Of the thousands of people who have worked to build the legacy of “Survivor” over the last 26 years and soon-to-be 50 seasons – from 750+ castaways and hundreds of crew members – only five people have been involved since Day One.
Amongst the small group is longtime producer John Krihoffer, who’s been instrumental in developing the vast majority of the show’s iconic challenges, a key facet in testing the castaways’ wit, stamina, endurance, strength and strategic prowess on route to hopefully winning the title of “Sole Survivor.”
As the premiere of “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans” approaches, Kirhoffer is opening up about how he came to find himself working on the hit CBS reality competition series and addressing whether or not some of his classic “Survivor” challenges will make their long-awaited return on the upcoming milestone season.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, Kirhoffer revealed that he knew from the time he was 12 years old that he wanted to be a television producer.
John Kirhoffer Talks the Origins of Classic ‘Survivor’ Challenges
GettyBy the time he’d reached his mid-30s in the late 1990s, however, Kirhoffer still hadn’t landed the role, and was considering abandoning the dream altogether to “move to Hawaii and try to find a job teaching scuba diving,” until he received a call in December 1999 asking if he’d be interested in joining the crew for the first-ever season of “Survivor.”
In the 26 years since, Kirhoffer, now 63, has overseen the development of each and every one of the show’s challenges.
Despite his excitement at finally landing the job he’d been dreaming about since he was a child, the unique position required Kirhoffer to blaze his own trail, as he joked that “Obstacle Course Building 101” wasn’t offered at his alma mater, San Diego State University.
“I started watching Army recruiting obstacle courses,” Kirhoffer said, explaining how he’d prepared for the role without a blueprint. “And you couldn’t just go to YouTube. You had to really research things. I went to the library, and I got books on obstacle courses.”
In the show’s early years, Kirhoffer and his fellow producers would frequently pull additional inspiration from the culture of the countries they filmed in like Borneo, Thailand and China, sometimes incorporating heightened versions of local games into “Survivor” challenges.
The difficulty of staging entertaining competitions was compounded further in those first seasons due to working with the “limited budget” the show received prior to becoming a pop culture phenomenon, resulting in simpler challenges like “Hands on a Hard Idol,” which only required castaways to keep their hand on a totem longer than their competitors in order to win.
Will Fan Favorite ‘Survivor’ Challenges Return for Season 50?
While some fans have long lamented that such challenges have been phased out over the years, replaced more often than not by high-production obstacle courses and multi-piece puzzles, Kirhoffer said he’s glad that the so-called “classics” have been left in the past.
CBS“I don’t miss the standing on a pole thing for 12 hours,” he reported.
Kirhoffer Says He Prefers Designing Tribe Challenges
CBSWhile Kirhoffer doesn’t seem to be hard-pressed about reviving similar long-retired challenges for Season 50, he concluded his interview by discussing his love of designing team challenges in particular.
“There is something so satisfying about seeing an entire team coming to together to help – leave no many behind,” he said, speaking to more recent challenges’ tendency to allow tribes to divide players based on their strengths to complete the mix of tasks often required to complete “New Era” obstacle course challenges.
It wasn’t always that way, however. According to Kirhoffer, he initially ran into difficulties staging team challenges, particularly during “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” wherein he wanted to develop a water-based challenge that was complicated when he remembered that one contestant – Roger Bingham – couldn’t swim.
While troubleshooting the issue with “Survivor” creator Mark Burnett, Kirhoffer said he received a “lesson that I have used on ‘Survivor’ ever since.”
“[Burnett] looked at me like I just tore up the Mona Lisa or something,” Kirhoffer remembered. “He goes, ‘John. He has a tribe. Send somebody who is a good swimmer down first, then the person who can’t swim, then someone who can swim.’ He was giving me ‘Survivor’ 101 on our second season.”
“From then on, we don’t help anybody that needs help,” he continued. “They have a team, Put the right people in the right positions and help your team.”
John Kirhoffer will return as challenge producer on “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans.” Be sure to catch the milestone season’s historic three-hour premiere episode on Wednesday, February 25 at 8:00pm ET, exclusively on CBS.
