Joe Rogan Immediately Regretted Returning to Fear Factor

When I was on season 5 of Fear Factor, I remember thinking, I don't know how much longer I can do this. What was it about it that it was just too much repetitive? It was the same thing over and over again. We did 148 episodes. Right. It was just, after a while, it was just like, Jesus Christ, how many animal dicks can you serve people? Right. How many times can you throw them off builders? Yeah, yeah, that's enough. Enough already. It was just, um... There's no amount of money to get you to come back to do that, or something like that. I did come back in 2011. I came back. But I didn't have as much money back then. And also, it was a lot more money than I got the first time. It was like a big deal, because they were good. I think it was. I honestly don't remember about the money part. But it was a big deal that it was going to come back, but I immediately regretted it. Immediately. I was like, oh my god, I have a job again. The fuck did I do? But I was just having children then. Yeah, you wanted to. Yeah, my kids were really young. When you have a kid, I had an older daughter, but I was already paid for most of that. Do you have to think about two children, and you think about two children that are, at the time, two and one? You're like, oh my god, this is serious. I have to make a lot of money. And then I think all the money I squirreled away from the original season of Fear Factor, that took care of my family for a long time. And it would probably be OK. I felt like this overwhelming responsibility to squirrel away more money. More and more money. But then once I started doing it, I was like, oh my god, this is a mistake. Yeah. This is a mistake. You're like, this is crazy. I'm like, I don't like it. And then we got canceled because we served people jizz. Was that the final straw? Yeah. They had to drink Donkey Kong. And that was too much. That was it? Interesting. TMZ saved me. That was when you had the moral majority back then, and this was a problem. That's when all the censorship came primarily from right wing groups? Sort of, yeah. Was it like the Obama administration? Oh, this is the return. OK. But what it was was the show had to get more and more extreme. And it was very dangerous. Like it was freaking me out. Because they were taking a lot more crazy risks. Like one of them, you had a set of keys. And you had your partner was handcuffed to a tree. And they were attached to a bungee cord that was attached to a fucking helicopter. And the helicopter had this bungee cord taught. And they're flying in the sky above a giant canyon. I mean, way the fuck up there. So you got these keys. And you're working these keys. And the idea was the first person to get the key lock open. You unlock the thing. And then, pshoom, the person was shooting into the sky. And I remember seeing them going, what if something snaps? What if something breaks? What if we watch someone fall to their death? What the fuck are we doing? You just have a bunch of executives going, ugh. They just make a face. They would just go, ugh. Not great. I had a joke about it that they were going to kill Saul. And then gun it down, then blame it on the terrorists. Don't let the terrorists take away your fear factor. Back with Mario Lopez. And I was always joking around how Mario Lopez is going to replace me. Did you ever feel weird morally about it? Because you have these people that are coming in that are putting themselves in these positions. No, because I would have done it. I would have done it when I was broke. I would have eaten an animal dick. I would have let you throw a puke in my face. There are people that we know will do it now. Fuck yeah, everybody that works at the store. Yeah, we'll all do it now. And a lot of us have money. And there was the idea that they could do that and move it onto a career. The only one that's actually moved it onto a real career is Michael Yo. Michael Yo was on season one of Fear Factor, episode one. Episode one, season one. Interesting. Is he a comic or comedian? Yeah, he's a comic. He does it doing really well. Oh, that's wild. Just filmed a special. He's a really good guy too. That's great. Really funny. He's hilarious. Very smart. So some people can start on Fear Factor. 100%. Yeah. One. 48 episodes, three people per episode. Yeah, I remember I tested for a reality show on Food Network and they had me on set for about an hour and they were like, yeah, this is not. I said I said like three things into the camera and they go, none of this will ever, this is not gonna work. Yeah. Yeah.