Spoilers ahead for the series premiere of Buddy Games on CBS, hosted by Josh Duhamel!
Buddy Games debuted in the 2023 TV schedule as CBS’ newest competition series, but the show hosted by Josh Duhamel definitely isn’t a redo of Survivor or Big Brother. This show pits six teams of close friends against each other in challenges that range from physically daunting to downright bonkers in pursuit of the $200,000 prize. Duhamel, who has played “buddy games” with his own friends across decades, spoke with CinemaBlend about trying out the obstacles that the competitors face, including his bold belly flop into a mud pit and the aftermath.
The host already explained that he “wanted to be down in the trenches” with the competitors and “wanted to get dirty” by doing everything himself that he was asking them to do. He quite literally got dirty when he was introducing the first series of obstacles, called Shockingly Fun, which involved a mud pit. Not holding back, he jumped face-first into the mud in a pretty epic belly flop while wearing a “Test Dummy” t-shirt. I brought up the belly flop while speaking with Josh Duhamel about Buddy Games, and he broke it down:
I didn’t tell anybody I was gonna do it, and Julie Pizzi, who runs [production company] Bunim Murray, was livid with me after I did that because she’s like, ‘Josh, what are you doing? You cannot get hurt!’ I was like, ‘I’m fine!’ Meanwhile, I had to pull a rock, a little pebble out of my eye. [laughs] But you know, sometimes you can’t ask permission [because] you know they’ll say no, so I just did it knowing that it’d be used. Yeah, some of the things they would let me do, and after that they didn’t. They had a little bit less trust in me.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission sometimes when it comes to hosting Buddy Games, apparently! If it looked to you like Josh Duhamel risked some bodily harm by all but face-planting into a pit of mud – which was even hyped ahead of time in the CBS promotion – then you weren’t alone.
Fortunately, he didn’t spend the rest of the premiere wearing an eyepatch or looking worse for the wear beyond some mud, so a little pebble in the eye didn’t ruin the experience. So, did he have a strategy for how he wanted to fling himself into the mud? Duhamel answered that very question, saying:
No, I just went for it. I just wanted to do a belly flop into the mud.
And that’s why Josh Duhamel is the host of Buddy Games! Of course, as he mentioned early in the series premiere, he also made two scripted Buddy Games movies that he starred in and directed. The CBS competition series definitely explores games between pals in a different way, with six teams of friends (ideally) proving how ride-or-die they are for each other to fight for $200,000.
And while that’s pretty serious for the groups of competitors, every glimpse of Josh Duhamel – covered in mud or not – seemed like the host was having a whole lot of fun. I told him that some of my favorite parts of watching Buddy Games‘ premiere were the shots switching from the contestants looking stressed to Duhamel looking like he’s having the time of his life. He laughed and responded:
I just couldn’t believe how invested they all were. We’d ask them to do some pretty crazy shit, and they were just in. They were all-in. I was like, ‘Okay, they’re gonna do it. Here we go!’ [laughs] Because they really, really wanted to win and that’s what I love. They all had that competitive fire that we wanted them to have and they were willing to do anything to win this thing.
So, who has enough competitive fire to win the $200,000? That remains to be seen, although Philly Forever already had to say goodbye to one member of the team. Find out which team comes out on top with new episodes of Buddy Games on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, or streaming with a Paramount+ subscription. Josh Duhamel still has plenty of obstacles to try out for himself before sending the contestants out to tackle them!
Buddy Games also won’t be the network’s only competition show on the airwaves this fall. Survivor and The Amazing Race will be super-sized on Wednesday nights with 90-minute episodes. In fact, the CBS fall 2023 TV schedule is branching out from its usual lineup, with Buddy Games as one of the new unscripted options.