Yes, after six years off the air, "Fear Factor" returned to NBC on Monday night -- with Joe Rogan returning to his position as the host. It's one of the longest hiatuses in TV history, and it remains to be seen whether the years off the air will show in the ratings.
An NBC exec promised critics that the show would be "less gross" than we've seen previously, but Rogan tells EW that's not the case.
"That's an outright lie," he says. "They should go to jail for that lie. It's way grosser. But it's also much more spectacular. The stunts are much bigger. The evolution of the stunt technology allows us to do a lot of crazy stuff."
He explains that they elevated the standard for the three stunts that show up in each episode. "The way to bring this show back is to make it bigger and crazier and that's what they've done. We have an A, B, C format -- where the A stunt is the opening, the B stunt is the gross one, and the C stunt is the spectacular stunt where they win the money. Now the A stunt look like C stunts and the C stunts look like giant scenes in an Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie."
During the hiatus, Rogan continued to work in stand-up comedy, often making fun of "Fear Factor" rather mercilessly. "I'm sure they rather me not make fun of it," he says of producers. "But as a comic I would be a fraud if I didn't make fun of it. How can you be the host of that f-king show and not make fun of it? It is comedy."
