** Kami & Karli, Season 5, finished either last or second-to-last on 6 of the first 9 legs before finally getting eliminated on leg 10.
** Meredith & Gretchen, Season 7, who were the first team to succeed using the "Just beat one team" strategy, even though Gretchen got injured and they had their bags taken away on an early leg.
** Despite winning five legs, BJ & Tyler went through a Houdini stage in the middle of Season 9. Over the course of four legs, they came in last on two different non-elimination legs, and survived a third time when another team got lost looking for the Pit Stop.
** Eric & Danielle from Season 11, at the moment, are the only Elimination Houdinis to win the race. They are the only team to ever win the race without winning one of the previous legs, and having more bottom 2 finishes than top 2 (in the first 11 legs, they had one top 2 finish). They also had two legs where they finished more than twelve hours behind the lead team, and were only able to catch up to the leaders due to the most blatantly contrived equalizer in race history.
** Dan & Andrew from Season 13, who only made it to the Final 3 because they were repeatedly saved by non-elimination legs or another team making an even worse blunder than they did. They are probably the Race's worst offenders, and are widely credited as being the worst team to ever make the Final 3. They even lampshaded this and said, "There needs to be a Website/YouTube video on all our mistakes".
** Mark & Michael, Season 14. They had a knack for getting tragically lost on every single leg, and are the only team to ever get multiple penalties both on the same leg (which they did on two separate legs) and the same task (for sabotaging the other teams, and getting outside help when the clue told them that was not allowed), yet they managed to barely escape elimination on three separate occasions. This includes another team getting U-Turned (Amanda & Kris), a team not having enough time to make up their Speed Bump (Christie & Jodi), and finally, a non-elimination leg.
** Brian & Ericka, Season 15. Survived twice, despite huge deficits, because another team quit a task. Maria & Tiffany quit a Detour where they were physically unable to do either task, while Big Easy quit a Roadblock where he was unable to unscramble the name "Franz".
** Brent & Caite, Season 16, they went through dehydration, got lost several times, and constantly bickered, yet made it to the Final 3 over several stronger teams. Cops Louie & Michael could also count, as other than a stretch of three legs without an equalizer, they spent all their time at or near the back of the pack, barely avoiding elimination at least four times.
** Nick & Vicki, Season 17. They spent most of their time in the back of the pack, and rarely completed non-physical tasks on the first try, yet despite all this, and Nick's constant verbal abuse towards Vicki, they finished 4th due to other teams making mistakes, and twice were saved by non-elimination legs. On the third-to-last leg, Nick even gave up and ''napped'' during the Detour; and eventually dragging Vicki into accepting a 6-hour penalty to skip it, ''only to be saved by a non-elimination leg''. Thankfully, it only turned out to delay the inevitable - their late start time on the following leg caused them to miss the flight the other racers took out of Hong Kong, and they never came close to catching up after that.

to:

** Kami & Karli, Season 5, finished either last or second-to-last on 6 of the first 9 legs, making many blunders along the way (such as being the only team who didn't figure out how to use puzzle pieces and a map to find out the next destination on their own), before finally getting eliminated on leg 10.
** Adam & Rebecca, Season 6, finished in the top half of the field only once on their way to making the Final 3, and that one leg they won was by Fast Forward. They made several mistakes along the way, barely avoiding elimination at least 4 times. In the Sri Lanka leg, they had fallen over an hour and a half behind behind every other team, only to be saved by arguably the most badly placed equalizer in the series (at the END of the leg).
*** Also from that season were Don & Mary Jean, who stumbled through 5 legs despite accidentally stealing another team's car in leg 2, wasting over 5 hours at the counting detour in leg 3, and choosing the slower, luck-based detour in leg 4 (and finishing almost 4 hours behind the first team). They were finally eliminated in 8th after getting lost at the beginning of the leg, after which not even Lori & Bolo accidentally walking several miles could save them.
** Meredith & Gretchen, Season 7, who were the first team to succeed while deliberately using the "Just beat one team" strategy, even though Gretchen got injured and they had their bags taken away on an early leg.
** Ray & Yolanda, Season 9, appeared to be slow at ''everything'', surviving mostly because Season 9 teams were extremely mistake prone. They finished second-to-last in 4 of the last 5 elimination legs, and at one point survived because another team Yielded the team right in front of them.
*** Despite winning five legs, BJ & Tyler went through a Houdini stage in the middle of Season 9. Over the course of four legs, they came in last on two different non-elimination legs, and survived a third time when another team got lost looking for the Pit Stop.
** Probably the only reason Lyn & Karlyn, Season 10, don't fully qualify as Houdinis is that they teamed up with two hapless teams (David & Mary and Erwin & Godwin), and then capitalized off the mistakes of these other teams.
--> '''Karlyn''': We just won't die. Like roaches.
** Eric & Danielle from Season 11, were the first Elimination Houdinis to win the race. In the first 11 legs, they had one top 2 finis), and their five bottom 2 finishes without getting eliminated is tied for third most ever, trailing only Kami & Karli's six in Season 5 and Josh & Brent's seven in Season 21. They also had two legs where they finished more than twelve hours behind the lead team, and were only able to catch up to the leaders due to the most blatantly contrived equalizer in race history. And ultimately, they only won because of a task involving guessing their partner's responses to questions about the other teams. Aside from being hugely [[LuckBasedMission luck-based]] considering it was the final task, the favorites to win, Dustin & Kandice, claimed in a post-race interview that Dustin's initial response wouldn't go through.
** Dan & Andrew from Season 13, who only made it to the Final 3 because they were repeatedly saved by non-elimination legs or another team making an even worse blunder than they did. They are probably the Race's worst offenders/best examples of this trope, and are widely credited as being the worst team to ever make the Final 3. Phil even told them at one point that he thought they were going to be the next team eliminated. They even acknowledged how bad they were, saying that there should be a Website/YouTube compilation video of all their mistakes - [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfBUQ5gvvs and one *was* created]]. They at least are able to laugh at themselves.
** Mark & Michael, Season 14, who had a knack for getting tragically lost on every single leg. They are the only team to ever get multiple penalties on two different legs, and two different penalties on the same task (for sabotaging the other teams, and getting outside help when the clue told them that was not allowed), yet they managed to barely escape elimination on at least three separate occasions. This includes another team getting U-Turned, a team not having enough time to make up their Speed Bump, and a non-elimination leg.
** Brian & Ericka, Season 15, survived twice, despite huge deficits, because another team quit a task. Maria & Tiffany quit a Detour where they were physically unable to do either task, while Big Easy quit a Roadblock where he was unable to unscramble the name "Franz".
** Brent & Caite, Season 16, they went through dehydration, got lost several times, and constantly bickered, yet made it to the Final 3 over several stronger teams.
*** Cops Louie & Michael from the same season also count, as other than a stretch of three legs without an equalizer, they spent all their time at or near the back of the pack, barely avoiding elimination at least four times.
** Nick & Vicki, Season 17. They spent most of their time in the back of the pack, and rarely completed non-physical tasks on the first try, yet despite all this, and Nick's constant verbal abuse towards Vicki, they finished 4th due to other teams making mistakes, and twice were saved by non-elimination legs. On the third-to-last leg, Nick even gave up and ''napped'' during the Detour; and eventually dragged Vicki into accepting a 6-hour penalty to skip it, ''only to be saved by a non-elimination leg''. Thankfully, it only turned out to delay the inevitable - their late start time on the following leg caused them to miss the flight the other racers took out of Hong Kong, and they never came close to catching up after that.

Changed line(s) 143 (click to see context) from:

to:

Changed line(s) 145,147 (click to see context) from:

** Bopper & Mark, Season 20 were this, pretty much all out of [[BornUnlucky just plain poor luck]]. Both of them were good at physical challenges, but they constantly kept having accidents such as themselves getting sick, lost, or in one of the worst cases, heat stroke from trying to do a challenge in India that required coordination, something neither of them were good at and one thing the other couldn't do because of an injury in the previous leg.
** Brendon & Rachel, Season 20. Rachel was TheLoad and would fold like a cheap lawn chair at the slightest inconvenience, giving up and breaking into tears. She generally turned the race into an EscortMission for Brendon. Meanwhile, Brendon would constantly bicker with her and insult her. They had quite possibly the worst teamwork in the history of the show. How they even went 3 episodes without throwing each other off a cliff still remains a mystery, much less how they made it to the Final 3. And they got ''married'' after the season was over! If they ever have children, it will be a {{Defictionalization}} of ''MalcolmInTheMiddle''.
** Josh & Brent in Season 21. They were likeable {{Determinator}}s but perpetually behind throughout the race, and acknowledged several times throughout the season that they were one of the weakest teams left if not ''the'' weakest. They were in the middle of the pack for the first 4 legs, were saved by a non-elimination in leg 5, then came in second-to-last ''six legs in a row'', once saved only because another team (James & Abba) lost their passports. To make matters worse for them, Josh suffered an ankle injury on leg 9, [[ICanStillFight but he pressed on]]. And in the end, they ''won''.

to:

** Vanessa & Ralph, Season 20, several times got themselves dreadfully behind the lead pack, yet managed to survive because someone did just a little bit worse than them. They survived once when Elliot & Andrew struggled with the Detour for as long as they did, again when Joey "Fitness" & Danny wasted time on a Fast Forward they didn't get, then later almost blew a two-hour lead on Nary & Jamie on a leg without an equalizer.
*** Also from Season 20 are Mark & Bopper. While they are competent enough, they were consistently plagued by injuries, illness, and bad navigation (mostly in leg 4, where they somehow ended up about 6-9 hours behind the leaders). They were saved twice by non-elimination legs; and even benefited from great luck on their final leg - just not enough to make up the massive time lost on the previous leg (''nobody'' else had claimed the Fast Forward ahead of them, and it was shaving their heads when Mark was already bald).
** Gary & Will, Season 21. They survived two legs in a row consisting of massive blunders (including U-Turning a team ahead of them) and being ready to give up because the teams they beat out were derailed by bad drivers, before finally getting eliminated in leg 4.
*** From the same season were eventual winners Josh & Brent, who set the franchise record for finishing in the bottom 2 for seven straight legs and surviving all seven legs (Their final leg victory was the first time since leg 4 where they finished at least 2 spaces from last). They spent most of their time at the back of the pack, were saved once by a non-elimination leg, survived a leg where they fell more than 5 hours behind the lead four teams and had to take a 4-hour penalty after Brent was unable to complete the swimming detour when James & Abba lost their passports and were unable to retrieve them, ''and'' again the next leg after that, in spite of their flight being over 2 hours behind the other teams' when Abbie & Ryan 1) had their earlier flight delayed and ended up arriving at Amsterdam the same time as them and 2) were U-Turned by Jaymes & James. If there was ever a team who suffered from unbelievably bad and unbelievably good luck at the same time, it's them.
** Chuck & Wynona in Season 22. In three straight legs they were saved by a fake Pit Stop non-elimination, Jessica & John getting eliminated because they refused to use their Express Pass, and Dave & Connor quitting the race, which saved them despite finishing almost three hours behind the other teams.
*** Max & Katie also qualify. After they got two other teams to quit a task with them in the first leg and take a four hour penalty, they were handily beaten by the other surviving team in the next leg, only staying in by having their penalty cut down by an Hours of Operation bunching point and two other teams' major screwups. In the next leg, they screwed up navigation so badly that they were only spared from last place by Chuck & Wynona screwing up worse. They were later saved by a non-elimination leg after being the last team to quit the longer end of a Detour, and in the leg after that, despite a Speed Bump, navigation issues, and having to pay a speeding ticket, they managed to survive again due to Pam & Winnie imploding on the Detour.

6th Apr '13 10:02:56 AM NineballCirno

Send NineballCirno a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

changing red link to valid link.

Changed line(s) 196 (click to see context) from:

to:

3rd Apr '13 4:32:53 PM greatpikminfan

Send greatpikminfan a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

I'm pretty sure I spelled this wrong.

Changed line(s) 124 (click to see context) from:

to:

20th Mar '13 11:34:21 AM aNinjaWithAIDS

Send aNinjaWithAIDS a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 209 (click to see context) :

16th Mar '13 8:49:34 PM JIKTV

Send JIKTV a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 196 (click to see context) from:

to:

8th Mar '13 3:20:28 AM PoochyEXE

Send PoochyEXE a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 145 (click to see context) from:

to:

3rd Mar '13 9:38:52 AM greatpikminfan

Send greatpikminfan a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

I... THINK she tripped off the cliff in that fic. The writting on it wasn't really clear.

Added line(s) 123 (click to see context) :

This list shows the last 10 events of 202. Show all.

new edits

TV Tropes by TV Tropes Foundation, LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org.
Privacy Policy