's kind of like what Mario has to go through to get past Bowser and save Peach in her castle.
Like many game shows, the behind-the-scenes of "America Ninja Warrior" are just as fascinating as what you see on screen. Here are the answers to all the unexpected and obscure parts of being on "American Ninja Warrior."
INSIDER spoke with two contestants from season 8, Akiva Neuman and Logan Broadbent, to tell us about the unexpected and obscure parts about being on the show.
1. It's really easy to apply.
The show doesn't scout for contestants. Like most other reality television shows, people can just apply
There's an online form that you fill out, and applicants also send in a video of themselves.
The form asks for the type of information you'd expect. It asks for health information, like your height and weight, and it asks whether you've been on any game shows before and have any experience as a professional athlete.
It also asks questions about your past that can be used to figure out how interesting you might be as a character on the show, like "What was the worst job you ever had?", "What is the most difficult/devastating non-athletic thing you've ever gone through?", and "Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t know just by looking at you."
2. They don't just want a bunch of athletes.
For the video, the show wants contestants to show how physically impressive they are, but also to appear as an interesting human being. "Let your personality shine through,"the guidelines recommend.
They want someone with a good story, not just a jock. Akiva Neuman, a contestant in season 8, is a rabbi-in-training.
"They take some older people, like that are in their sixties and seventies," Neuman told INSIDER. "They could be very strong, but the odds of them actually competing the course is slim... They took a guy who served in the army and he had lost a leg. He got 'till like the fourth obstacle."
Logan Broadbent, another contestant on that episode, is a professional athlete — but an offbeat one. He's on the United States boomerang team.
"I've been competing on boomerang competitions since before I could walk," Broadbent said. "So I guess that was a bit of a hook."
3. You only get two weeks' advance warning before the show.
"I figured there were 75,000 applying to this thing, so I didn't really expect a call," Broadbent said. About two weeks before the competition, a producer called him to ask him to be a contestant on the show.
To prepare, Broadbent changed his usual workout regiment to emphasize grip strength, doing more rock climbing, which would be better for the obstacle courses.
"I started watching previous seasons to see what obstacles have been done, and what I should be working on — from balance, to strength, to agility," Broadbent said. "I started practicing all those techniques."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider