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CNN Larry King Live

Inside "Fear Factor"

Aired August 26, 2004 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, inside "Fear Factor": the gross-outs, the death-defying stunts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't do this!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And the things you didn't see on TV.

Joining us to take your calls and your dares, Monica and Jackson Jackson, winners of the million dollar couples competition who used their prize to get married in Vegas. Mazeltov. We've got a little wedding gift for them, too.

Cassandra Johnson, a stunning beauty, who ate live spiders. Carmen Taglia, his boat-to-boat jump was one of the show's scariest spills. Teresa Lin, the swimsuit model with an inspiring rags-to- riches story. Tara Darby, winner the Miss USA "Fear Factor," and the host of "Fear Factor," Joe Rogan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, HOST, "FEAR FACTOR": This is now officially the closest I've ever come to puking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He gives us some behind the scenes dirt on all these contestants. It's all next -- if you dare -- on LARRY KING LIVE.

"Fear Factor" is seen Monday nights on NBC at 8 Eastern. The show is now in its fifth season. "Fear Factor" had a season premiere on August 30 with a couples reunion. It has been an extraordinary success. "Variety" declared the show the unsung hero of the reality TV genre.

Its host is Joe Rogan. He's the co-host of "The Man Show" on Comedy Central, a very funny standup comic, and was a co-star on the very successful series, "News Radio."

How did you get "Fear Factor"?

ROGAN: Just auditioned. They asked me about it, and we took a camera on the street and I just interviewed some people. They just wanted to see how I interacted with people. KING: Did you like the idea of the show?

ROGAN: I thought it was funny, you know. I couldn't believe it was real. You know, my agent called me up and said, "There's a show they're going to sic dogs on people. You want to host it?"

And I was like, "Really? This is -- this is going to be real show?"

You know, I really didn't think it was going to be very successful. I thought it was going to be canceled immediately.

KING: So why do you think it is successful?

ROGAN: It's -- it's a well-produced freak show you know. That's why. It's -- There's a lot of elements to it.

I mean, it's the competition aspect. Many people like sports. They like watching people compete. They like seeing people rise to the occasion, so that's that part of it.

And then there's the big part of it is the disgusting stuff, you know, the sick stuff.

KING: But why do we like gross?

ROGAN: I don't know. I don't know. But we do.

KING: You like it?

ROGAN: I don't like the smell of it. I would much prefer to watch it on TV. I think, you know, it's -- it's silly, you know. It's mindless entertainment. That's what it is. And it's...

KING: Do you know why people come on?

ROGAN: I think there's a bunch of reasons why they come on. There's a bunch of different reasons.

KING: Money?

ROGAN: Some of it's money. Sometimes people come on for money. Some people come on because they're basically attention whores. And they'll just -- they'll do anything to get on TV. They couldn't get on "The Bachelor." And you know...

KING: Jerry Springer turned them down.

ROGAN: "Big Brother" wouldn't let them on, so they're on "Fear Factor."

There's that. There's people who are just looking for fun. You know, they watch the show. They're fans of the show and they say, "Let's just do it. Come on, one week. What's the big deal? Let's go have a good time."

And that's one of the reasons why some people...

KING: Most of the time it appears that you don't like some of the contestants.

ROGAN: Well, some of them are idiots. Yes, definitely. I mean, there's a lot of people on the show that I would never talk to in real life. You know, there's probably a solid 20 percent of people who I just, I would never talk to. I just would not -- and I'm stuck with them for three days.

KING: I'm told we have a medic standing by tonight. You have a medic standing by at all shows?

ROGAN: Yes, we have a medic. Absolutely. We always have a medic. We always have an ambulance on hand. I mean, some of the shows are -- some of the stunts are, you know, they're pretty risky. I mean, you -- we take as many safety precautions as we possibly can, and we -- they work really hard on that...

KING: That our medic?

ROGAN: ... to make the stunts safe. There's -- That's our medic, right there. One of them.

KING: OK. And he's ready to go to town in case something happens.

ROGAN: Yes. In case somebody chokes.

KING: Have a lot of bad things happened?

ROGAN: No, no. I mean, Carmen's wipeout that we showed in the opening clip is probably...

KING: He hit the boat didn't he?

ROGAN: ... one of the worst ones ever. But it's basically it's the same kind of injuries that you'd get playing a game of touch football, you know. Just helicopters and jet skis and...

KING: What's the most embarrassing -- what's the weirdest thing that happened?

ROGAN: The weirdest thing?

KING: Yes, in your history with it.

ROGAN: The weirdest thing are -- they always involve the eating stunts, because I just -- I really -- I don't have a very strong stomach for eating disgusting things.

KING: Me, either. I can't look at it.

ROGAN: Well, smelling it is a lot harder than looking at it. The smelling is really hard. But that's the weirdest thing to me is how willing people are to just devour just disgusting things. KING: I'm told that we have here a python in the studio.

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Can we bring on the snake?

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Now...

ROGAN: This is Chris and Josh. Chris is one of our animal wranglers and Josh is...

KING: This is a real python.

ROGAN: That's a real one. Hey, what's up?

KING: Now, tell me -- tell me what the role of this python is.

ROGAN: Sometimes we have extra rabbits, and he needs to kill them. I don't know. To be honest with you, we never used this guy before.

KING: Do you know why he's on this show tonight?

ROGAN: I do not know, but.

KING: Neither do I, Joe, and I'm the host.

ROGAN: He's so heavy.

KING: Why is he here?

ROGAN: I don't know. But it's pretty cool.

KING: Will someone give me the reason why?

ROGAN: Well, just...

KING: He's been in some of the challenges, I'm told?

ROGAN: He was in -- we had him a couple times. We had people -- we put them in with snakes.

KING: In a room?

ROGAN: In a coffin. We covered them with snakes, and he was one of the -- one of the snakes.

KING: You seem very at home with him.

ROGAN: You know what, man, I'm jaded. I'll tell you what. I really, like, I tell people how much my tolerance for disgusting things has changed.

Like my girlfriend puked in her car. She got sick. She ate something that was bad. And she was driving in the highway. And she couldn't stop, and she threw up. And she was crying.

And she's like, "I threw up in my car, and I can't clean it because I'm going to throw up again."

I was like, "I'll clean it."

I didn't care. I'm just so used to disgusting things.

KING: This snake is a veteran of the television...

ROGAN: Yes. Is it a he or a she?

KING: Is it a he or a she? How do we know? Oh, you're out of your mind.

Have you gotten sick doing this show?

ROGAN: Maybe. I think this is fascinating. You don't think this animal is fascinating?

KING: Beautiful animal -- over there, over there!

ROGAN: Over there?

KING: Over there.

ROGAN: It's going towards you, man. I don't think it liked that.

KING: I don't like -- I don't like that little thing that comes out of -- stop that!

ROGAN: Come over here, baby.

KING: What's that thing coming out of -- Jack Hanna tells me...

ROGAN: That's to look for food. That's to look...

KING: I know, like you.

ROGAN: I don't think it could eat me. It's probably eat my arm, but the medic will save me before that happens.

KING: But could he sting you?

ROGAN: Well, he's got -- He definitely has teeth. This is a python. I mean, this thing has real teeth.

KING: I've heard of them.

ROGAN: Yes. They eat giant rabbits. Giant rabbits? How big is a giant rabbit?

KING: So you use them like -- you put someone in a -- in a coffin.

ROGAN: Yes. And we covered them with these snakes.

KING: And put this snake in the coffin with them.

ROGAN: Yes. They're well fed.

KING: What do they get for that, like?

ROGAN: If they win, they get $50,000. But that's only the second stunt, so they're still going to have to go through another one to get to the final.

KING: You have to win?

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: And you lose, what, by jumping out of the coffin? Freaking and running away?

ROGAN: Yes. If you can't handle it, yes. You lose.

KING: How often do you do this? Every week?

ROGAN: Yes, we do it every week. We do about 34 episodes a year. That's what we did last year. This year it's probably going to be somewhere around the same, too.

KING: And who dreams them up?

ROGAN: Not me. So if you're watching the show and you get angry, don't get angry at me.

KING: Is there a person who's...

ROGAN: There's a whole group of people. There's a whole group of people that -- the different people develop what we call the "B" stunts, which are the gross stunts. Different people develop the physical stunts.

KING: They're not psychotics, right?

ROGAN: No. Everybody's very friendly. It's just one of the nicest shows I've ever worked on, believe it or not.

KING: Really?

ROGAN: Yes. It's -- it's -- one of the best things about the show is that everyone who works on the show is really cool. There's a really friendly producer. There's really friendly staff. Everybody's very nice.

KING: Here's an example of what happens on the show. We'll take a quick look at this and then we'll take a break. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Forty-one point two seconds is all that separates you guys from a nice trip to Vegas. Now, go out and don't freak out.

Here we go in three, two, one, go! You've got to get 10 chicken feet out. That's one. Move it!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can do it. Come on, baby. We're going to Vegas. Come on.

ROGAN: That's two. Oh, yes, he's not shy. That's three!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Four, five. Come on, Jackson, come on, 1:05. You can do this. One more, last one! You can do this! Last one, Jackson! Time, yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joe Rogan remains with us, for reasons unbeknownst to me. The host of "Fear Factor."

And we're joined now by Monica and Jackson Jackson. You have the same first and last name?

CHRIS "JACKSON" JACKSON, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: No, it's actually Chris Jackson.

KING: Why do they call you Jackson Jackson?

J. JACKSON: Everybody calls me Jackson. It's been that way for years. I have no idea why they came up with Jackson Jackson.

KING: Before we ask how you got on the show, the executive producer is Matt Kunitz.

J. JACKSON: Kunitz.

KING: Kunitz. And he was quoted as saying you have a better chance to get into Harvard than to get on "Fear Factor." True?

ROGAN: Well, we have about 30,000 people sign up for it every year.

KING: Point five percent. One out of every 200 applicants get in.

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Why did you apply, Monica?

MONICA JACKSON, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: I actually didn't apply. It was more Jackson. He wanted to do it, and we went down to audition. KING: Were you married then?

M. JACKSON: No, we were engaged.

KING: OK.

M. JACKSON: Yes.

KING: And you wanted to do it?

J. JACKSON: Oh, yes, yes, I've been watching since the first episode.

KING: And -- and why, Jackson?

J. JACKSON: It's awesome. And plus, I never had $50,000, so I thought I was going in competing for 50 grand and ain't much I wouldn't do for 50 grand.

KING: Did you win?

J. JACKSON: Yes. Yes, we won a lot.

M. JACKSON: We won a million.

KING: Well, that's right. You won the overall show.

M. JACKSON: Yes, we won the big event.

KING: Why did you go? Because Jackson said go, you went?

M. JACKSON: Well...

J. JACKSON: No, no, they tossed me. They took her.

M. JACKSON: They actually kept me, which -- they kept me there and he was back for my second callback. And they brought us both in, and we tried out. And it was better to not do it by myself. I was going to do it, because he wanted me to do it.

J. JACKSON: It's always good to bring a hot chick with you. That takes you right in.

KING: Let's watch one of the challenges faced by Monica and Jackson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: Oh!

J. JACKSON: Damn it!

M. JACKSON: I said, don't let go!

J. JACKSON: That's it, baby!

M. JACKSON: God!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Are you there when they're doing this, Joe?

ROGAN: Yes, yes.

KING: You go to all the stunts?

ROGAN: Yes, for all of them. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

KING: Why did you do that?

M. JACKSON: Why did I do the show? Or why did I do that?

KING: Why did you do that?

M. JACKSON: Well, because it was for a million dollars and so, and that one particular stunt we were competing for two cars. And so -- and I'm not really afraid of heights, and that was a good stunt for us. But that was probably the show that -- the only stunt we thought...

J. JACKSON: Yes, that was my biggest screw-up on the show. I haven't lived that one down yet. I get it all the time.

KING: When did you get married?

J. JACKSON: In April. April.

KING: You marry them?

ROGAN: I actually -- Yes, I married them.

KING: You're a...?

ROGAN: I'm an ordained minister. Online. I'm from online, on the Internet.

J. JACKSON: Yes, yes.

KING: You can Web yourself into being a minister?

ROGAN: Yes. Yes, you can.

KING: Can I be a rabbi?

ROGAN: Sure. You want to do it?

KING: I can Web myself into being a rabbi?

ROGAN: Yes, probably.

KING: And he married you?

J. JACKSON: Yes. KING: Where'd you get married?

M. JACKSON: We went to Vegas, and we got married at the Mandalay Bay (ph). And we got married on April fool's.

KING: Did they give you -- figures. Did they give you your million dollars?

J. JACKSON: Yes, they did. Yes.

KING: Well, we have a little surprise for you tonight.

M. JACKSON: That's what we heard.

J. JACKSON: Yes. Sounds good.

M. JACKSON: I know.

KING: In honor of your wedding, we have, courtesy of "Fear Factor" and LARRY KING LIVE.

ROGAN: And my friend Josh.

KING: And Josh. Chef Josh Silverberg, a wedding cake!

J. JACKSON: I fear Josh when we do the stunt. Josh should be feared.

KING: Now Joe, tell us about this cake.

ROGAN: This is a wedding cake. I don't know a whole lot about it, Larry.

KING: You want me to tell them?

ROGAN: Sure.

KING: OK, here's the challenge, guys. This is not just a cake.

J. JACKSON: It's not?

KING: This is a cake -- this is a cake -- we'll give you $500. This is a cake made of worm and bugs.

M. JACKSON: Oh, gross!

ROGAN: It looks good like this, right?

KING: What are you giving me a plate for?

M. JACKSON: You have to eat with us.

KING: Go ahead, cut it.

ROGAN: I'm going to slice a piece off.

M. JACKSON: This is so gross. You have to be kidding, right?

Is it gummy bear worms?

ROGAN: I don't know.

J. JACKSON: Yes, it's gummy bears.

M. JACKSON: It doesn't smell bad. Oh, that's gross!

J. JACKSON: Yes, that's nasty.

KING: There they are.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God, what is that?

ROGAN: Worms.

M. JACKSON: That's a red worm.

ROGAN: Turn it so other people can see.

J. JACKSON: I have what's called lack of incentive here.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God, that is disgusting.

ROGAN: Five hundred bucks doesn't seem like a lot, right?

M. JACKSON: What is that crawling out of it?

KING: Come on, you guys are good sports, let's go.

J. JACKSON: I'll eat the cake.

ROGAN: I need a spatula.

KING: It's real cake. It's real cake. Let's put it on the plate.

M. JACKSON: Oh, no! That's OK. You want to try some, Larry?

KING: No, no, no.

ROGAN: You guys don't want any?

J. JACKSON: I'll take a piece of cake.

KING: Five hundred bucks.

J. JACKSON: I ain't going to eat the bugs.

ROGAN: How much -- you've got to eat the bugs.

KING: Somebody's got to eat the bugs, then you get it.

ROGAN: You know, these guys went through so much. These guys were on the show for seven weeks. For seven weeks, that he had to endure three stunts a week for seven weeks.

M. JACKSON: What's this black...?

ROGAN: Seven different...

KING: They're crawling all over the set. How did you make a cake like this?

ROGAN: Some sick pastry chef. One worm? One worm?

J. JACKSON: I'll eat one. It's one worm.

KING: Reminds me of dinner I had in Brooklyn.

M. JACKSON: Oh, gross!

J. JACKSON: It's one worm. That was worth $500, lady. You said it.

KING: You got it. What does a worm -- he's got it. You got the money for them, right? What does a worm taste like?

J. JACKSON: Actually, it tastes pretty good. It blends right in with the icing.

M. JACKSON: No, look at that. You want to eat this?

KING: That looks like a caterpillar.

J. JACKSON: No, that's a big black bug.

KING: That's a big black bug. You want to try it?

M. JACKSON: No.

J. JACKSON: Five hundred bucks.

KING: Follow the beetle. We gave you the $500.

J. JACKSON: Give me another $500.

KING: Give them another $500?

ROGAN: It's not my money.

KING: It's not my money.

M. JACKSON: Come on, Larry, you want to try a little bug?

KING: No!

J. JACKSON: The good part about here is you actually get some good flavor with your nasty flavor.

M. JACKSON: Yes. The cake actually smells good.

ROGAN: Oh, Carmen.

J. JACKSON: Oh!

ROGAN: Go sit down. We'll bring you in later.

KING: Carmen.

M. JACKSON: That's just so gross. There's like black...

KING: Dr. Lipschitz in the white wagon, waiting out front.

Congratulations, guys.

J. JACKSON: Thank you so much, yes. Definitely.

KING: Thank you for the worms.

J. JACKSON: Hey, that worm wasn't all that bad.

KING: When we come back, later we'll meet the maniac that came on and ate it. Krisandra Johnson will join us, contestant on "Fear Factor: Las Vegas." She dances in the NBA.

We'll be right back. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: You can do it!

J. JACKSON: You can do it!

ROGAN: Go!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God!

ROGAN: Hang on!

J. JACKSON: Talk to me.

ROGAN: Don't let go!

J. JACKSON: I love you. You're doing good! We got them beat. We got them beat.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God.

ROGAN: Don't let go!

J. JACKSON: Don't let go.

ROGAN: Whoa! Oh, my God.

J. JACKSON: Damn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Grab it! Do it! There you go. Get it. That's it. Get it. Get it. Do it! Do it! Just do it! Just do it now. There you go. Bite it. Take the head off. There you go. That's one. That's what I'm talking about! Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was Krisandra Johnson. She's now, by the way, Krisandra Shumpa. She got married...

KRISANDRA SHUMPA, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: Good job, yes.

KING: ... to Michael Shumpa, right?

SHUMPA: Very good memory.

KING: Let's watch what happened after she ate that spider. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Go like that. Go like that. Don't look at it. Just do it. You've done it already.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Two spiders you ate.

SHUMPA: Three.

KING: Three?

SHUMPA: Three spiders, yes.

KING: You said, Joe, it's not the skit, it's the contestant that you like.

ROGAN: Well...

KING: ... that determines how you like the show, right?

ROGAN: Sure, yes. If the show -- if there's six people on the show and three of them are just unbearably, unbearably dumb, it's hard. If they're jerks, it's not a fun week for me, but if it's they're cool people, it's fine.

KING: You dance for a team in the NBA?

SHUMPA: Yes, I dance for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

KING: I see. You like in Minneapolis?

SHUMPA: I live in Minneapolis. KING: And you married Mr. Shumpa?

SHUMPA: I married Mr. Shumpa, yes.

ROGAN: Let me tell you, Larry, that one thing where she had to eat that spider, that was the hardest I ever had to work to get someone to do something. Because I talked to her, literally, I talked her into it for like, what, 15 minutes?

SHUMPA: Seventeen minutes.

ROGAN: It was a long time before she did it. She wasn't going to do it. She was crying.

SHUMPA: It was awful. I didn't I didn't win anything.

KING: Do they give you...

ROGAN: She lost in the final stunt.

SHUMPA: I lost.

KING: Do you get consolation money?

ROGAN: No, there's no consolation on "Fear Factor."

KING: Wait, hold it, you eat a spider. You don't win, you get nothing.

ROGAN: You get nothing.

SHUMPA: But the crowd booed me. I had to eat the spider. They booed me.

ROGAN: They got a little annoyed after 17 minutes of me talking to you.

KING: Krisandra...

SHUMPA: It was for a car. I didn't even know what the car was.

KING: Krisandra, why did you go on the show?

SHUMPA: Because I thought it would be fun. You know, I just wanted to get the most that I can out of life. I'm a spontaneous person. And it wasn't a planned thing. I was getting ready for work that morning, and I heard an open call auditions at the Mall of America for "Fear Factor." I was like, "Fine. I think I might take an extended lunch."

KING: What do they do at the audition?

SHUMPA: Well, you sat in line for, like, hours. It's crazy. All these people.

KING: Then what? SHUMPA: And then you -- then there's like four different spots and you go up and you just talk.

KING: They don't ask you to do something nuts?

SHUMPA: No. You don't have to do anything. You just talk, and I'm good at that.

KING: And they learn your personality.

SHUMPA: Yes. Yes, yes.

KING: OK. We're going to ask you, Krisandra, to do something here.

SHUMPA: Uh-oh.

ROGAN: Uh-oh.

KING: OK. Here it comes.

SHUMPA: Oh, no.

KING: Here comes our chef. Chef's got to be a little weird. OK.

ROGAN: Your buddies. You remember these things?

KING: OK, we have a bunch of...

ROGAN: You remember these? These are the spiders that I tried to talk you...

KING: I'm not going to...

ROGAN: ... for 17 minutes to get you to eat one of these things. You want to eat another one? You saw how easy it was.

KING: I'll give you $500. Walk out of here with $500.

ROGAN: Five hundred bucks.

KING: More than Timberwolves pay.

SHUMPA: Oh, look, there's -- they're small ones this time.

ROGAN: You can grab a little one. You can have a little one.

SHUMPA: How come you didn't have small ones when I was on the show before?

KING: Take a small one.

ROGAN: We had a couple small ones.

SHUMPA: Guys! ROGAN: You could eat one of these.

SHUMPA: You know that Jay -- Jay had a tactic, and I saw his tactic.

KING: Do you want to do it or not? If you don't...

SHUMPA: Would somebody do it with me?

KING: Want to do it with her? All right. We have a lovely lady.

SHUMPA: Will you do it with me?

ROGAN: You really want to do this?

KING: Come on. Sheryl Shneb (ph), one of our top producers here, top production staff on LARRY KING LIVE. She's the lovely Sarah Shneb (ph). This is her debut on camera. She's going to eat...

For this you get $500. You can't take money on the show. Right? We pay you too well.

ROGAN: Larry King Cardiac Foundation.

SHUMPA: I'm not going to cry this time.

SHERYL SHNEB (ph), PRODUCER: Who does this? Ready?

SHUMPA: You want to...

SHNEB (ph): I didn't know how to do it.

ROGAN: You want to avoid the pinchers.

SHUMPA: Yes.

ROGAN: These are African cave-dwelling spiders.

SHUMPA: Pick them up at their elbows.

KING: Elbows? You see elbows?

SHUMPA: Yes, they're like this.

KING: Go ahead. Do it with her. Do it together. We'll have...

SHUMPA: No. No!

SHNEB (ph): Who does this? Who does this?

SHUMPA: Oh my gosh, wait! Oh, my gosh! Oh!

SHNEB (ph): That's disgusting.

SHUMPA: So now... KING: You've got to go on.

ROGAN: You got to do one, too.

SHUMPA: You guys, are they...

SHNEB (ph): They're biting me. Oh, gosh. It's so gross.

SHUMPA: I hate these things.

KING: Eat it, do it already, all right?

ROGAN: Yes. Exactly. Two minutes.

SHUMPA: It's so nasty.

ROGAN: If it was up to her, the program would be...

SHNEB (ph): I did it. It is so...

ROGAN: Go ahead. Go, go, go.

KING: Go ahead. Go ahead.

ROGAN: Here she goes.

SHUMPA: Oh, no! Oh, no!

ROGAN: What is wrong with America?

KING: Now...

ROGAN: Ladies and gentlemen...

KING: Is there any question...

ROGAN: This is a part of the problem.

SHUMPA: Oh, it tastes like dirt.

KING: ...about the health of these two people?

ROGAN: No, we run -- that's one thing we do, whenever we had to feed them bugs or anything we feed them, we actually grind them up and run them through a lab to make sure they're not toxic and make sure they're all edible.

And most of the things we eat are actually commonly eaten in some weird culture somewhere in the world.

KING: Would you eat one?

ROGAN: For a lot of money, but not for 500 bucks. No, I'll pass. Thanks, though.

SHNEB (ph): It's so chewy. It's so chewy. SHUMPA: It tastes so gross.

KING: Well, what does it taste like?

SHNEB (ph): Dirt and tree bark.

SHUMPA: Dirt.

SHNEB (ph): Protein, I keep thinking protein. Protein, protein.

KING: It was alive when you swallowed it. So how could you...

ROGAN: Murderer! Murderer!

SHUMPA: You know what? The smaller ones aren't so bad. Like, we had the big ones.

ROGAN: Like lobsters. The small ones are more tasty.

SHUMPA: The small ones are easier but the big ones are...

KING: Why do you -- why do you scream like that?

SHUMPA: Because I hate spiders and I get scared. And they're just ugly.

ROGAN: She's from Minnesota.

SHUMPA: I'm from North Dakota, actually.

KING: No money for that and you ate it. You're still chewing it.

SHUMPA: I'm going to need some dental floss, I think.

ROGAN: We'll have some for you.

SHUMPA: All right.

KING: Thank you for coming back, Krisandra. You're a great sport.

Thanks for helping.

SHUMPA: Yes.

KING: Thanks for...

SHUMPA: Yes.

KING: Well, Sarah, it's a great debut to come on this show, but I think "Fear Factor" is going to invite you on. Would you do that?

SHUMPA: That's a challenge.

SHNEB (ph): Right on. KING: Go on, man.

ROGAN: We'll have a producer's episode.

KING: A producer's episode. Any gimmick will work.

When we come back, Carmen. Carmen, the man who ran on and ate the worms. The worm eater. He'll be back, and he'll join us and don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Three, two, one, drop her!

All right, let's see if she can pull it off. She seems very determined, very calm under water, very zen-like. Working the latches. Working on the fourth lock, so this is right around where Louise started running out of air.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's got it.

ROGAN: Two locks away. Staying calm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's got it.

ROGAN: She's got it! She's got it. Now she has to get out of the vest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what I'm talking about.

CROWD: Go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's on Monday nights at 8:00 Eastern, just in time for the young the kids before they go to bed to see what adults do.

The show is "Fear Factor." Joe Rogan is its very funny, very talented host. And he's also co-host of "The Man Show" on Comedy Central.

Joining us now, Carmen Taglia, winner of second chance edition of "Fear Factor." He came on earlier, ate the worm-filled snake -- worm- filled cake. And Teresa Lynn competitor in "Female Model's Fear Factor." She's a swimsuit model from Taipei, Taiwan.

Carmen, had that boat -- you had the boat accident.

CARMEN TAGLIA, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: Yep.

KING: You got hit in the head, right?

TAGLIA: The boat came after me, Larry. It just came after me. There's nothing you could do, but block it with your head. KING: Carmen, why do you -- why did you do it?

TAGLIA: I'm burnt, man. I'm just a little burnt, a little toasty.

KING: You're a sicko, in other words.

TAGLIA: I never had it easy.

KING: Where are you from? There you are, Carmen.

ROGAN: It's the worst wipeout we've ever had even on the show. Without a doubt. We were just so happy he still had a head when he came out of the water.

KING: How badly were you hurt?

TAGLIA: Well, you know. I'm all right now. I had a little -- I got a few ticks. I'm all right.

KING: Did you win money?

TAGLIA: Not that time, but on Second Chance I did.

KING: What did you win?

TAGLIA: 50 g's.

ROGAN: We want him back for another episode. We had "Second Chance Fear Factor."

KING: You figured you owed him that.

ROGAN: Well, he's a fun guy, yes. We brought some of the -- some of our favorite losers.

KING: Where do you come from?

TAGLIA: Chicago.

KING: Teresa, why did you do this?

TERESA LIN, FEAR FACTOR CONTESTANT: I did this, because it was a challenge. And I've always been taught to face all of my challenges and just bring it on, you know, whatever happens, happens. This is something that was completely out of the ordinary.

KING: Can you say it was enjoyable?

LIN: I have to say that there were parts of it that was enjoyable, but for the most part, you're not in there for enjoyment. You're in there to test yourself. And I have to say, this is a show about intestinal fortitude. And until you get on there and you're faced with the stunts, you're not sure all the money and all the prizes, I think it melts away and it's really about whether or not you, between you and yourself, whether or not you can do it. KING: Do you live in Taiwan?

LIN: I don't. I moved out of there when I was 8.

KING: Where do you live now?

LIN: I live in Los Angeles. Right here.

KING: Let's see -- we're going to watch Teresa do some gator hunting. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Lift it up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got it.

ROGAN: Grab that gator. Come on, Teresa.

No hesitant. She's hustling.

5:45. You got two minutes.

That's it! That's all the time left. You got to get him out. You got to get him out. Little farther. Time!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Were you scared?

LIN: No. It wasn't about scared.

KING: It was about...

LIN: Fright. It was more about the physical ability to do that. I think...

KING: Pull the gator.

LIN: It wasn't just that, it was the cold factor. It was humongous.

KING: Now Carmen, did you train a lot for your second stunt?

TAGLIA: Oh, yes. The second time I went on, I went like Rocky nuts. I just went crazy. Dropped 40 pounds in two months. I was watching like Rudy movies and Rocky movies getting mentally motivated.

KING: What did they have you do, Carmen?

TAGLIA: The second time around I had to go from one helicopter to another helicopter. Across a bridge.

ROGAN: See this right here, this was the most disgusting stunt we've ever done ever without a doubt. They had blended maggots, they had to suck them out of a bowl. KING: You did this, Carmen?

ROGAN: Soda carton half filled with flies. They had to suck the blended maggots out of the bowl, spit them into the soda glass filled flies and then drink it all. It was nasty.

TAGLIA: Did I look fat eating those maggots?

ROGAN: No, you looked good.

KING: You wouldn't have done that, would you Teresa?

LIN: I don't know.

KING: You like challenges.

LIN: I do like challenges. And I am Chinese. And Chinese people have been known to eat a lot of things. But thank God, I didn't have to eat anything for my episode. So I don't know.

KING: Do people of my persuasion ever go on Fear Factor?

ROGAN: Sure, sure.

KING: You have Jewish people that do this?

ROGAN: Absolutely.

KING; That would eat that stuff.

ROGAN: We take all of this -- these races...

KING: I know you would take them, but do they volunteer?

ROGAN: Sure. Absolutely.

KING: Carmen, you're sick.

TAGLIA: Thank you.

KING: It's a compliment to you.

Well, we got a little something for the both of you. Joe is going to give us a sneak peek of the 100th episode by making rat stew.

ROGAN: Welcome back, Josh.

LIN: I spoke too soon.

KING: All right.

ROGAN: Josh loves his job, by the way.

KING: What we're going to do is challenge Carmen and Teresa to a race.

How does this work?

ROGAN: This is -- we serve them this. We blended up rats in the middle of Times Square for our 100th episode. This is a little sneak preview of it. It hasn't actually aired yet. But this is how it works -- how it works is, we do this. Just put it in here. Open up the top. What that?

LIN: But what's that? Is that chocolate?

ROGAN: That's nasty fish sauce.

TAGLIA: Ain't no chocolate.

ROGAN: And this is a rat. And you throw it in there and you blend it up. You want to watch?

KING: Yes.

LIN: Oh, my, oh! That's inhumane.

KING: It's a dead rat.

ROGAN: It's dead. It's OK. Oh, that smell though, Oh!

LIN: No, inhumane to me.

(LAUGHTER)

ROGAN: You don't have to do it.

KING: I smell something already.

LIN: That's true.

KING: Let's go.

ROGAN: Tail, fur, everything baby!

LIN: Whoa!

ROGAN: We have three seasons away from The Running Man.

LIN: Oh!

ROGAN: You hear that? That's the feet. The scratching? That's the feet.

KING: What do you want them to do?

ROGAN: Eat it.

KING: Drink it. In a race? How is this going to work?

LIN: Usually, we'd partake, but this is -- there's a Chinese thing that when it's your birthday, you're not supposed to eat rat. It's really bad luck. ROGAN: It's Teresa's birthday.

KING: Oh, Happy birthday.

LIN: Thank you.

KING: Want to do it, Carmen? $500. You get 500 bucks.

TAGLIA: It is the year of the rat, right?

ROGAN: Carmen's an animal.

KING: You can smell it now.

TAGLIA: Do I have to do the whole thing?

KING: Oh, no.

ROGAN: You don't have to do the whole thing. Just take a few mouthfuls. OK?

TAGLIA: Ooh!

KING: Oh!

TAGLIA: Like tuna, right? Why do you hate me, Larry?

KING: Take it and get out of here.

LIN: Oh!

ROGAN: I can't watch, I will throw up.

LIN: I won't throw up.

KING: Medical, medical! OK.

TAGLIA: Why do you hate me, Larry? I thought you were my friend.

ROGAN: That was so unnecessary.

KING: Carmen, my belief, Carmen, that you hate yourself and this is a way of showing it.

TAGLIA: You might be correct.

KING: Teresa, you would not.

ROGAN: Good for you. Let's get this out of here.

KING: Tell me, Joe Rogan, big man, would you have eaten it?

ROGAN: Hell no. Hell no.

Well, you know what, I got to tell you, Larry, if I was broke, back when I was a struggling comedian and I was eating peanut butter sandwiches, I'd probably eat it.

LIN: No, you wouldn't have.

ROGAN: If I thought I could win $50,000, I'd probably do it.

KING: Was it the money that drove you, Joe, to go to this show?

TAGLIA: No, it's fun. It's really fun. It's to get everybody's reaction.

ROGAN: Was that fun?

TAGLIA: And later on...

ROGAN: Got a minute?

TAGLIA: Later on, I got some

ROGAN: His hands are shaking.

TAGLIA: How does 50 tic-tacs taste like.

KING: What do you do for a living?

TAGLIA: Graphic designer, advertising.

KING: What do you do, you're a model, huh?

LIN: Yes, I'm also working to be a writer. We'll see how long that goes.

KING: Congratulations. You did it, man.

TAGLIA: Thank you.

KING: Got an extra $500 easy.

TAGLIA: Drinks are on me. Drinks are on me.

LIN: No, man. They're on me.

KING; I want to say something. Wasn't that -- really, grossly sick?

ROGAN: Appalling.

KING: In other words, that is -- that is...

ROGAN: The smell alone, I had to step out. I really thought I was going to throw up. And I wouldn't do that to you.

KING: That is...

ROGAN: Out of respect I had to get up.

KING: Now, you think that we -- all right. Did we lose audience then?

ROGAN: I don't know, probably gained. That's the sad thing.

KING: People call...

TAGLIA: I think I lost a few girlfriends.

KING: People called up, people said, you got the turn this on. You think that happens, right? People call up and people say, turn this on.

ROGAN: Probably, yes. That's the bizarre thing.

LIN: I think we're in the age where we live, a lot, vicariously through other people, through television. And that's...

ROGAN: And I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that. That's one of the reason's why people would watch that. The audio operator.

KING: The audio operator is on the way to China.

ROGAN: And he didn't even have to smell it. I literally had to get up. I thought I was going to throw up.

LIN: I want to know what culture they eat that regularly.

TAGLIA: Not the Italian culture. I'll tell you that.

ROGAN: We're running out of things to do that actually they eat in other cultures. So we do them in other dimension.

KING: You're going to do this on the 100th show.

ROGAN: Yes. We already did it. We did it...

KING: And someone drank it, right?

ROGAN: A whole bunch of people ate it. It was rough.

LIN: Didn't you have to eat a hissing roach once?

ROGAN: I ate a roach. I've eaten sheep's eyeballs...

KING: Thank you both, very -- keep the Tic-Tacs going.

Thank you Carmen. Thank you Teresa.

Give me one. Maybe it helps the smell.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: We'll be right back with Larry the Tarantula. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: He hit it nice. Ooh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that it right there? Oh, yeah, baby!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Stay calm, Martha (ph). You just relax in there. Come on, there you go. Doing great. Get her out of here, buddy. There you go. That's it. Long strokes. You're doing great. Excellent, taste, man! Excellent taste, Jackson! You're almost there, buddy! Yeah. That's it, man! Keep going. Yeah! Come on, opening! Beautiful!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Seems weird to mention this, but we'll be at the Republican National Convention all next week.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: With a live show Sunday night and two shows nightly Monday through Thursday, at 9:00 and midnight Eastern time. Many, many guests covering the convention. I have no comment. There's nothing you could say other than watch the convention next week.

ROGAN: It's an interesting comparison.

KING: Yeah, true. Interesting segue, OK.

Joe, we're going to take some calls. But I said to you, we should have a psychologist on this show to explain, and you said, maybe they wouldn't be...

ROGAN: I don't if they'd necessarily be accurate. I mean, they'd have to spend a lot of time with the people to figure out motivations.

KING: Why we watch it and why people come on, both.

ROGAN: It's all different. You know, it's different for different people, you know?

KING: You mentioned if you were broke...

ROGAN: Sure, if I was broke and I thought I could win $50,000, I would probably be willing to do it. But not for fun.

KING: Sequamish, Washington, we go to calls for Joe Rogan, hello.

CALLER: Hi. Joe, I have heard that when you went to audition for the host of "Fear Factor," that you were such a jerk that at first they didn't like you, and then that's why you got the job?

ROGAN: No, that I was making fun of it. I was -- I didn't take it seriously at all, and they thought that that wouldn't be a very good thing, to have a host who was making fun of the show. And somewhere along the line they changed their mind and thought that would actually be fun.

KING: Because you still make fun of it.

ROGAN: Yeah, well, I mean, it's ridiculous. How could you not make fun of it? I mean, how could you treat it seriously as if it's like some -- as if it's the Olympics or something, you know?

KING: We have a tarantula named after me?

ROGAN: Larry the tarantula.

KING: We're going to keep Larry on set. Is he kind of like a symbol of the show?

ROGAN: Well, Larry was on one of our episodes, and we've used Larry and Larry since has become a star. Larry was on "Extra." He was in a Hummer commercial. He's been in "Playboy." He's been in "Upfront" magazine, "California Lawyer" magazine, "E! News Live," and "The Strange Jobs Book." And Larry actually became a pet of Scott, one of the producers of the show, so he kept Larry.

KING: And that's my namesake.

ROGAN: That's your namesake, sir.

KING: All right. You stay here, Larry. Lancaster, Ohio. Hello.

CALLER: Hello there. I had a question for Joe.

KING: Sure.

CALLER: Hey, Joe, me and my girlfriend sent our tape in a couple of months ago and we actually got the call-back from producers, and they did a second interview with us. My question to you is, what can we expect? Do we have to wait a little bit longer to hear anything, and if we do get another call-back, what do we do to make it to the next level?

ROGAN: The best advice I can give to anybody who wants to be on the show is just show a lot of personality. Just be fun, have a good time. You know, that's what we're looking for, we're looking for people who would be interesting to watch on television.

But I don't know too much about the process. I really don't know, like, what they do to get you, you know -- I don't know how they get you on the show. I just know once you get on the show, then I talk to you.

KING: Do people sign waivers when they go on the show? ROGAN: It's a huge waiver, it's like 55 pages long. It's enormous.

KING: Saying I will not hold the show responsible if...

ROGAN: Yeah, it covers...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... eats me.

ROGAN: ... acts of God, earthquakes. Floods. UFOs.

KING: What about sickness, illness?

ROGAN: Everything.

KING: In other words, they give you their life.

ROGAN: Basically, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's all covered.

KING: Bowling Green, Virginia -- why don't Larry move?

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Bowling Green, Virginia. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Joe, my husband loves "Fear Factor," and I think you're a great host. And I have a question.

ROGAN: Thank you.

CALLER: I'd like to know, do the producers of "Fear Factor" get protest mail from animal rights group who consider the killing of animals and insects for TV disgusting? What do you say?

ROGAN: Probably. I'm sure they do, but, you know, they're bugs. I mean, if you're really worried that much about bugs when there are so many homeless people out there and so many people dying in other countries, it's really, I mean, pretty silly.

KING: In other words, when you look at it, though, rats died for this show tonight.

ROGAN: Those rats are actually feeder rats, anyway. The rats that we used were rats that they've already murdered. And they would feed them to snakes or whatever. Those are the ones we take, and we don't kill them specifically for the show.

KING: All right. Makes me feel better. Lexington, Kentucky. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry, I love your show. Hi, Joe.

ROGAN: Hi.

CALLER: It seems like all the contestants on "Fear Factor" are fairly young. Is there any age limit to compete, young or old, or...?

ROGAN: I believe they kind of stop somewhere around 35, 36 years old. But we've actually been considering having some older people come on the show. We have a lot of people that complain and...

KING: Why don't you have an old people "Fear Factor?"

ROGAN: Well, we can't have them too old, but we have some people that are in their 40s and maybe even their early 50s that are physically fit, and they want to...

KING: "Nursing Home Fear Factor!"

ROGAN: Maybe.

KING: "Social Security Fear Factor."

ROGAN: That's like season 20, when we get really -- we run out of ideas.

KING: I got -- we're old -- when we get really old, "Fear Factor," walk across the room.

ROGAN: Step on a marble.

KING: Step on a marble. I got to do something crazy. Eat the complete bowl of Cheerios without your teeth!

ROGAN: Oh, there you go. Nice.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Now, tell me why Larry...

ROGAN: Larry King, comedian.

KING: Tell me why Larry, the tarantula, why he has not moved?

ROGAN: Larry likes to chill. He's a big fan of your show. He's just honored to be here.

KING: We're honored to have you, Larry.

We've got one more segment left, and when we come back, Tara Darby, winner of "Miss USA Fear Factor" -- there goes Larry -- donated her winnings to the National Breast Cancer Coalition. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Not bad. God, that looks brutal. You already know what it tastes like. You already know you can swallow it. But whatever you do, don't get any of that slimy mess on your sash. Yes, big bite, nice. Twenty-five seconds left.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Swallow. ROGAN: Six, five, four, three, two, yeah!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: All right, she's got a hold of the bar. Time's moving fast. She's up! Wow, she's tough. Way to go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was the lovely Tara Darby. She was Miss Alabama in the 2004 Miss USA pageant, and what "Fear Factor" did was put together a whole bunch of Miss USA contestants -- Miss Michigan, Miss Utah, Miss West Virginia, Miss New Hampshire, Miss New York -- and had them -- why did you do this, Tara?

TARA DARBY, WON "MISS USA FEAR FACTOR": Well, I mean, certainly it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I could not pass it up, even though I think my mother begged me not to.

KING: Did you enjoy it? What can you say about your experience?

DARBY: Oh, it was incredible. I mean, I really didn't expect to get much out of it. I really am not cut out for that sort of thing. I'm not a risk taker at all. And so, I just thought that it would be a great week, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some of the girls that I would be spending another couple of weeks with at the pageant.

So I just really didn't expect, I certainly did not expect to win, so it was just incredible. The whole experience was so much fun. And then, to end like that, I mean, it was amazing.

KING: Did she win?

ROGAN: She won.

DARBY: I won.

KING: What did she win for that?

ROGAN: She won, well, she won $50,000, and half of it was donated to a charity of her choice. And Tara, what was your charity again?

DARBY: It was the National Breast Cancer Coalition. My grandmother had breast cancer, and I'm also an at-risk individual, so I thought that was just a very worthy cause.

KING: Boy, that is really -- in miniature golf competition, she hit a ball so hard it nearly hit you?

ROGAN: Yeah. KING: What happened?

ROGAN: She wasn't that good at miniature golf.

DARBY: No, I'm not.

ROGAN: But she's good at eating. So.

KING: You do miniature golf on "Fear Actor"?

ROGAN: Yeah, miniature golf, and they had to...

KING: Why is that a "Fear Factor?"

ROGAN: Well, when they, whatever strokes that they got, one, two or three, would represent the amount of sea cucumber that they had to eat, this disgusting creature, it is really foul and it was covered in rotten fish sauce, and it was awful. It smelled bad.

KING: I understand we have a clip of that. Let's be amused.

ROGAN: Tara was a trooper.

KING: Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Here comes number six. Now, you've got to be careful. Number six. Come on, Tara! Quick! You got to hurry!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: That was the first stunt she had to do.

KING: OK. We don't have the cucumber?

ROGAN: We actually showed it earlier, that disgusting slimy thing that she was eating earlier.

KING: OK. Want to show it again?

ROGAN: Ooh.

KING: No, I don't think so. Let's pass...

ROGAN: I am sure Tara wants to put that behind her.

KING: Let's pass on showing it again.

DARBY: Yeah, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KING: You're getting married this fall, Tara?

DARBY: I am. I'm getting married November 13.

KING: Congratulations. DARBY: Thanks.

KING: What do you want to do career-wise?

DARBY: Well, you know, that has been the question of the night. And I really don't have the best answer, but I just moved to Houston, Texas, and there's just so many opportunities here, I just am looking for the right path.

KING: You're not sorry you entered this?

DARBY: I'm not sorry I went to "Fear Factor"?

KING: Yeah.

DARBY: No, gosh no. I actually -- I wouldn't be able to finish school if I had not won that money, and also, I never would have been able to have a wedding, which has just been such a blessing.

KING: That's really great.

DARBY: Yeah. It's going to be a small wedding, but it never would have been impossible without Joe's cheerleading, you know, helping me get through that sea cucumber. So.

ROGAN: I didn't know if you were going to make it.

DARBY: I know.

KING: We've got one more quick call. Miami, hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry. Could you get Nancy Grace to eat that tarantula and how much would you pay her?

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Well, maybe -- no, Nancy would probably do it. Knowing Nancy Grace, she would probably do the scene.

Joe, how long are you committed to this show?

ROGAN: I think I have a contract for this season and the next. And we're -- it's picked up for a couple more seasons.

KING: Would you go back, Tara? Would you come back on?

DARBY: I don't know. I really think that it was just meant to be that I won, because, I mean, I was watching some of the clips earlier, and I never -- I mean, I couldn't do half of that stuff. I mean, it was just meant to be that I won. But I don't think it would ever happen again.

KING: Tara, thanks so much for joining us.

DARBY: Thank you for having me.

ROGAN: Thank you, Tara.

KING: Tara Darby, the winner of the "Miss USA Fear Factor."

We only have about 30 seconds left. Some big surprises coming in the new season? We saw one already.

ROGAN: They ramped it up, believe it or not. I mean, if you thought that the other seasons were crazy and you thought that some of the stunts were insane and some of the disgusting stunts were disgusting, it's even more insane and more disgusting.

KING: It's all done already.

ROGAN: No, right now we're about 13, 14 episodes in, and, you know, it's pretty rough.

KING: Thanks, Joe.

ROGAN: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

KING: A tribute to "Fear Factor."

I'll be back in a couple of minutes to tell you about tomorrow night. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Tomorrow night, kidnapped victims tell some harrowing stories. And then we're on our way to New York for the Republican Convention.

Right now, we're on our way to Atlanta. Aaron Brown has the night off, and hosting "NEWSNIGHT" tonight is our friend Miles O'Brien. And Miles, we're going to have an anchorman "Fear Factor," and CNN has invited, has sent you as their representative.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm dying for a Norwegian rat smoothie, Larry. It just sounds delicious.

KING: Oh, smells even better.

O'BRIEN: I got to tell you, it's better than the Atkins diet. I wouldn't eat anything. All right.

KING: Go get'em, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Larry.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired August 26, 2004 - 21:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, inside "Fear Factor": the gross-outs, the death-defying stunts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't do this!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And the things you didn't see on TV.

Joining us to take your calls and your dares, Monica and Jackson Jackson, winners of the million dollar couples competition who used their prize to get married in Vegas. Mazeltov. We've got a little wedding gift for them, too.

Cassandra Johnson, a stunning beauty, who ate live spiders. Carmen Taglia, his boat-to-boat jump was one of the show's scariest spills. Teresa Lin, the swimsuit model with an inspiring rags-to- riches story. Tara Darby, winner the Miss USA "Fear Factor," and the host of "Fear Factor," Joe Rogan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, HOST, "FEAR FACTOR": This is now officially the closest I've ever come to puking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He gives us some behind the scenes dirt on all these contestants. It's all next -- if you dare -- on LARRY KING LIVE.

"Fear Factor" is seen Monday nights on NBC at 8 Eastern. The show is now in its fifth season. "Fear Factor" had a season premiere on August 30 with a couples reunion. It has been an extraordinary success. "Variety" declared the show the unsung hero of the reality TV genre.

Its host is Joe Rogan. He's the co-host of "The Man Show" on Comedy Central, a very funny standup comic, and was a co-star on the very successful series, "News Radio."

How did you get "Fear Factor"?

ROGAN: Just auditioned. They asked me about it, and we took a camera on the street and I just interviewed some people. They just wanted to see how I interacted with people. KING: Did you like the idea of the show?

ROGAN: I thought it was funny, you know. I couldn't believe it was real. You know, my agent called me up and said, "There's a show they're going to sic dogs on people. You want to host it?"

And I was like, "Really? This is -- this is going to be real show?"

You know, I really didn't think it was going to be very successful. I thought it was going to be canceled immediately.

KING: So why do you think it is successful?

ROGAN: It's -- it's a well-produced freak show you know. That's why. It's -- There's a lot of elements to it.

I mean, it's the competition aspect. Many people like sports. They like watching people compete. They like seeing people rise to the occasion, so that's that part of it.

And then there's the big part of it is the disgusting stuff, you know, the sick stuff.

KING: But why do we like gross?

ROGAN: I don't know. I don't know. But we do.

KING: You like it?

ROGAN: I don't like the smell of it. I would much prefer to watch it on TV. I think, you know, it's -- it's silly, you know. It's mindless entertainment. That's what it is. And it's...

KING: Do you know why people come on?

ROGAN: I think there's a bunch of reasons why they come on. There's a bunch of different reasons.

KING: Money?

ROGAN: Some of it's money. Sometimes people come on for money. Some people come on because they're basically attention whores. And they'll just -- they'll do anything to get on TV. They couldn't get on "The Bachelor." And you know...

KING: Jerry Springer turned them down.

ROGAN: "Big Brother" wouldn't let them on, so they're on "Fear Factor."

There's that. There's people who are just looking for fun. You know, they watch the show. They're fans of the show and they say, "Let's just do it. Come on, one week. What's the big deal? Let's go have a good time."

And that's one of the reasons why some people...

KING: Most of the time it appears that you don't like some of the contestants.

ROGAN: Well, some of them are idiots. Yes, definitely. I mean, there's a lot of people on the show that I would never talk to in real life. You know, there's probably a solid 20 percent of people who I just, I would never talk to. I just would not -- and I'm stuck with them for three days.

KING: I'm told we have a medic standing by tonight. You have a medic standing by at all shows?

ROGAN: Yes, we have a medic. Absolutely. We always have a medic. We always have an ambulance on hand. I mean, some of the shows are -- some of the stunts are, you know, they're pretty risky. I mean, you -- we take as many safety precautions as we possibly can, and we -- they work really hard on that...

KING: That our medic?

ROGAN: ... to make the stunts safe. There's -- That's our medic, right there. One of them.

KING: OK. And he's ready to go to town in case something happens.

ROGAN: Yes. In case somebody chokes.

KING: Have a lot of bad things happened?

ROGAN: No, no. I mean, Carmen's wipeout that we showed in the opening clip is probably...

KING: He hit the boat didn't he?

ROGAN: ... one of the worst ones ever. But it's basically it's the same kind of injuries that you'd get playing a game of touch football, you know. Just helicopters and jet skis and...

KING: What's the most embarrassing -- what's the weirdest thing that happened?

ROGAN: The weirdest thing?

KING: Yes, in your history with it.

ROGAN: The weirdest thing are -- they always involve the eating stunts, because I just -- I really -- I don't have a very strong stomach for eating disgusting things.

KING: Me, either. I can't look at it.

ROGAN: Well, smelling it is a lot harder than looking at it. The smelling is really hard. But that's the weirdest thing to me is how willing people are to just devour just disgusting things. KING: I'm told that we have here a python in the studio.

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Can we bring on the snake?

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Now...

ROGAN: This is Chris and Josh. Chris is one of our animal wranglers and Josh is...

KING: This is a real python.

ROGAN: That's a real one. Hey, what's up?

KING: Now, tell me -- tell me what the role of this python is.

ROGAN: Sometimes we have extra rabbits, and he needs to kill them. I don't know. To be honest with you, we never used this guy before.

KING: Do you know why he's on this show tonight?

ROGAN: I do not know, but.

KING: Neither do I, Joe, and I'm the host.

ROGAN: He's so heavy.

KING: Why is he here?

ROGAN: I don't know. But it's pretty cool.

KING: Will someone give me the reason why?

ROGAN: Well, just...

KING: He's been in some of the challenges, I'm told?

ROGAN: He was in -- we had him a couple times. We had people -- we put them in with snakes.

KING: In a room?

ROGAN: In a coffin. We covered them with snakes, and he was one of the -- one of the snakes.

KING: You seem very at home with him.

ROGAN: You know what, man, I'm jaded. I'll tell you what. I really, like, I tell people how much my tolerance for disgusting things has changed.

Like my girlfriend puked in her car. She got sick. She ate something that was bad. And she was driving in the highway. And she couldn't stop, and she threw up. And she was crying.

And she's like, "I threw up in my car, and I can't clean it because I'm going to throw up again."

I was like, "I'll clean it."

I didn't care. I'm just so used to disgusting things.

KING: This snake is a veteran of the television...

ROGAN: Yes. Is it a he or a she?

KING: Is it a he or a she? How do we know? Oh, you're out of your mind.

Have you gotten sick doing this show?

ROGAN: Maybe. I think this is fascinating. You don't think this animal is fascinating?

KING: Beautiful animal -- over there, over there!

ROGAN: Over there?

KING: Over there.

ROGAN: It's going towards you, man. I don't think it liked that.

KING: I don't like -- I don't like that little thing that comes out of -- stop that!

ROGAN: Come over here, baby.

KING: What's that thing coming out of -- Jack Hanna tells me...

ROGAN: That's to look for food. That's to look...

KING: I know, like you.

ROGAN: I don't think it could eat me. It's probably eat my arm, but the medic will save me before that happens.

KING: But could he sting you?

ROGAN: Well, he's got -- He definitely has teeth. This is a python. I mean, this thing has real teeth.

KING: I've heard of them.

ROGAN: Yes. They eat giant rabbits. Giant rabbits? How big is a giant rabbit?

KING: So you use them like -- you put someone in a -- in a coffin.

ROGAN: Yes. And we covered them with these snakes.

KING: And put this snake in the coffin with them.

ROGAN: Yes. They're well fed.

KING: What do they get for that, like?

ROGAN: If they win, they get $50,000. But that's only the second stunt, so they're still going to have to go through another one to get to the final.

KING: You have to win?

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: And you lose, what, by jumping out of the coffin? Freaking and running away?

ROGAN: Yes. If you can't handle it, yes. You lose.

KING: How often do you do this? Every week?

ROGAN: Yes, we do it every week. We do about 34 episodes a year. That's what we did last year. This year it's probably going to be somewhere around the same, too.

KING: And who dreams them up?

ROGAN: Not me. So if you're watching the show and you get angry, don't get angry at me.

KING: Is there a person who's...

ROGAN: There's a whole group of people. There's a whole group of people that -- the different people develop what we call the "B" stunts, which are the gross stunts. Different people develop the physical stunts.

KING: They're not psychotics, right?

ROGAN: No. Everybody's very friendly. It's just one of the nicest shows I've ever worked on, believe it or not.

KING: Really?

ROGAN: Yes. It's -- it's -- one of the best things about the show is that everyone who works on the show is really cool. There's a really friendly producer. There's really friendly staff. Everybody's very nice.

KING: Here's an example of what happens on the show. We'll take a quick look at this and then we'll take a break. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Forty-one point two seconds is all that separates you guys from a nice trip to Vegas. Now, go out and don't freak out.

Here we go in three, two, one, go! You've got to get 10 chicken feet out. That's one. Move it!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can do it. Come on, baby. We're going to Vegas. Come on.

ROGAN: That's two. Oh, yes, he's not shy. That's three!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Four, five. Come on, Jackson, come on, 1:05. You can do this. One more, last one! You can do this! Last one, Jackson! Time, yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Joe Rogan remains with us, for reasons unbeknownst to me. The host of "Fear Factor."

And we're joined now by Monica and Jackson Jackson. You have the same first and last name?

CHRIS "JACKSON" JACKSON, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: No, it's actually Chris Jackson.

KING: Why do they call you Jackson Jackson?

J. JACKSON: Everybody calls me Jackson. It's been that way for years. I have no idea why they came up with Jackson Jackson.

KING: Before we ask how you got on the show, the executive producer is Matt Kunitz.

J. JACKSON: Kunitz.

KING: Kunitz. And he was quoted as saying you have a better chance to get into Harvard than to get on "Fear Factor." True?

ROGAN: Well, we have about 30,000 people sign up for it every year.

KING: Point five percent. One out of every 200 applicants get in.

ROGAN: Yes.

KING: Why did you apply, Monica?

MONICA JACKSON, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: I actually didn't apply. It was more Jackson. He wanted to do it, and we went down to audition. KING: Were you married then?

M. JACKSON: No, we were engaged.

KING: OK.

M. JACKSON: Yes.

KING: And you wanted to do it?

J. JACKSON: Oh, yes, yes, I've been watching since the first episode.

KING: And -- and why, Jackson?

J. JACKSON: It's awesome. And plus, I never had $50,000, so I thought I was going in competing for 50 grand and ain't much I wouldn't do for 50 grand.

KING: Did you win?

J. JACKSON: Yes. Yes, we won a lot.

M. JACKSON: We won a million.

KING: Well, that's right. You won the overall show.

M. JACKSON: Yes, we won the big event.

KING: Why did you go? Because Jackson said go, you went?

M. JACKSON: Well...

J. JACKSON: No, no, they tossed me. They took her.

M. JACKSON: They actually kept me, which -- they kept me there and he was back for my second callback. And they brought us both in, and we tried out. And it was better to not do it by myself. I was going to do it, because he wanted me to do it.

J. JACKSON: It's always good to bring a hot chick with you. That takes you right in.

KING: Let's watch one of the challenges faced by Monica and Jackson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. JACKSON: Oh!

J. JACKSON: Damn it!

M. JACKSON: I said, don't let go!

J. JACKSON: That's it, baby!

M. JACKSON: God!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Are you there when they're doing this, Joe?

ROGAN: Yes, yes.

KING: You go to all the stunts?

ROGAN: Yes, for all of them. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

KING: Why did you do that?

M. JACKSON: Why did I do the show? Or why did I do that?

KING: Why did you do that?

M. JACKSON: Well, because it was for a million dollars and so, and that one particular stunt we were competing for two cars. And so -- and I'm not really afraid of heights, and that was a good stunt for us. But that was probably the show that -- the only stunt we thought...

J. JACKSON: Yes, that was my biggest screw-up on the show. I haven't lived that one down yet. I get it all the time.

KING: When did you get married?

J. JACKSON: In April. April.

KING: You marry them?

ROGAN: I actually -- Yes, I married them.

KING: You're a...?

ROGAN: I'm an ordained minister. Online. I'm from online, on the Internet.

J. JACKSON: Yes, yes.

KING: You can Web yourself into being a minister?

ROGAN: Yes. Yes, you can.

KING: Can I be a rabbi?

ROGAN: Sure. You want to do it?

KING: I can Web myself into being a rabbi?

ROGAN: Yes, probably.

KING: And he married you?

J. JACKSON: Yes. KING: Where'd you get married?

M. JACKSON: We went to Vegas, and we got married at the Mandalay Bay (ph). And we got married on April fool's.

KING: Did they give you -- figures. Did they give you your million dollars?

J. JACKSON: Yes, they did. Yes.

KING: Well, we have a little surprise for you tonight.

M. JACKSON: That's what we heard.

J. JACKSON: Yes. Sounds good.

M. JACKSON: I know.

KING: In honor of your wedding, we have, courtesy of "Fear Factor" and LARRY KING LIVE.

ROGAN: And my friend Josh.

KING: And Josh. Chef Josh Silverberg, a wedding cake!

J. JACKSON: I fear Josh when we do the stunt. Josh should be feared.

KING: Now Joe, tell us about this cake.

ROGAN: This is a wedding cake. I don't know a whole lot about it, Larry.

KING: You want me to tell them?

ROGAN: Sure.

KING: OK, here's the challenge, guys. This is not just a cake.

J. JACKSON: It's not?

KING: This is a cake -- this is a cake -- we'll give you $500. This is a cake made of worm and bugs.

M. JACKSON: Oh, gross!

ROGAN: It looks good like this, right?

KING: What are you giving me a plate for?

M. JACKSON: You have to eat with us.

KING: Go ahead, cut it.

ROGAN: I'm going to slice a piece off.

M. JACKSON: This is so gross. You have to be kidding, right?

Is it gummy bear worms?

ROGAN: I don't know.

J. JACKSON: Yes, it's gummy bears.

M. JACKSON: It doesn't smell bad. Oh, that's gross!

J. JACKSON: Yes, that's nasty.

KING: There they are.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God, what is that?

ROGAN: Worms.

M. JACKSON: That's a red worm.

ROGAN: Turn it so other people can see.

J. JACKSON: I have what's called lack of incentive here.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God, that is disgusting.

ROGAN: Five hundred bucks doesn't seem like a lot, right?

M. JACKSON: What is that crawling out of it?

KING: Come on, you guys are good sports, let's go.

J. JACKSON: I'll eat the cake.

ROGAN: I need a spatula.

KING: It's real cake. It's real cake. Let's put it on the plate.

M. JACKSON: Oh, no! That's OK. You want to try some, Larry?

KING: No, no, no.

ROGAN: You guys don't want any?

J. JACKSON: I'll take a piece of cake.

KING: Five hundred bucks.

J. JACKSON: I ain't going to eat the bugs.

ROGAN: How much -- you've got to eat the bugs.

KING: Somebody's got to eat the bugs, then you get it.

ROGAN: You know, these guys went through so much. These guys were on the show for seven weeks. For seven weeks, that he had to endure three stunts a week for seven weeks.

M. JACKSON: What's this black...?

ROGAN: Seven different...

KING: They're crawling all over the set. How did you make a cake like this?

ROGAN: Some sick pastry chef. One worm? One worm?

J. JACKSON: I'll eat one. It's one worm.

KING: Reminds me of dinner I had in Brooklyn.

M. JACKSON: Oh, gross!

J. JACKSON: It's one worm. That was worth $500, lady. You said it.

KING: You got it. What does a worm -- he's got it. You got the money for them, right? What does a worm taste like?

J. JACKSON: Actually, it tastes pretty good. It blends right in with the icing.

M. JACKSON: No, look at that. You want to eat this?

KING: That looks like a caterpillar.

J. JACKSON: No, that's a big black bug.

KING: That's a big black bug. You want to try it?

M. JACKSON: No.

J. JACKSON: Five hundred bucks.

KING: Follow the beetle. We gave you the $500.

J. JACKSON: Give me another $500.

KING: Give them another $500?

ROGAN: It's not my money.

KING: It's not my money.

M. JACKSON: Come on, Larry, you want to try a little bug?

KING: No!

J. JACKSON: The good part about here is you actually get some good flavor with your nasty flavor.

M. JACKSON: Yes. The cake actually smells good.

ROGAN: Oh, Carmen.

J. JACKSON: Oh!

ROGAN: Go sit down. We'll bring you in later.

KING: Carmen.

M. JACKSON: That's just so gross. There's like black...

KING: Dr. Lipschitz in the white wagon, waiting out front.

Congratulations, guys.

J. JACKSON: Thank you so much, yes. Definitely.

KING: Thank you for the worms.

J. JACKSON: Hey, that worm wasn't all that bad.

KING: When we come back, later we'll meet the maniac that came on and ate it. Krisandra Johnson will join us, contestant on "Fear Factor: Las Vegas." She dances in the NBA.

We'll be right back. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: You can do it!

J. JACKSON: You can do it!

ROGAN: Go!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God!

ROGAN: Hang on!

J. JACKSON: Talk to me.

ROGAN: Don't let go!

J. JACKSON: I love you. You're doing good! We got them beat. We got them beat.

M. JACKSON: Oh, my God.

ROGAN: Don't let go!

J. JACKSON: Don't let go.

ROGAN: Whoa! Oh, my God.

J. JACKSON: Damn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Grab it! Do it! There you go. Get it. That's it. Get it. Get it. Do it! Do it! Just do it! Just do it now. There you go. Bite it. Take the head off. There you go. That's one. That's what I'm talking about! Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was Krisandra Johnson. She's now, by the way, Krisandra Shumpa. She got married...

KRISANDRA SHUMPA, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: Good job, yes.

KING: ... to Michael Shumpa, right?

SHUMPA: Very good memory.

KING: Let's watch what happened after she ate that spider. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Go like that. Go like that. Don't look at it. Just do it. You've done it already.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Two spiders you ate.

SHUMPA: Three.

KING: Three?

SHUMPA: Three spiders, yes.

KING: You said, Joe, it's not the skit, it's the contestant that you like.

ROGAN: Well...

KING: ... that determines how you like the show, right?

ROGAN: Sure, yes. If the show -- if there's six people on the show and three of them are just unbearably, unbearably dumb, it's hard. If they're jerks, it's not a fun week for me, but if it's they're cool people, it's fine.

KING: You dance for a team in the NBA?

SHUMPA: Yes, I dance for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

KING: I see. You like in Minneapolis?

SHUMPA: I live in Minneapolis. KING: And you married Mr. Shumpa?

SHUMPA: I married Mr. Shumpa, yes.

ROGAN: Let me tell you, Larry, that one thing where she had to eat that spider, that was the hardest I ever had to work to get someone to do something. Because I talked to her, literally, I talked her into it for like, what, 15 minutes?

SHUMPA: Seventeen minutes.

ROGAN: It was a long time before she did it. She wasn't going to do it. She was crying.

SHUMPA: It was awful. I didn't I didn't win anything.

KING: Do they give you...

ROGAN: She lost in the final stunt.

SHUMPA: I lost.

KING: Do you get consolation money?

ROGAN: No, there's no consolation on "Fear Factor."

KING: Wait, hold it, you eat a spider. You don't win, you get nothing.

ROGAN: You get nothing.

SHUMPA: But the crowd booed me. I had to eat the spider. They booed me.

ROGAN: They got a little annoyed after 17 minutes of me talking to you.

KING: Krisandra...

SHUMPA: It was for a car. I didn't even know what the car was.

KING: Krisandra, why did you go on the show?

SHUMPA: Because I thought it would be fun. You know, I just wanted to get the most that I can out of life. I'm a spontaneous person. And it wasn't a planned thing. I was getting ready for work that morning, and I heard an open call auditions at the Mall of America for "Fear Factor." I was like, "Fine. I think I might take an extended lunch."

KING: What do they do at the audition?

SHUMPA: Well, you sat in line for, like, hours. It's crazy. All these people.

KING: Then what? SHUMPA: And then you -- then there's like four different spots and you go up and you just talk.

KING: They don't ask you to do something nuts?

SHUMPA: No. You don't have to do anything. You just talk, and I'm good at that.

KING: And they learn your personality.

SHUMPA: Yes. Yes, yes.

KING: OK. We're going to ask you, Krisandra, to do something here.

SHUMPA: Uh-oh.

ROGAN: Uh-oh.

KING: OK. Here it comes.

SHUMPA: Oh, no.

KING: Here comes our chef. Chef's got to be a little weird. OK.

ROGAN: Your buddies. You remember these things?

KING: OK, we have a bunch of...

ROGAN: You remember these? These are the spiders that I tried to talk you...

KING: I'm not going to...

ROGAN: ... for 17 minutes to get you to eat one of these things. You want to eat another one? You saw how easy it was.

KING: I'll give you $500. Walk out of here with $500.

ROGAN: Five hundred bucks.

KING: More than Timberwolves pay.

SHUMPA: Oh, look, there's -- they're small ones this time.

ROGAN: You can grab a little one. You can have a little one.

SHUMPA: How come you didn't have small ones when I was on the show before?

KING: Take a small one.

ROGAN: We had a couple small ones.

SHUMPA: Guys! ROGAN: You could eat one of these.

SHUMPA: You know that Jay -- Jay had a tactic, and I saw his tactic.

KING: Do you want to do it or not? If you don't...

SHUMPA: Would somebody do it with me?

KING: Want to do it with her? All right. We have a lovely lady.

SHUMPA: Will you do it with me?

ROGAN: You really want to do this?

KING: Come on. Sheryl Shneb (ph), one of our top producers here, top production staff on LARRY KING LIVE. She's the lovely Sarah Shneb (ph). This is her debut on camera. She's going to eat...

For this you get $500. You can't take money on the show. Right? We pay you too well.

ROGAN: Larry King Cardiac Foundation.

SHUMPA: I'm not going to cry this time.

SHERYL SHNEB (ph), PRODUCER: Who does this? Ready?

SHUMPA: You want to...

SHNEB (ph): I didn't know how to do it.

ROGAN: You want to avoid the pinchers.

SHUMPA: Yes.

ROGAN: These are African cave-dwelling spiders.

SHUMPA: Pick them up at their elbows.

KING: Elbows? You see elbows?

SHUMPA: Yes, they're like this.

KING: Go ahead. Do it with her. Do it together. We'll have...

SHUMPA: No. No!

SHNEB (ph): Who does this? Who does this?

SHUMPA: Oh my gosh, wait! Oh, my gosh! Oh!

SHNEB (ph): That's disgusting.

SHUMPA: So now... KING: You've got to go on.

ROGAN: You got to do one, too.

SHUMPA: You guys, are they...

SHNEB (ph): They're biting me. Oh, gosh. It's so gross.

SHUMPA: I hate these things.

KING: Eat it, do it already, all right?

ROGAN: Yes. Exactly. Two minutes.

SHUMPA: It's so nasty.

ROGAN: If it was up to her, the program would be...

SHNEB (ph): I did it. It is so...

ROGAN: Go ahead. Go, go, go.

KING: Go ahead. Go ahead.

ROGAN: Here she goes.

SHUMPA: Oh, no! Oh, no!

ROGAN: What is wrong with America?

KING: Now...

ROGAN: Ladies and gentlemen...

KING: Is there any question...

ROGAN: This is a part of the problem.

SHUMPA: Oh, it tastes like dirt.

KING: ...about the health of these two people?

ROGAN: No, we run -- that's one thing we do, whenever we had to feed them bugs or anything we feed them, we actually grind them up and run them through a lab to make sure they're not toxic and make sure they're all edible.

And most of the things we eat are actually commonly eaten in some weird culture somewhere in the world.

KING: Would you eat one?

ROGAN: For a lot of money, but not for 500 bucks. No, I'll pass. Thanks, though.

SHNEB (ph): It's so chewy. It's so chewy. SHUMPA: It tastes so gross.

KING: Well, what does it taste like?

SHNEB (ph): Dirt and tree bark.

SHUMPA: Dirt.

SHNEB (ph): Protein, I keep thinking protein. Protein, protein.

KING: It was alive when you swallowed it. So how could you...

ROGAN: Murderer! Murderer!

SHUMPA: You know what? The smaller ones aren't so bad. Like, we had the big ones.

ROGAN: Like lobsters. The small ones are more tasty.

SHUMPA: The small ones are easier but the big ones are...

KING: Why do you -- why do you scream like that?

SHUMPA: Because I hate spiders and I get scared. And they're just ugly.

ROGAN: She's from Minnesota.

SHUMPA: I'm from North Dakota, actually.

KING: No money for that and you ate it. You're still chewing it.

SHUMPA: I'm going to need some dental floss, I think.

ROGAN: We'll have some for you.

SHUMPA: All right.

KING: Thank you for coming back, Krisandra. You're a great sport.

Thanks for helping.

SHUMPA: Yes.

KING: Thanks for...

SHUMPA: Yes.

KING: Well, Sarah, it's a great debut to come on this show, but I think "Fear Factor" is going to invite you on. Would you do that?

SHUMPA: That's a challenge.

SHNEB (ph): Right on. KING: Go on, man.

ROGAN: We'll have a producer's episode.

KING: A producer's episode. Any gimmick will work.

When we come back, Carmen. Carmen, the man who ran on and ate the worms. The worm eater. He'll be back, and he'll join us and don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Three, two, one, drop her!

All right, let's see if she can pull it off. She seems very determined, very calm under water, very zen-like. Working the latches. Working on the fourth lock, so this is right around where Louise started running out of air.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's got it.

ROGAN: Two locks away. Staying calm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's got it.

ROGAN: She's got it! She's got it. Now she has to get out of the vest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what I'm talking about.

CROWD: Go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's on Monday nights at 8:00 Eastern, just in time for the young the kids before they go to bed to see what adults do.

The show is "Fear Factor." Joe Rogan is its very funny, very talented host. And he's also co-host of "The Man Show" on Comedy Central.

Joining us now, Carmen Taglia, winner of second chance edition of "Fear Factor." He came on earlier, ate the worm-filled snake -- worm- filled cake. And Teresa Lynn competitor in "Female Model's Fear Factor." She's a swimsuit model from Taipei, Taiwan.

Carmen, had that boat -- you had the boat accident.

CARMEN TAGLIA, "FEAR FACTOR" CONTESTANT: Yep.

KING: You got hit in the head, right?

TAGLIA: The boat came after me, Larry. It just came after me. There's nothing you could do, but block it with your head. KING: Carmen, why do you -- why did you do it?

TAGLIA: I'm burnt, man. I'm just a little burnt, a little toasty.

KING: You're a sicko, in other words.

TAGLIA: I never had it easy.

KING: Where are you from? There you are, Carmen.

ROGAN: It's the worst wipeout we've ever had even on the show. Without a doubt. We were just so happy he still had a head when he came out of the water.

KING: How badly were you hurt?

TAGLIA: Well, you know. I'm all right now. I had a little -- I got a few ticks. I'm all right.

KING: Did you win money?

TAGLIA: Not that time, but on Second Chance I did.

KING: What did you win?

TAGLIA: 50 g's.

ROGAN: We want him back for another episode. We had "Second Chance Fear Factor."

KING: You figured you owed him that.

ROGAN: Well, he's a fun guy, yes. We brought some of the -- some of our favorite losers.

KING: Where do you come from?

TAGLIA: Chicago.

KING: Teresa, why did you do this?

TERESA LIN, FEAR FACTOR CONTESTANT: I did this, because it was a challenge. And I've always been taught to face all of my challenges and just bring it on, you know, whatever happens, happens. This is something that was completely out of the ordinary.

KING: Can you say it was enjoyable?

LIN: I have to say that there were parts of it that was enjoyable, but for the most part, you're not in there for enjoyment. You're in there to test yourself. And I have to say, this is a show about intestinal fortitude. And until you get on there and you're faced with the stunts, you're not sure all the money and all the prizes, I think it melts away and it's really about whether or not you, between you and yourself, whether or not you can do it. KING: Do you live in Taiwan?

LIN: I don't. I moved out of there when I was 8.

KING: Where do you live now?

LIN: I live in Los Angeles. Right here.

KING: Let's see -- we're going to watch Teresa do some gator hunting. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Lift it up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You got it.

ROGAN: Grab that gator. Come on, Teresa.

No hesitant. She's hustling.

5:45. You got two minutes.

That's it! That's all the time left. You got to get him out. You got to get him out. Little farther. Time!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Were you scared?

LIN: No. It wasn't about scared.

KING: It was about...

LIN: Fright. It was more about the physical ability to do that. I think...

KING: Pull the gator.

LIN: It wasn't just that, it was the cold factor. It was humongous.

KING: Now Carmen, did you train a lot for your second stunt?

TAGLIA: Oh, yes. The second time I went on, I went like Rocky nuts. I just went crazy. Dropped 40 pounds in two months. I was watching like Rudy movies and Rocky movies getting mentally motivated.

KING: What did they have you do, Carmen?

TAGLIA: The second time around I had to go from one helicopter to another helicopter. Across a bridge.

ROGAN: See this right here, this was the most disgusting stunt we've ever done ever without a doubt. They had blended maggots, they had to suck them out of a bowl. KING: You did this, Carmen?

ROGAN: Soda carton half filled with flies. They had to suck the blended maggots out of the bowl, spit them into the soda glass filled flies and then drink it all. It was nasty.

TAGLIA: Did I look fat eating those maggots?

ROGAN: No, you looked good.

KING: You wouldn't have done that, would you Teresa?

LIN: I don't know.

KING: You like challenges.

LIN: I do like challenges. And I am Chinese. And Chinese people have been known to eat a lot of things. But thank God, I didn't have to eat anything for my episode. So I don't know.

KING: Do people of my persuasion ever go on Fear Factor?

ROGAN: Sure, sure.

KING: You have Jewish people that do this?

ROGAN: Absolutely.

KING; That would eat that stuff.

ROGAN: We take all of this -- these races...

KING: I know you would take them, but do they volunteer?

ROGAN: Sure. Absolutely.

KING: Carmen, you're sick.

TAGLIA: Thank you.

KING: It's a compliment to you.

Well, we got a little something for the both of you. Joe is going to give us a sneak peek of the 100th episode by making rat stew.

ROGAN: Welcome back, Josh.

LIN: I spoke too soon.

KING: All right.

ROGAN: Josh loves his job, by the way.

KING: What we're going to do is challenge Carmen and Teresa to a race.

How does this work?

ROGAN: This is -- we serve them this. We blended up rats in the middle of Times Square for our 100th episode. This is a little sneak preview of it. It hasn't actually aired yet. But this is how it works -- how it works is, we do this. Just put it in here. Open up the top. What that?

LIN: But what's that? Is that chocolate?

ROGAN: That's nasty fish sauce.

TAGLIA: Ain't no chocolate.

ROGAN: And this is a rat. And you throw it in there and you blend it up. You want to watch?

KING: Yes.

LIN: Oh, my, oh! That's inhumane.

KING: It's a dead rat.

ROGAN: It's dead. It's OK. Oh, that smell though, Oh!

LIN: No, inhumane to me.

(LAUGHTER)

ROGAN: You don't have to do it.

KING: I smell something already.

LIN: That's true.

KING: Let's go.

ROGAN: Tail, fur, everything baby!

LIN: Whoa!

ROGAN: We have three seasons away from The Running Man.

LIN: Oh!

ROGAN: You hear that? That's the feet. The scratching? That's the feet.

KING: What do you want them to do?

ROGAN: Eat it.

KING: Drink it. In a race? How is this going to work?

LIN: Usually, we'd partake, but this is -- there's a Chinese thing that when it's your birthday, you're not supposed to eat rat. It's really bad luck. ROGAN: It's Teresa's birthday.

KING: Oh, Happy birthday.

LIN: Thank you.

KING: Want to do it, Carmen? $500. You get 500 bucks.

TAGLIA: It is the year of the rat, right?

ROGAN: Carmen's an animal.

KING: You can smell it now.

TAGLIA: Do I have to do the whole thing?

KING: Oh, no.

ROGAN: You don't have to do the whole thing. Just take a few mouthfuls. OK?

TAGLIA: Ooh!

KING: Oh!

TAGLIA: Like tuna, right? Why do you hate me, Larry?

KING: Take it and get out of here.

LIN: Oh!

ROGAN: I can't watch, I will throw up.

LIN: I won't throw up.

KING: Medical, medical! OK.

TAGLIA: Why do you hate me, Larry? I thought you were my friend.

ROGAN: That was so unnecessary.

KING: Carmen, my belief, Carmen, that you hate yourself and this is a way of showing it.

TAGLIA: You might be correct.

KING: Teresa, you would not.

ROGAN: Good for you. Let's get this out of here.

KING: Tell me, Joe Rogan, big man, would you have eaten it?

ROGAN: Hell no. Hell no.

Well, you know what, I got to tell you, Larry, if I was broke, back when I was a struggling comedian and I was eating peanut butter sandwiches, I'd probably eat it.

LIN: No, you wouldn't have.

ROGAN: If I thought I could win $50,000, I'd probably do it.

KING: Was it the money that drove you, Joe, to go to this show?

TAGLIA: No, it's fun. It's really fun. It's to get everybody's reaction.

ROGAN: Was that fun?

TAGLIA: And later on...

ROGAN: Got a minute?

TAGLIA: Later on, I got some

ROGAN: His hands are shaking.

TAGLIA: How does 50 tic-tacs taste like.

KING: What do you do for a living?

TAGLIA: Graphic designer, advertising.

KING: What do you do, you're a model, huh?

LIN: Yes, I'm also working to be a writer. We'll see how long that goes.

KING: Congratulations. You did it, man.

TAGLIA: Thank you.

KING: Got an extra $500 easy.

TAGLIA: Drinks are on me. Drinks are on me.

LIN: No, man. They're on me.

KING; I want to say something. Wasn't that -- really, grossly sick?

ROGAN: Appalling.

KING: In other words, that is -- that is...

ROGAN: The smell alone, I had to step out. I really thought I was going to throw up. And I wouldn't do that to you.

KING: That is...

ROGAN: Out of respect I had to get up.

KING: Now, you think that we -- all right. Did we lose audience then?

ROGAN: I don't know, probably gained. That's the sad thing.

KING: People call...

TAGLIA: I think I lost a few girlfriends.

KING: People called up, people said, you got the turn this on. You think that happens, right? People call up and people say, turn this on.

ROGAN: Probably, yes. That's the bizarre thing.

LIN: I think we're in the age where we live, a lot, vicariously through other people, through television. And that's...

ROGAN: And I wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that. That's one of the reason's why people would watch that. The audio operator.

KING: The audio operator is on the way to China.

ROGAN: And he didn't even have to smell it. I literally had to get up. I thought I was going to throw up.

LIN: I want to know what culture they eat that regularly.

TAGLIA: Not the Italian culture. I'll tell you that.

ROGAN: We're running out of things to do that actually they eat in other cultures. So we do them in other dimension.

KING: You're going to do this on the 100th show.

ROGAN: Yes. We already did it. We did it...

KING: And someone drank it, right?

ROGAN: A whole bunch of people ate it. It was rough.

LIN: Didn't you have to eat a hissing roach once?

ROGAN: I ate a roach. I've eaten sheep's eyeballs...

KING: Thank you both, very -- keep the Tic-Tacs going.

Thank you Carmen. Thank you Teresa.

Give me one. Maybe it helps the smell.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: We'll be right back with Larry the Tarantula. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: He hit it nice. Ooh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that it right there? Oh, yeah, baby!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Stay calm, Martha (ph). You just relax in there. Come on, there you go. Doing great. Get her out of here, buddy. There you go. That's it. Long strokes. You're doing great. Excellent, taste, man! Excellent taste, Jackson! You're almost there, buddy! Yeah. That's it, man! Keep going. Yeah! Come on, opening! Beautiful!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Seems weird to mention this, but we'll be at the Republican National Convention all next week.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: With a live show Sunday night and two shows nightly Monday through Thursday, at 9:00 and midnight Eastern time. Many, many guests covering the convention. I have no comment. There's nothing you could say other than watch the convention next week.

ROGAN: It's an interesting comparison.

KING: Yeah, true. Interesting segue, OK.

Joe, we're going to take some calls. But I said to you, we should have a psychologist on this show to explain, and you said, maybe they wouldn't be...

ROGAN: I don't if they'd necessarily be accurate. I mean, they'd have to spend a lot of time with the people to figure out motivations.

KING: Why we watch it and why people come on, both.

ROGAN: It's all different. You know, it's different for different people, you know?

KING: You mentioned if you were broke...

ROGAN: Sure, if I was broke and I thought I could win $50,000, I would probably be willing to do it. But not for fun.

KING: Sequamish, Washington, we go to calls for Joe Rogan, hello.

CALLER: Hi. Joe, I have heard that when you went to audition for the host of "Fear Factor," that you were such a jerk that at first they didn't like you, and then that's why you got the job?

ROGAN: No, that I was making fun of it. I was -- I didn't take it seriously at all, and they thought that that wouldn't be a very good thing, to have a host who was making fun of the show. And somewhere along the line they changed their mind and thought that would actually be fun.

KING: Because you still make fun of it.

ROGAN: Yeah, well, I mean, it's ridiculous. How could you not make fun of it? I mean, how could you treat it seriously as if it's like some -- as if it's the Olympics or something, you know?

KING: We have a tarantula named after me?

ROGAN: Larry the tarantula.

KING: We're going to keep Larry on set. Is he kind of like a symbol of the show?

ROGAN: Well, Larry was on one of our episodes, and we've used Larry and Larry since has become a star. Larry was on "Extra." He was in a Hummer commercial. He's been in "Playboy." He's been in "Upfront" magazine, "California Lawyer" magazine, "E! News Live," and "The Strange Jobs Book." And Larry actually became a pet of Scott, one of the producers of the show, so he kept Larry.

KING: And that's my namesake.

ROGAN: That's your namesake, sir.

KING: All right. You stay here, Larry. Lancaster, Ohio. Hello.

CALLER: Hello there. I had a question for Joe.

KING: Sure.

CALLER: Hey, Joe, me and my girlfriend sent our tape in a couple of months ago and we actually got the call-back from producers, and they did a second interview with us. My question to you is, what can we expect? Do we have to wait a little bit longer to hear anything, and if we do get another call-back, what do we do to make it to the next level?

ROGAN: The best advice I can give to anybody who wants to be on the show is just show a lot of personality. Just be fun, have a good time. You know, that's what we're looking for, we're looking for people who would be interesting to watch on television.

But I don't know too much about the process. I really don't know, like, what they do to get you, you know -- I don't know how they get you on the show. I just know once you get on the show, then I talk to you.

KING: Do people sign waivers when they go on the show? ROGAN: It's a huge waiver, it's like 55 pages long. It's enormous.

KING: Saying I will not hold the show responsible if...

ROGAN: Yeah, it covers...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... eats me.

ROGAN: ... acts of God, earthquakes. Floods. UFOs.

KING: What about sickness, illness?

ROGAN: Everything.

KING: In other words, they give you their life.

ROGAN: Basically, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's all covered.

KING: Bowling Green, Virginia -- why don't Larry move?

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Bowling Green, Virginia. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Joe, my husband loves "Fear Factor," and I think you're a great host. And I have a question.

ROGAN: Thank you.

CALLER: I'd like to know, do the producers of "Fear Factor" get protest mail from animal rights group who consider the killing of animals and insects for TV disgusting? What do you say?

ROGAN: Probably. I'm sure they do, but, you know, they're bugs. I mean, if you're really worried that much about bugs when there are so many homeless people out there and so many people dying in other countries, it's really, I mean, pretty silly.

KING: In other words, when you look at it, though, rats died for this show tonight.

ROGAN: Those rats are actually feeder rats, anyway. The rats that we used were rats that they've already murdered. And they would feed them to snakes or whatever. Those are the ones we take, and we don't kill them specifically for the show.

KING: All right. Makes me feel better. Lexington, Kentucky. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry, I love your show. Hi, Joe.

ROGAN: Hi.

CALLER: It seems like all the contestants on "Fear Factor" are fairly young. Is there any age limit to compete, young or old, or...?

ROGAN: I believe they kind of stop somewhere around 35, 36 years old. But we've actually been considering having some older people come on the show. We have a lot of people that complain and...

KING: Why don't you have an old people "Fear Factor?"

ROGAN: Well, we can't have them too old, but we have some people that are in their 40s and maybe even their early 50s that are physically fit, and they want to...

KING: "Nursing Home Fear Factor!"

ROGAN: Maybe.

KING: "Social Security Fear Factor."

ROGAN: That's like season 20, when we get really -- we run out of ideas.

KING: I got -- we're old -- when we get really old, "Fear Factor," walk across the room.

ROGAN: Step on a marble.

KING: Step on a marble. I got to do something crazy. Eat the complete bowl of Cheerios without your teeth!

ROGAN: Oh, there you go. Nice.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Now, tell me why Larry...

ROGAN: Larry King, comedian.

KING: Tell me why Larry, the tarantula, why he has not moved?

ROGAN: Larry likes to chill. He's a big fan of your show. He's just honored to be here.

KING: We're honored to have you, Larry.

We've got one more segment left, and when we come back, Tara Darby, winner of "Miss USA Fear Factor" -- there goes Larry -- donated her winnings to the National Breast Cancer Coalition. We'll be right back. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Not bad. God, that looks brutal. You already know what it tastes like. You already know you can swallow it. But whatever you do, don't get any of that slimy mess on your sash. Yes, big bite, nice. Twenty-five seconds left.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Swallow. ROGAN: Six, five, four, three, two, yeah!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: All right, she's got a hold of the bar. Time's moving fast. She's up! Wow, she's tough. Way to go!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That was the lovely Tara Darby. She was Miss Alabama in the 2004 Miss USA pageant, and what "Fear Factor" did was put together a whole bunch of Miss USA contestants -- Miss Michigan, Miss Utah, Miss West Virginia, Miss New Hampshire, Miss New York -- and had them -- why did you do this, Tara?

TARA DARBY, WON "MISS USA FEAR FACTOR": Well, I mean, certainly it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I could not pass it up, even though I think my mother begged me not to.

KING: Did you enjoy it? What can you say about your experience?

DARBY: Oh, it was incredible. I mean, I really didn't expect to get much out of it. I really am not cut out for that sort of thing. I'm not a risk taker at all. And so, I just thought that it would be a great week, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some of the girls that I would be spending another couple of weeks with at the pageant.

So I just really didn't expect, I certainly did not expect to win, so it was just incredible. The whole experience was so much fun. And then, to end like that, I mean, it was amazing.

KING: Did she win?

ROGAN: She won.

DARBY: I won.

KING: What did she win for that?

ROGAN: She won, well, she won $50,000, and half of it was donated to a charity of her choice. And Tara, what was your charity again?

DARBY: It was the National Breast Cancer Coalition. My grandmother had breast cancer, and I'm also an at-risk individual, so I thought that was just a very worthy cause.

KING: Boy, that is really -- in miniature golf competition, she hit a ball so hard it nearly hit you?

ROGAN: Yeah. KING: What happened?

ROGAN: She wasn't that good at miniature golf.

DARBY: No, I'm not.

ROGAN: But she's good at eating. So.

KING: You do miniature golf on "Fear Actor"?

ROGAN: Yeah, miniature golf, and they had to...

KING: Why is that a "Fear Factor?"

ROGAN: Well, when they, whatever strokes that they got, one, two or three, would represent the amount of sea cucumber that they had to eat, this disgusting creature, it is really foul and it was covered in rotten fish sauce, and it was awful. It smelled bad.

KING: I understand we have a clip of that. Let's be amused.

ROGAN: Tara was a trooper.

KING: Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: Here comes number six. Now, you've got to be careful. Number six. Come on, Tara! Quick! You got to hurry!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: That was the first stunt she had to do.

KING: OK. We don't have the cucumber?

ROGAN: We actually showed it earlier, that disgusting slimy thing that she was eating earlier.

KING: OK. Want to show it again?

ROGAN: Ooh.

KING: No, I don't think so. Let's pass...

ROGAN: I am sure Tara wants to put that behind her.

KING: Let's pass on showing it again.

DARBY: Yeah, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

KING: You're getting married this fall, Tara?

DARBY: I am. I'm getting married November 13.

KING: Congratulations. DARBY: Thanks.

KING: What do you want to do career-wise?

DARBY: Well, you know, that has been the question of the night. And I really don't have the best answer, but I just moved to Houston, Texas, and there's just so many opportunities here, I just am looking for the right path.

KING: You're not sorry you entered this?

DARBY: I'm not sorry I went to "Fear Factor"?

KING: Yeah.

DARBY: No, gosh no. I actually -- I wouldn't be able to finish school if I had not won that money, and also, I never would have been able to have a wedding, which has just been such a blessing.

KING: That's really great.

DARBY: Yeah. It's going to be a small wedding, but it never would have been impossible without Joe's cheerleading, you know, helping me get through that sea cucumber. So.

ROGAN: I didn't know if you were going to make it.

DARBY: I know.

KING: We've got one more quick call. Miami, hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry. Could you get Nancy Grace to eat that tarantula and how much would you pay her?

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Well, maybe -- no, Nancy would probably do it. Knowing Nancy Grace, she would probably do the scene.

Joe, how long are you committed to this show?

ROGAN: I think I have a contract for this season and the next. And we're -- it's picked up for a couple more seasons.

KING: Would you go back, Tara? Would you come back on?

DARBY: I don't know. I really think that it was just meant to be that I won, because, I mean, I was watching some of the clips earlier, and I never -- I mean, I couldn't do half of that stuff. I mean, it was just meant to be that I won. But I don't think it would ever happen again.

KING: Tara, thanks so much for joining us.

DARBY: Thank you for having me.

ROGAN: Thank you, Tara.

KING: Tara Darby, the winner of the "Miss USA Fear Factor."

We only have about 30 seconds left. Some big surprises coming in the new season? We saw one already.

ROGAN: They ramped it up, believe it or not. I mean, if you thought that the other seasons were crazy and you thought that some of the stunts were insane and some of the disgusting stunts were disgusting, it's even more insane and more disgusting.

KING: It's all done already.

ROGAN: No, right now we're about 13, 14 episodes in, and, you know, it's pretty rough.

KING: Thanks, Joe.

ROGAN: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

KING: A tribute to "Fear Factor."

I'll be back in a couple of minutes to tell you about tomorrow night. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Tomorrow night, kidnapped victims tell some harrowing stories. And then we're on our way to New York for the Republican Convention.

Right now, we're on our way to Atlanta. Aaron Brown has the night off, and hosting "NEWSNIGHT" tonight is our friend Miles O'Brien. And Miles, we're going to have an anchorman "Fear Factor," and CNN has invited, has sent you as their representative.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm dying for a Norwegian rat smoothie, Larry. It just sounds delicious.

KING: Oh, smells even better.

O'BRIEN: I got to tell you, it's better than the Atkins diet. I wouldn't eat anything. All right.

KING: Go get'em, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Larry.

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