Fear Factor in New York

When Joe Rogan walks the streets of New York City, it's not going to be accompanying Dave Chappelle for a sketch, it's going to be for Fear Factor's 100th episode, which will be set in the Big Apple, though for Fear Factor it'll have to be a decaying apple with a million mini worms in it, wading in a puddle near a curbcut. The NY Times' Randy Kennedy chats with producers to discuss (guess) about some of the stunts they are planning and the NYC-style bureaucracy in getting the stunts off the ground. (For example, a stunt is being done on the Roosevelt Island tram, picture at right by Suzanne DeChillo for the NY Times, versus the subways, because the tram has less process and red tape than the MTA.) Filming the episode in NYC is costing NBC $500,000 more than the usual episode, in their effort to film in scary NYC places. Kennedy makes the good point that New Yorkers face their fear everyday (blackout, sweaty smelly subway cars, the FDR, hot dog from vendor's cart), but even the show is going to take it to the next level, by having an eating stunt (hot dogs) with rats in Times Square tomorrow night. Other New Yorkers are asked for other Fear Factor: NYC suggestions, like making it past the velvet rope or walking in a subway in the dark, but Gothamist loves what a Department of Sanitation worker says:

Stanley Lopez, a city sanitation worker, suggested perhaps the most terrifying stunt of all: having the contestants ride along with him down a narrow Manhattan street on a hot summer morning, collecting trash.
"The fear factors there?" he asked. "Basically you got the heat, the maggots and the juice that comes out of the trash bags. That's the three."
Mr. Lopez added, almost casually: "You find a body every once in a while. Sure. People chop them up. You never know."
Of the contestants, he said: "They wouldn't last. We do 14 tons a day."

Oh, barf, garbage juice...there's a garbage juice incident in Gothamist's past that stank up the communal hall in the apartment building for way too long. Anyway, we suppose the helicopter stunt will be something like this one from another Fear Factor episode (below).

Our suggestions for a NY-centric Fear Factor: Any good sample sale Century 21 on the weekends. Getting a table at a restaurant that the Times has just given a great review. The Upper East Side and Murray Hill on St. Patrick's Day evening. Lower Broadway during a ticker tape parade. Walking on a SoHo sidewalk on a weekend. And since the eating stunt is tonight at Times Square (when, we don't know), give us a shout if you happen to see any of it.