WIPEOUT’s John Henson, Jill Wagner and Matt Kunitz Preview Winter Edition

Missing WIPEOUT?

The Winter Wonderland edition of ABC’s hit summer series premieres tonight at 8 and things are a bit different this time around.

Yes, the red balls are still there, but the entire obstacle course has been covered in snow, winter-related sports have been brought into the mix and on the day I visited the set, crew members were throwing snowballs at the contestants as they navigated the course. But there is the small complication of filming the series in a place where winter in fairly non-existant.

“Well, certainly a complication is this is November, but this is Southern California and it’s 90 degrees today,” WIPEOUT executive producer Matt Kunitz explained. “That is complication for shooting in the winter. Normally we shoot in the winter and we try and fake it for summer, pretend that it’s this beautiful hot day. When we do our interviews in the morning, it’s so cold there’s breath coming out of the contestants, so we have them suck on ice [so you can’t see their breath]. Now, when we’d want it to be cold, it’s 90 degrees.”

The unnatural heat aside, the contestants haven’t lost any of their confidence about mastering the course — and like the summer edition, they quickly see how much they’ve underestimated the difficulty of their task.

“They are totally different when they get out of the water as opposed to this morning when they are full of energy and so excited about today,” co-host Jill Wagner said. “[They think] they’re going to run it in 15 minutes and 15 minutes later after they started the course, it’s like, that’s not at all what I thought it would be like. That’s my first question of the day: why are you here? Are you crazy?”

While the contestants might not be crazy, they do keep the producers and hosts on their toes. The crew routinely tests out the stunts so the producers can get a feel for a normal human’s reaction will be, but Kunitz said contestants prove to be a wild card.

“It’s never the way you think it is when you put contestants up there,” he said. “You can test it and test it and test it. And then a contestant goes up there and it’s like, we never expected that to happen. You’ll watch and you’ll be like, this is too easy, it’s not going to work and it turns out to be awesome. Never underestimate the stupidity of a contestant.”

And no, the hosts and producers aren’t willing to test their own ability on the course.  “No, I haven’t and I won’t ever,” co-host John Henson said. “Because every day that I come to work, I see people create a wonderful argument for never attempting the course. After three seasons, I’m scared straight.”

Considering the massive wipeouts these contestants risk while competing? Probably a wise decision.

But it sure makes for entertaining television, doesn’t it?

Take a look at what’s going down tonight…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmLJvS5PZTI[/youtube]

Will you be watching WIPEOUT tonight?

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