“Survivor” host Jeff Probst reacts to epic Tom Cruise Olympic flag delivery (exclusive)

"Man, I'm no Tom Cruise."

A seemingly ageless star of an adventure franchise dramatically delivers a precious item from overseas to Los Angeles via motorcycle, airplane, and skydiving. Tom Cruise at the Olympics? Absolutely not! We’re talking about Jeff Probst on Survivor!

Yes, Cruise’s epic Olympic flag delivery brought to mind many of the actor’s jaw-dropping action sequences as Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible films. But it also had Survivor fans feeling a profound sense of Déjà vu. That’s because Probst used to do pretty much the exact same thing with the urn containing the votes from final Tribal Council, delivering them by all means of dramatic (and sometimes comedic) transportation from the farthest reaches of the earth to back here in the United States for a live reading and reunion show.

The Survivor host and showrunner first made his dramatic vote-delivery mark back in 2002 at the end of the Survivor: Marquesas season, jumping in a helicopter, flying to New York City, hailing a cab, and then arriving in Central Park with the votes. (Enjoy that first somewhat tame stab at over-the-top drama below.)

That was followed a year later by the far grander entrance for Survivor: The Amazon, when Probst hopped on a jet ski and miraculously jet skied all the way from Brazil to New York City, pausing to pay tribute to the Statue of Liberty… as one does. He then hilariously hopped on the subway — just barely squeezing through the closing doors — taking the train to the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway for the final vote reading. (Feast your eyes below.)

However, the true piece de resistance took place at the conclusion of the Survivor: Vanuatu season in 2004, when Probst bushwacked through a jungle Indiana Jones-style before coming across a small prop plane that somehow had enough gas to take him all the way to the California desert. At that point, Probst jumped out of the plane and skydived down to a waiting motorcycle, which he then hopped on and drove all the way to CBS Studios in Los Angeles. (This must-watch adventure can be seen below.)

So when Cruise employed the same skydiving and motorcycle combination from Paris to Hollywood, Survivor fans could not help but take notice. And neither could friends of Probst, who immediately started texted the Hostmaster General about it, leading him to ponder a chicken and the egg scenario. “I think the question with the Tom Cruise ending ceremony bit is: Did Tom Cruise steal from Survivor, or did Survivor steal from Mission: Impossible?” wonders Probst.

“Because I really loved watching him do that,” he continues. “And it did make me realize: Man, I'm no Tom Cruise. That dude jumped on his motorcycle and rode through the streets, and then jumped out of a helicopter. I'm surprised he didn't catch a bad guy in the progress! That was super fun.”

And it was super fun for Survivor fans to harken back to a time when the host also did such gloriously ridiculous stunts to deliver the final Tribal Council votes. “I did love the comparisons,” Probst admits. “I had a lot of people text me and say, ‘Probst, Tom Cruise is doing a Survivor! Tom Cruise is doing his version of bringing the votes back from the island!’ And the first question I had was: Wait a minute, is he imitating me or have I been imitating him all these years?”

Entertainment Weekly has been bugging Probst for years to bring back his Mission: Impossible style vote delivery. In 2014, the host revealed to EW that they had actually started filming a vote delivery that involved him skateboarding the votes to the reunion show, but when it came to a skateboarding trick he was supposed to perform as part of the bit, he realized, “I can't do this! So we never aired it, and that was the last one."

When asked about it again during the Winners at War season in 2020, Probst once again recounted the skateboarding snafu (which can be watched in the video at the top of the article), and also explained the reason they no longer happen. "It was fun to do it. We did it several times. And we always had a very fun, tongue-in-cheek way of doing it. But I don't want to repeat. We don't want to do it just to do it and waste time out of our finale, which is already so packed there's no time for the reunion show. So I just still don't have a great idea.”

With Survivor having shifted to a pre-taped after-show filmed on location in Fiji and no longer even staging a live vote reading or reunion, there is no current cause for Probst to deliver the votes in epic, dramatic fashion. But should they ever return to the live format — say, for the highly anticipated season 50 that will air in 2026 — would the host consider bringing back his action-packed transportation hop now that Tom Cruise has raised the stakes with a full stadium abseil? “Put it in the hopper,” Probst says in terms of considering it. “But no promises.”

It sounds like Survivor fans’ own mission impossible to get their favorite host back on a jet ski continues.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.