Andrew and Dan took a lot crap this season on The Amazing Race. To be fair, they were, at times, an easy target. The frat brothers from Arizona State University entered the race as the de facto comic relief, and they generally delivered on that promise, even if it wasn’t always of the intentional variety. Andrew and Dan, despite all odds, managed to finish third on The Amazing Race 13, a feat that for many race viewers remains incomprehensible. Nonetheless, there they were, against Nick, Starr, Ken and Tina in the final leg. Earlier this week, we got the chance to speak with Andrew and Dan about their time on the race.
Below you will find the written transcript as well as the full mp3 of the interview.
Hey this is Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV, and I am here with Dan and Andrew from the Amazing Race. Dan, Andrew–how are you doing?
Dan and Andrew: Doing awesome! Excellent
So, how did it feel watching that final episode last night?
Dan: That final episode, was um, depressing. I was disappointed that they didn’t show us completing our tasks, which we did. And we weren’t as far behind as it would look, so that was a bummer. But the sense of accomplishment we felt crossing that finish line was definitely joyous. But we were disappointed with them cutting us out of most of the episode.
Andrew: It was the only time in all eleven episodes that I was truly disappointed in what I saw. You know those other teams that would make fun of us or whatever here and there, whatever I don’t care. I’d laugh along with that. I never got mad at anyone for saying anything about us. But I was really surprised last night at what I saw, I mean fifteen minutes and it was over. Everyone knew we weren’t going to win or even get second place. It was a real bummer. But it is what it is.
How badly did your cab driver mess up at the beginning of that last leg? Would you two have been close given how well you did in the challenges?
Dan: Our cab guy, just, you think Portland, Oregon…a place you wouldn’t anticipate any cab blunders. Kind of an Americana type city, and it’s not a huge city either, anticipating taxi problems in that rural of a place was not something we thought about. Obviously, that could happen in NYC or Chicago or whatever, but we didn’t foresee it and we just…Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr were aggressive right out of the airplane, they got ahead of us and caught a bus right before us leaving the terminal to the concourse. We were just frustrated. We were frustrated they had this lead early and jumped in the first cab, without consulting with the guy thinking he would knew what he was doing, unfortunately that sealed our fate from there on out, and put us at a severe disadvantage. After taking taxis for over three weeks in other countries, the last thing we thought about was going back to the states and facing a bad cab driver. We didn’t come up with any strategies about finding a good cab/cab driver, and we picked a sub-par cab driver. And that’s our fault and that’s the reason why we weren’t in the race. Despite already being behind at the airport from them, I think we could have caught up if we had a more efficient cab driver or someone more reliable, who knew their way around Portland better.
Andrew: We realize that’s the number one excuse in Amazing Race lore, “Oh, we lost because of our cab driver.” So, I don’t want to pin it on that. But it was a factor, but we made the decision to get in the cab and that was our own wrong doing. Before the leg I said we needed two things to happen: we needed to run a perfect leg, which went by the wayside within minutes of landing in Portland, and Nick and Starr and Ken and Tina needed to trip up. Which they did not, they all ran pretty strong legs, as you saw last night. Were we going to win with a good cab driver? Probably not. But we would have been in it to the end, and obviously at that point anything can happen.
Even coming into the season CBS had pegged you guys as the comic relief, you were going to be the goofy frat guys — were you happy with how you were portrayed throughout the season? Was there anything that was edited out you wish they would’ve shown more of?
Andrew: I mean, we put on a great show. We were very entertaining, we cracked a lot more jokes than we thought we did. They put a lot more jokes in there, and I was very satisfied with that. Whenever I watch with friends or family the whole room would be erupting in laughter due to our antics and that’s what they wanted. I know that’s what they wanted and that’s what we were giving to them.
Dan: I think that our moniker was “they bumbled and stumbled their way into the final three.” Yeah, we made mistakes and it appeared that way of sorts and people kind of focus on the labels they have of teams and don’t want to steer away from what they’re kind of spoon fed on TV, so a lot of things got overlooked. I thought from a physical point of view we didn’t get any credit. If you look at Kazakhstan, I beat an NFL football player, a marathon runner, and a couple guys supposedly in great shape. I blew them all away in a running race. Did the flour competition just as well as Dallas and Kenny, did the wrestling as one of the best. I was hoping for more physical challenges and I thought that would have helped us, but they were mostly mental based, which I think helped a lot of other teams. We were really hoping for more physical challenges.
What are you two going to most take away from your experience on the entire race?
Andrew: Dan and I like traveling, and traveling was pretty much Dan’s major in college, I love it too, I always wanted to travel the world, but I never got to really go anywhere growing up. I think we’re just very grateful for going to so many different places, some of the places we went to – Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Bolivia – those are not mainstream places like London or Paris or Germany. Places people usually don’t go, we got the opportunity to go there, so we’re very grateful to that. I remember talking to other teams on the season, “Oh, I wish we would’ve gone to Paris,” or “I wish we could have gone to London.” And it’s, like, anyone can go to those places any day. London is like a 6, 7, 8 hour plane trip from New York City. We went to places that are so under the radar that no one ever talks about or sees at all, so we’re very grateful for going to such places. They were just so unique, so we were just very gracious.
Dan: Just more generally, Andrew and I did a little of everything on the race. Andy and I completed every road block and detour in the Amazing Race this season, so that’s a nice little feather in our cap. We barely made flights, we found our way on to flights, we got saved by a non-elimination, we did a speed bump. I feel like we did a little bit of everything on the race, which was kinda cool. So, that was neat, and we got to finish the course, see the whole race, and I was really appreciative of that.
So, do you two have any big plans for the future?
Dan: I don’t know. A Dandrew spin-off show? Just a show of us doing road blocks and detours all day. We had fun adding our own creativity into everything. I work – I am in a hotel manager program in Washington DC, not exactly my line of work as Andrew said – I’m more of an international travel and tourism. It’s not everyday you get to do a show that’s right in your line of interest. We’ll see what happens with that, and see if I can go more into the area.
-Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl
(Image Courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
