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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_amazing_race.jpg]]
2%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
3
4->''"The world is waiting for you. Good luck. Travel safe. Go!"''
5-->-- '''Phil Keoghan''', starting off every season.
6
7Emmy-winning RealityShow created by Elise Doganieri and Bertram van Munster and airing on Creator/{{CBS}} since September 5, 2001. Hosted by Phil Keoghan, the show could vaguely be considered the RealityShow version of ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays''.
8
9Eleven teams of two people[[note]]Though five seasons have featured twelve teams (Seasons 3, 4, 10, 15, and 34) and Season 35 had thirteen, while Season 8 featured ten teams of four[[/note]] go on a journey around the world, following clues and performing tasks in order to find their way to the designated Pit Stops; the last team to arrive is usually (but not always) eliminated.
10
11The most common types of tasks that the racers must perform along the way:
12
13* '''Detour''' -- [[CatchPhrase "A Detour is a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons."]] For Seasons 1-4, one route was typically shorter but harder (or scarier) to use while the other was longer but relatively easier. Starting with Season 5, it became more of a choice between two conflicting skill sets, such as brains vs. brawn, or something highly technical vs. grunt work. However, up until about Season 12, the tasks were still unbalanced enough that teams could easily see that one was much faster than the other. The producers got better at this after the first All-Stars, and it's now [[CompetitiveBalance uncommon to see all the teams choose the same Detour]]. Season 25 featured the Blind Detour, where teams are only given the names of the tasks, and must travel to the task location before receiving instructions.
14* '''Roadblock''' -- [[CatchPhrase "A Roadblock is a task that only one team member can perform"]], and the choice must be made with only a vague clue to hint at the task. [[ObviousRulePatch As of Season 6]], the rules specify that no one racer can perform more than a set number of Roadblocks, meaning the tasks must be split between teammates somewhat fairly. The non-participating teammate is in no way permitted to help with the task; should they even help verbally (regardless of whether the active partner listens or can even hear them), the team will incur a time penalty.
15* '''Fast Forward''' -- A special task that allows a team to bypass all other tasks and head directly to the Pit Stop. This is only awarded to the first team to complete the task, and teams are limited to one Fast Forward per race. The earliest seasons had Fast Forwards available on every leg, but due to the expense of setting them up they were cut back in Season 5 to only once or twice a season. Starting in Season 18 they might not appear at all, and seem to have been retired completely after Season 29.
16* '''Yield'''/'''U-Turn''' -- Introduced in Season 5, the Yield allowed one team to hinder the progress of another, forcing them to wait for approximately 30 minutes before they were able to continue. Come Season 12, it was replaced by the U-Turn, which is placed immediately before or after a Detour and forces the targeted team to complete both Detour tasks. Season 17 later modified this into the Double U-Turn, where ''two'' teams can each hinder a group behind them. Other variations include the Blind (or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Blind Double]]) U-Turn (seen occasionally starting in Season 14), where the team(s) using it can remain anonymous; and the Must Vote U-Turn, which forces all the teams to vote at the beginning of the leg for who should be U-Turned at the upcoming Detour. The Yield was temporarily brought back for Season 32, but with a twist of finding a ten or twenty minute timer in leg two and then being able to use it once throughout the season.
17* '''Speed Bump''' -- Introduced in Season 12, this is a short penalty task for teams that place last in non-elimination legs (prior to this, non-elimination penalties involved the confiscation of money and possibly possessions, or a time penalty on the next leg if they did not come in first).
18
19A few seasons of the American show have had gimmicks applied to their setup:
20* The Family Edition (Season 8), which expanded teams to four people (including kids) and limited itself to traveling North America.
21* Three All-Stars seasons (Seasons 11, 18, and 24), bringing back several previous racers. S18 was titled "Unfinished Business" instead of "All-Stars" to hype up MyGreatestSecondChance.
22* BlindDate (Season 26), where all the teams are dating couples and half of them only met each other at the starting line.
23* Season 29 (with no special title), a non-romantic expansion of the "Blind Date" concept where all 22 racers are strangers.
24* Season 31 (again, no special title is given), a version of the "All-Star" casting that includes veterans from CBS' other major reality shows, ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' and ''Series/BigBrother'', in addition to ''Race'' vets.
25
26The show has done well with both critics and fans, with the possible exception of the aforementioned Family Edition, which sacrificed exotic world locales and interpersonal drama for a competitive family road trip.
27
28''The Amazing Race'', like all reality shows, consists of a camera crew following the teams as they race across the globe; accordingly, for legal and political reasons, all participants must be U.S. citizens, and legally able to travel outside of the U.S. The show is much less frustration-wrought than, say, ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' -- less emphasis is placed on knocking the other team out of the proverbial race, which allows for a more 'relaxed' atmosphere while showcasing some of the absolutely ''[[SceneryPorn gorgeous]]'' scenery and geography in many of the world's most exotic countries.
29
30Heck, it's even mildly ''educational'', owing to the fact that some of the clues require calculation, riddle- and puzzle-solving, and a passing familiarity with the notable landmarks in a given country.
31
32Not to be confused with AmazingFreakingGrace, though that hasn't stopped some from making that pun [[Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle anyway]]. Also not to be confused with ''Film/{{Tar}}'', in which an 'a' was replaced by 'á', and also it's not an acronym at all along with a regular viscous organic black liquid. (That is called "Tar".)
33----
34! International Versions
35
36Fittingly, other countries have produced their own versions of the show.
37
38[[folder:List of Series]]
39* ''The Amazing Race Asia'': A race around the world (except for the Americas) open to English-speaking citizens of South, East, and Southeast Asia (Russia and Middle Eastern citizens not eligible), with a grand prize of US$100,000. It lasted four seasons, put on a hiatus in 2010 after the fourth season, then renewed for a fifth season in 2016.
40* ''The Amazing Race: A Corrida Milionária'': A race around Brazil (and Chile) open solely to citizens of Brazil with a grand prize of 500,000 Brazilian reais (about US$220,000). Only one season aired.
41** The Brazilian version is dubiously known for having [[http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u345975.shtml one of the teams and their production crew robbed at gunpoint]] and being forced to stop racing until the local police could retrieve the camera and personal belongings of the crew. The team dropped from 4th to last, and were granted a non-elimination leg penalty. They were ultimately unable to recover and were eliminated two episodes later, after having come in first place on the leg before the robbery.
42* ''[=HaMerotz LaMillion=]''[[note]]"The Race to the Million" in Hebrew[[/note]]: A race around the world (except the Americas, again) open to citizens of Israel with a grand prize of 1 million Israeli new shkalim (approximately US$277,000). The first three seasons ran the normal Race format, while the fourth had the largest cast in franchise history up to that point, with 14 teams, who were split up into two groups of seven. Each group ran a separate first leg, with a team being eliminated from each group, before meeting up to continue the race as a whole.
43** In the first 2 seasons, the Israeli race kept to the "no Americas" rule set by ''Asia''. In the third season, the show visited Brazil and Cuba.
44* ''The Amazing Race Latin America'': A race around Latin America and the Caribbean open solely to Spanish-speaking citizens of the region (except those from Cuba, French Guiana, Puerto Rico, and much of the Lesser Antillies; Jamaica and the Bahamas are okay though) with a grand prize of US$250,000. Six seasons have aired under differing titles[[note]]Season 1 and 2 were titled ''en Discovery Channel'', Season 4 was ''Edição Brasil'', and Season 6 was titled ''Ecuador'', for the country the race took place in.[[/note]].
45* ''The Amazing Race: China Rush'': A race around mainland China with a grand prize of a trip around the world financed by a travel agency. The first season was open solely to English-speaking nationals or expatriates living in China, but the second season allowed Chinese citizens as well as any international contestants who speak English and Chinese and had lived in China at some time. It lasted three seasons.
46** This was followed two years later by a 2nd Chinese version, which traveled around the world. This is the first version of the show to be filmed non-consecutively, with breaks in the competition to allow for the CelebrityEdition contestants' filming schedules. This version also featured a version of the Save, but this one did not save the team who held it from elimination, instead forcing them to choose one team to bring back into the competition. This resulted in a team finishing 3rd despite only running five legs.
47** ''Shanghai Rush'': This knock-off[[note]]The network didn't get the ''Amazing Race'' trademark until the ''China Rush''[[/note]] preceded the ''China Rush'' and was a race solely around Shanghai with a grand prize of a year's accommodations at the Gemdale Green World. Instead of having Roadblocks, Detours, or Pit Stops, teams had to perform nondescript tasks at each location before moving on.
48* ''The Amazing Race Australia'': A race around the world open to Australian citizens, with a grand prize of A$250,000 (approximately US$229,000). Two seasons aired, and after taking a year off and switching production companies, a third season, subtitled "Australia vs. New Zealand" aired in 2014. A fourth season premiered on Network Ten in 2019, with Beau Ryan hosting - although it only went around Australia during season 5 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it went back to being around the world for season 6.
49** The first season of the Australian race initially kept with the unwritten "no Americas" rule of the Asian and Israeli races, and was the first race to include an extended visit to Israel[[note]]The Israeli version barely spends any time in its home nation, and has only had international finish lines.[[/note]] and the West Bank.[[note]]It was an Israeli settlement.[[/note]] The second season broke this "rule" and had teams travel to Cuba[[note]]Practically forbidden for the American version at the time due to the embargo.[[/note]] as well as Canada. The third season became the first of the international versions to visit all six inhabitable continents.
50** The sixth season of the Australian race boasted the biggest cast ever - 10 teams of 2 were each introduced over the first two legs doing two different courses in the same country, which then made one large race in leg 3.
51** Season 7 is a CelebrityEdition, with the celebrities and their partners winning AU$100,000 for their designated charities.
52* ''The Amazing Race Norge'' ("The Amazing Race Norway"): A race around the world (except for the Americas) open to Norwegian citizens, with a grand prize of 500,000 Norwegian kroner (approximately US$82,000). Two seasons have aired.
53* ''The Amazing Race Vietnam: Cuộc đua kỳ thú'': A race around Vietnam open to Vietnamese citizens, with a grand prize of 300 million Vietnamese đồng (the lowest pay out at just over US$14,000). The second season was a CelebrityEdition, while third season was a mix of celebrities and "fanatics."
54* ''The Amazing Race Philippines'': A race around the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} open to Philippine residents, with a grand prize of 2 million Philippine pesos (approximately US$46,000). A unique aspect of the Race was its Philippine broadcast schedule, essentially shown every day of the week in half hour blocks Monday through Saturday, with a compilation episode shown Sundays. It is also notable for having a team break the "contacting people outside the Race" rule and receiving a 24-hour penalty. Two seasons have aired.
55** Its second season is notable for having a team who ''completely'' [[WeUsedToBeFriends ended their friendship]] right after being eliminated from the race, and one of them not showing up at the Finish Line in the finale for that reason.
56* ''Velyki perehony''[[note]]"Big Race" in Ukrainian[[/note]] ("The Amazing Race Ukraine"): A race around the world (except for the Americas) open to Ukranian citizens with a grand prize of 500,000 Ukranian hryven' (approximately US$61,000). It lasted one season.
57* ''The Amazing Race'' (France): A race around the world open to French citizens. It is the first international edition of the show to travel to the United States. The grand prize was €50,000 (approximately US$65,000). It lasted one season.
58* ''The Amazing Race Canada'': Open to Canadian citizens, and airs in summer to avoid schedule conflicts with simulcasts of the US edition. The grand prize is C$250,000 (approximately US$240,000), and other assorted prizes (depending on the season). The first season only traveled within Canada, while the second season expanded to other countries.
59* ''The Amazing Race Central Europe'' was cancelled and would have been open to residents of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
60[[/folder]]
61----
62'''Note: Tropes relating to the series or teams in general go here. Tropes and examples specific to certain teams should be placed on their respective [[Characters/TheAmazingRace character pages]].'''
63
64!!Provides Examples Of:
65
66[[foldercontrol]]
67
68[[folder:All Versions]]
69
70* AlasPoorVillain: With the tendency for teams to get a touching send-off after being eliminated or losing, even teams people originally rooted against can invoke this response upon realizing just how passionate they were about the race.
71* AllThereInTheManual:
72** The full rules of the Race are never fully disclosed to the audience during the show, and they find out about many rules only when a team breaks them. According to former Racers, however, the teams spend a good bit of time being briefed on the actual Manual before the Race starts.
73** The audience only sees a single fairly brief page in the task envelopes that the teams open at each box. Again, teams have stated that there are usually supplementary sheets as well, with more details, limitations, and requirements for successfully completing the task.
74* TheAllegedCar: Some of the cars the teams are given turn out to be this, and it's obviously quite deliberate. This is much more common in the early U.S. seasons than in later seasons, as ProductPlacement has replaced these so-called cars with much nicer ones.
75* AreWeThereYet: Individual examples would be pointless - let's just say in all of its various incarnations in well over 15 years of broadcast, more than one frustrated racer has been heard asking this.
76* TheArtifact: The Fast Forward. For the first four US seasons, there was one on every leg, in theory giving each team a chance at one free pass. However, for budgetary reasons (as it was not cost-effective to set up all those single-use tasks, especially when half of them never got used, and therefore never made it onto the show), starting with Season 5 and in all the foreign versions, the Fast Forward was cut back to only one or two per season, although the "one per team" rule still applied. With most of the strategy drained out of deciding whether or not to go for it on any particular leg, the Fast Forward has mostly become a cheap and/or easy win for a team that was already in the lead, as no team outside of the lead pack would dare risk it, as to not get it would mean certain elimination (as happened to Terence & Sarah on US Season 13, or Joey "Fitness" & Danny on US Season 20).
77* AsianDrivers: The hectic nature of driving in countries such as India is often alluded to, but the trope is rarely outright stated. The best examples probably came from US Season 10 and Australia Season 2, where teams had to earn their local driver's license. While the US version toed the line with this trope, the Australian version stepped way over it, and teams passed their driver's test no matter how badly they did on their test. Sticky got into a car accident and still managed to pass.
78* AutoRevive: The Save Pass, which saves the team who holds it from one elimination.
79* BackForTheFinale: All eliminated teams show up at the Finish Line to cheer on the final three teams, with only a few exceptions. (Such as a team losing a passport.)
80* BackseatDriver: Enforced every time teams are tasked with driving themselves because of the way the camera crew positions themselves in the car (the driving team member in the driver's-side front seat, the cameraman in the passenger front seat, the non-drving team member is in the driver-side back seat, and the soundman is in the passenger-side back seat. This arrangement keeps the soundman out of camera range and allows both team members to be in-frame.
81* BittersweetEnding: Played for most of the 2nd and 3rd place teams. It's rare that a team hits the Finish Line completely distraught or dejected.
82* BlindfoldedTrip: Sometimes the teams are given charter buses or planes to sign up for, but are not told their ultimate destination.
83* BoringButPractical: Some of the Detour choices can end up being a choice between an exciting, but more skill-intensive, task and this. In the worst-case scenario, the viewers don't get to see the exciting task at all. This was less apparent with earlier seasons when "fear" was a supposed "con" of the more exciting tasks, and the boring tasks were more time-consuming.
84* CastSpeciation: Across all of the versions, there's an informal quota of different team types to keep the dynamics interesting. A typical season will have the teams roughly split in thirds between couples (usually about half married/ half dating), family members (mostly siblings with an odd parent/child or cousins team), and friends. This has affected casting choices. For example, Sarah and Peter from Season 10 of the American version were called a dating couple but were actually JustFriends. The production team told them they had the friend quota already filled but they needed another dating couple and they agreed to pretend to be a couple.
85* ClimbingTheCliffsOfInsanity: When the producers realized teams were no longer intimidated by jumping off things, they started making the teams climb them instead, such as in the US Season 10 premiere, where the teams had to climb the Great Wall of China to get to the Pit Stop on top.
86* ConfessionCam: A variant, as teammates almost always do them together.
87* CoordinatedClothes: Though teams are [[ColorCodedCharacters assigned a color]], several teams a season will take it a step further to this.
88* {{Crossdresser}}: Deliberately invoked. When required to wear an outfit, uniform, or costume, teams are often given the exact same set of clothing, regardless of gender orientation.
89* CrowdedCastShot: There's one at the beginning and end of every season ([[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness Save for US Season 1]]). The one at the beginning is generally used for promotional purposes, while the one at the end always precedes the FlyawayShot that ends the season.
90* CultureEqualsCostume: Costumes play a big part of the race; locals hired to run tasks and pit stop greeters will usually be in traditional costumes, and often racers will be put in costume as ''part of'' a task. Averted, of course, for everyone else the racers encounter.
91* TheDayTheMusicLied: Happens when a team realizes they've made a mistake, generally accompanied by a RecordNeedleScratch or, alternately, a gong for particularly bone-headed moves.
92* DirectionlessDriver: Comes up more than you would expect, but there seems to be at least one team per season who would prefer to work off of maps than ever ask for directions from locals.
93* DressUpEpisode: At least OnceASeason the producers will provide teams with costumes they must dress up in. Some of these are culturally relevant, others are just RuleOfFunny. Some are both.
94* DrivesLikeCrazy: Some cab drivers, especially in countries where traffic is prone to be like this in general.
95** In US Season 4, Tian & Jaree's cab driver in India drove on the wrong side of the highway at night with his lights off.
96** From US Season 17, in Ghana:
97--->'''Jonathan''': Our taxi driver and the taxi driver ahead of us have just invented a third lane.
98* EatThat: Most seasons have at least one eating challenge. They come in three varieties:
99** ForeignQueasine: One or both team members have to eat a local "delicacy," which they usually find gross.
100** MegaMealChallenge: One or both team members have to eat a massive amount of food.
101** A combination of both of the above.
102* EliminatedFromTheRace: The TropeNamer.
103* EliminationCatchphrase: "I'm sorry to tell you, you've both been EliminatedFromTheRace."
104* EliminationStatement: Generally much more positive and supportive than on other Reality Shows.
105* EmergencyCargoDump: Teams will often dump their backpacks on the way to the mat if they think they are in a footrace for either first or next-to-last. Most teams also ditch their bags for the finale and just run with their fanny packs but how exactly they ditch their bags varies. Jaymes & James in 21 just gave all their stuff to someone at the airport in Paris. Kelsey & Joey from 27 checked them at the gate when offered and went back and got them. Kristi & Jen from 30 just left theirs on the plane.
106* In newer seasons[[note]]notably Australia 7, where Jana and Cor verbally note there is one in an episode where they have 2 bag debacles[[/note]], "bag drop" areas may be provided. People can choose not to use that area, but at their own risk.
107* EpicRace: One of the definitive non-fictional examples.
108* FacePlant[=/=]ThePratfall: Racers fall down... ''a lot'', and 95% of the time it's played for laughs, and plenty of times they even get back up and start laughing themselves.
109* FailedASpotCheck: Happens a lot, with the cameraman generally pointing out whatever the racers missed.
110* FailingATaxi: Will happen from time to time, and is always played for drama. Most of the time it happens because teams will be tasked with finding a cab in an area that doesn't have many.
111* FailureMontage: All the time when teams struggle with tasks, in order to show how long the task is taking without actually wasting airtime to show all the failed attempts. Can be played emotionally or for laughs depending in the situation.
112* FatalFamilyPhoto: Generally when a team talks about how much they miss their family back at home, especially early in the race, you can expect them to get eliminated that episode.
113* FetchQuest: Get Object A, take to Location B to receive your next clue, return to starting point to retrieve your teammate.
114** Season 2 had a multiple step fetch quest, in a Roadblock, where a contestant had to go from spot to spot before being told to rejoin their teammate. [[ReadTheFreakingManual Two teams messed this up and had to do it over.]]
115* FinalExamFinale: The finale of most seasons includes a puzzle as the final task, usually asking the teams to identify things from the race and put them in order. These items can include flags, locations, Pit Stop greeters, or the order of elimination from the previous legs. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtD0RUIXn6o&feature=related Here's an example from US Season 9]], involving flags. It's become so notorious that teams take notes on what happens to them during the race in case they end up having to face one, and several times (US Seasons 9, 12, 13, 14, 21, and 25, Asia Season 2, Canada Season 1, Australia v New Zealand for example) it has caused a lead change that ultimately decided the outcome of the race.
116* FollowThatCar: Just about every episode of the show has some variant of this trope. The second season finale was even titled "Follow That Plane".
117* FriendshipMoment: The whole point of having teams of two instead of individual racers.
118* GameShowPhysicalChallenge: Teams race around the world, completing various challenges so they can advance. Besides the running between waypoints, many challenges are, in part or whole, physical, such as climbing or moving freight on foot.
119* GenreMashup: It's a TravelogueShow mixed with a RealityShow.
120* GracefulLoser: It's actually rare for a losing team ''not'' to be graceful in defeat (though the Elimination Station may be a different story), and many teams in the Final 3 are just happy having gotten to run the whole race.
121* {{Griefer}}: Many challenges include locals whose only point seems to be annoying or distracting the contestants on challenges that take a lot of time or concentration.
122* HateSink: Some teams exist purely to be hated by the audience, so that the fans can be happy when they're eventually eliminated.
123* HiddenInPlainSight: Clues are hidden this way all the time, though most notoriously in US Season 19, when the clue was a giant flashing sign written in Chinese that many of the teams spotted then disregarded at first.
124* IdiosyncraticShipNaming:[[invoked]] Commonly used both in-show and out for teams. The originators were US Season 1's "Team Guido" (Bill & Joe), who named themselves after their pet dog. Other examples from the US version include Team Cha-Cha-Cha (Oswald & Danny from Season 2), the Double-Ds or the Pinks (Dani & Danielle from Season 9; the latter name for their wardrobe, and the former given by another team as a play on their names (but with a DoubleEntendre involved)), and the Afghanimals (Leo & Jamal from Seasons 23, 24, and 31). Occasionally they're {{Portmanteau Couple Name}}s; like Momily (Nancy & Emily, the mother/daughter team from Season 1), Heave (Heather & Eve from Season 3), Dandrew (Dan & Andrew from Season 13), and Brenchel (Brendon & Rachel from Seasons 20 and 24). By Season 26, the show itself has begun providing these in EngineeredHashtag labels to use on social media.
125* ImNotHereToMakeFriends: Invoked at least OnceASeason.
126* AnInsert: Showing off clue packets and other items involved in tasks.
127* ItsAllMyFault: Sometimes, after an elimination, a team member will blame themselves for whatever mistakes that caused them to be last (whether {{Justified}} or not)
128* ItsTheJourneyThatCounts: Most contestants will say that being on the show was more important than actually winning it.
129* LandingGearShot: Given that it is a race around the world, the show uses this trope all the time during travel sequences.
130* LanguageBarrier: One of the main challenges of the race is figuring out how to communicate with people in other countries.
131* LimitedWardrobe: Justified, as teams have to carry their entire wardrobe on their backs.
132* LinkedListClueMethodology: The show is set up for teams to go from clue to clue without knowing the ultimate destinations.
133* TheLoad: It always seems there's one racer who's near-useless on tasks, leaving their partner to do all the work. These contestants are the reason that limits were put on Roadblocks, to make it harder for one teammate to carry another through the season.
134* LongRunnerTechMarchesOn:
135** Cell phone and smartphone proliferation has had a huge effect on the race metagame and the way the course is set up. Racers are barred from carrying phones themselves, but it's become increasingly easier to borrow a local's phone to call a cab or Google information about their clue or something. This has led to things that caused teams problems in early seasons, such as locating the location of a picture they were given, much easier.
136** As GPS devices become standard issue in cabs across the world, the "bad cabbie" problem is tending to change from "he doesn't know how to get there" to "he doesn't understand what the team is saying" or "he drives slowly/badly".
137** Teams in the earlier seasons almost always wore all cotton and cargo pants were the go-to choice for both men and women. As the years have gone on and moisture wicking synthetic fabrics have become more readily available, it’s replaced cotton. Men wear cargo pants less often now but women pretty much exclusively wear synthetic leggings unless they’re in conservative countries where it’d be considered rude/offensive/illegal.
138* LuckBasedMission:
139** "Needle in a Haystack" tasks. One of the most ''hated'' types of tasks.
140** Whether you get a good or bad taxi driver can have a significant impact on how you do in a leg. In earlier seasons, this sometimes factored heavily in the finales. Later seasons have been designed so that performance on the tasks has a better chance to offset an unlucky choice of cabbie.
141* MacGuffinLocation: Everywhere, every episode, with each new clue leading a team to a new MacGuffin Location.
142* MercyKill: Of the non-lethal variety. When a team gets so far behind that it would be impossible for them to catch up to the other teams, they are given a clue that sends them right to the Pit Stop for their elimination. If they're ''really'' stuck (usually trying to complete a task) and can't even get to the next clue, the host will come to ''them''.
143* MetalDetectorPuzzle: The show will use this every once in a while. One of the rarer task types.
144* MobstacleCourse: Happens in big cities, especially in India. Sometimes used as a task where teams have to find a specific person within the mob.
145* MoodMotif: An overabundance of them. When they're not using a RegionalRiff, it's probably this. The most notable are those used for the first and last place teams coming into the Pit Stop.
146* MsFanservice: All-female teams, particularly blond ones, often tend to be cast more for their supposed attractiveness over potential racing ability, though teams such as Dustin & Kandice (US 10 & 11), Jaime & Cara (US 14 & 18), Jess & Lani (Asia 4), Bar & Inna (Israel 2), Sam & Renae (Australia 1), Jo & Michelle (Australia 2), Valeria & Bohdana (Ukraine 1), Lam Anh & Thu Hien (Vietnam 2), Yvonne & Chloe and Parul & Maggie (both Asia 5), Le Hang & H'Hen Nie (Vietnam 6), and Tia & Fay (Israel 7) have demonstrated themselves to be more than just looks.
147* MundaneMadeAwesome: Put a million dollars on the line, and anything can become epic. In US Season 16, they did this with pouring champagne, and it actually ''worked''.
148* MythologyGag: Although they don't necessarily point it out, many of the later international editions would either recycle locations and tasks from the US edition, or recycle tasks from each other. Australia Season 1 utilized this the most, as every other leg featured a task or location borrowed from the US or Asian versions.
149* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: The show is quite fond of this trope. One notable example came in US Season 17, where one Road Block had racers using chopsticks to find pieces of fake food hidden in a gigantic table of real food. The catch was that if they picked wrong, they had to eat the food they chose. Naturally, this started becoming a huge problem when a few teams started making several dozen wrong guesses in a row.
150%%* NoDamageRun: Twenty-four teams have made it to the Final 3 without ever being in danger of elimination (that is, finishing in the bottom 2 on any given leg), and eleven of them can be considered {{Flawless Victor|y}}ies, that being Meghan & Cheyne on US Season 15, Kisha & Jen on US Season 18, Ernie & Cindy on US Season 19, Rachel & Dave on US Season 20, Jason & Amy on US Season 23, Dave & Conner on US Season 24, Adrian & Collin on Asia Season 2, Shay & Guy on Israel Season 1, Mauricio & Carlos on Latin America Season 2, Nicolás & Cristóbal on Latin America Season 3, Omar & Bilal on Norge Season 2, Valeria & Bohdana on Ukraine Season 1, and Mickey & Pete on Canada Season 2. The others are:
151%%** Both Rob & Brennan and Frank & Margarita did it on US Season 1, but [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable due to the way the course was set up]] it was impossible for them to finish below 2nd place after leg 9, and considering the easiest time to lose one's No Damage Run is late in the season like that, there's no telling what would have happened had the other teams been allowed to catch up.
152%%** Dustin & Kandice did it on ''All-Stars'', but finished 2nd overall. They are also the only team to pull a No Damage Run where they had to run three legs with only four teams, where a 3rd place finish in any of them could have cost them.
153%%** Margie & Luke on US Season 14, they also never finished below 4th at any point during the season, only to finish 3rd when Luke choked on the Final Puzzle.
154%%** Perri & Maristela also did it in the Brazilian version, but unlike other teams who made it to the Final 3, they were actually disqualified halfway through the final leg for quitting a task.
155%%** Toño & Lili pulled a NoDamageRun on Latin America's Season 2, but finished 2nd overall.
156%%** Rovilson & Marc pulled one in Season 2 of the Asian version, along with one of the best run games in Amazing Race history, never placing below second and coming 1st in 8 out of 12 legs, but ultimately a struggle in the final Roadblock put them in 3rd place for that season.
157%%** Jill & Thomas, US Season 17, also made it to the Final 3 unscathed. They then finished 3rd in the finale when they stuck with a bad cabbie past the point where it became obvious he didn't understand what they were telling him.
158%%** Anaelle & Akiva did on Israel Season 2, and were in the lead most of the final leg, but struggled with the final task and ultimately fell to 3rd.
159%%** Michelle & Jo from Australia Season 2 managed to reach the Final 3 only falling below 3rd place twice, and had a hour lead over the other teams midway through the final leg, but ultimately finished 3rd when a mid-leg flight allowed the other teams to catch up.
160%%** Natalie & Meghan from Canada Season 2, who won seven legs and were tied for the third best finishing average of all time (with Rachel & Dave from U.S. 20), but lost in the final leg due to a lingering hand injury and bad luck in luck tasks.
161* NonGameplayElimination: Generally happens at least OnceASeason, mostly due to the tight shooting schedule and loads of travel making it impossible to wait around for a single lagging team to finish a leg. The Race even has its own unique NonGameplayElimination nicknamed the "MercyKill", in which they're so far behind, they're given a clue that sends them straight to the Pit Stop for elimination.
162* OddNameOut: Take a look at the names of all the tasks and related material: Detour, Roadblock, Yield, Intersection, U-Turn, Speed Bump, Switchback, Express Pass and... Fast Forward? One has to wonder why no one thought of calling it a "Shortcut" instead.
163* OnTheNext: Somehow manages to combine TrailersAlwaysSpoil, TrailersAlwaysLie, and PseudoCrisis all into a 15 second clip.
164* OneHitKill: The U-Turn used to function as one in its early seasons, though there were often other factors that contributed to a team's loss than just the time spent on a U-Turn. It has since become much more forgiving on teams as Detour tasks are relatively easy on a U-Turn leg. The US version even introduced the Double U-Turn so that at least one team would survive it.
165* OnlySmartPeopleMayPass: Tasks like this are more prevalent in the later seasons, as well as the clues.
166* PathOfMostResistance: Showed up on a lot of early Detours, where one was scary or physically challenging, but fast, while the other was safe, but tedious and time-consuming. Used very frequently on the first four seasons, but not too often anymore, as the longer option was rarely taken.
167* PitbullDatesPuppy: Some couple teams come off like this under the stresses of the Race, though most don't tend to act that way in real life.
168* PreviouslyOn: Usually only the finale references more than the previous episode.
169* PoisonMushroom: The second Express Pass teams "won" to give to another team quickly turned into this, leading to the eliminations of [[Characters/TheAmazingRace22 Jessica & John]] and [[Characters/TheAmazingRaceCanada1 Kristen & Darren]], not to mention all the backlash it causes with the teams who do not receive the extra Pass.
170* ThePowerOfFriendship: One of the main themes behind the race, with "teamwork" being one of the main skills necessary to win the Race that Phil brings up in his pre-Race speech every season. Sure, teams like Zach & Flo (3), Freddy & Kendra (6), and Eric & Danielle (11) have managed to win with less than stellar teamwork, but bickering and in-fighting usually kills a team's chances.
171* PseudoCrisis: Almost every commerical break is led into by one of these, with the team resolving the issue or completing the task right after from coming back from the break.
172* RaceAgainstTheClock: Some tasks have to be performed in a certain amount of time, otherwise the teams have to start over.
173* [[ReadTheFreakingManual Read The Freaking Clue]]: This is the number one rule of the Race. Teams have been issued penalties and eliminated for disobeying instructions in their clues, Vietnam Season 2 even saw a team penalized at the Finish Line and lose the Race due to failure to do this.
174* RealityShowGenreBlindness: Actually averted most of the time; the majority of teams in later seasons make it clear that they have seen previous seasons. That said, failure to [[ReadTheFreakingManual Read The Freaking Clue]] properly still happens way more often than it should.
175** Expect to hear a variation of "We did all that work on the last leg, only to have every team get on the same flight," at least once per season, despite equalizers having been a staple of the race since the beginning.
176** Having friends is beneficial for about the first 2/3 of the season but don’t expect them to help you past that point.
177** Some teams don't seem to realize that there's going to be a thrill challenge somewhere. Or that there will actually be tasks where they have to swim, or that the final leg of the race is going to have a puzzle. [[DrivingStick Same with people who don't know how to drive a stick shift.]] EVERY SEASON there is at least on person who can't swim, can't drive stick, can't ride a bike, or is scared of heights, despite every season requiring swimming, driving stick, riding bikes, and jumping off high places.
178** For everybody, please don't expect this is a free 24-7 vacation (or a honeymoon for couples).
179* RecurringTraveller: Phil Keoghan, Allan Wu, and all the other hosts, showing up at the Pit Stops to officially check the teams in.
180* RegionalRiff: A staple of the show, and considering how many regions they've traveled to, they've used ''a lot'' of these.
181* RubberBandAI: For various reasons, production creates "equalizers"[[note]]spots like airports or locations with operating hours, where teams are all evened up equally[[/note]] or "bunching points"[[note]]spots like train or bus stations, charter buses and planes, or "take a number" tasks where teams are moved closer together or into groups, but not completely leveled out.[[/note]] usually involving operating hours or transport schedules, so no team gets too far ahead or behind: Logistically, it's easier to keep the crew in a single country at a time and you don't want to tie up locals in assisting/judging tasks for days on end. Dramatically, having wins or losses be a ForegoneConclusion every week is boring.[[note]]And in the American version, during the first season, a few teams got caught too far behind because of factors outside their control, resulting in the race becoming UnintentionallyUnwinnable.[[/note]]
182* SadisticChoice: The producers learning how to balance Detours means that instead of choosing between a hard Detour and an easy one, there are now times when teams have to choose between two brutally hard ones.
183* SceneryPorn: The world is a ''very'' beautiful place!
184* ScrewTheRulesImBeautiful: Heavily subverted. A lot of female teams talk about using their looks to their advantage. However, this rarely comes into play, and bringing it up pretty much guarantees a team's elimination down the line.
185* SeriouslyScruffy: A result of the teams being constantly on the move. Though teams are allowed to carry grooming products with them, the constant travel causes personal grooming to slip as the season goes on and teams either spend their spare time resting, doing research, or ditch their products all together while lightening their backpacks.
186* SexSells: The reason women generally have a huge advantage when it comes to selling tasks. It doesn't always play out this way, but men will point it out when a woman blasts by them on a selling task.
187* StandardSnippet: When coming across a musical task, expect it to involve one of these.
188* StubbornMule: Tends to happen with almost any animal based task when it involves leading the animal from point A to point B.
189* SurpriseDifficulty: InUniverse. Even racers who have been fans of the series for years have finished the first leg in shock of how difficult the Race actually is. Even racers who've won other [[Series/{{Survivor}} Reality]] [[Series/BigBrother Shows]] have commented on it.
190* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
191** The U-Turn, which replaced the Yield.
192** American Season 30 had the Partner Swap, replacing the not-seen-for-a-long-while Intersection.[[note]]An Intersection had two teams [[EnemyMine join forces]] on tasks until a specific point. The partner swap added the step of the two united teams separating so that each new team had 1 member of the old team.[[/note]]
193* TheTaxi: The second most common form of transportation (after airplanes), with entire ''seasons'' turning on teams getting good or bad cab drivers.
194* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Not every team finds themselves ultimately getting along, Tara & Wil (US Season 2) being the best example.
195* TemptingFate: All the time, mostly on legs when a team in the front of the pack boasts about how good they've been doing, that generally means they're about to struggle for the first time. It's almost expected to happen now.
196* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: Never shown, but frequently talked about, especially when teams spend the night in a remote location.
197* [[ThisIsACompetition This Is A Race]]: Usually used to justify breaking an alliance. Also quite possibly the most quoted non-Phil line in the series.
198** You can actually see the how this attitude changes in the US version, where, early on, teams who held a competitive attitude over a friendly one were seen as unlikable or villainous by the other teams, and alliances were seen as a necessity by a lot of the teams. The shifting towards a more general competitive attitude was a major plot-line in Season 10, where the teams who valued friendship over the competition were portrayed as inept, while the most competitive team, Dustin & Kandice, were seen by the other teams and portrayed by the editing as the villains, but were wildly popular and are still seen as one of the best teams to ever run the race.
199* ThoseTwoGuys: Since all teams are pairs, you will end up seeing several of these amongst teams who aren't given the airtime to differentiate them as individual characters.
200* TightropeWalking: A rather common type of task, done with lots of safety equipment to prevent falling.
201* TimePassesMontage: Usually when an "operating hours" equalizer is involved.
202* TitleDrop: Oh, so many references to the race being "amazing". Additionally, at least in the US version, the episode titles are almost always something that one of the racers says during that leg.
203* ToBeContinued: At the end of the first part of double legs.
204** Season 21 is notable for having one in the first Moscow leg without it being double-length, brought about since two teams fell victim to a missed connecting flight and thus were left hours behind and one other team lost one of their passports. Normally, [[MercyKill one of these situations would lead to a team being sent directly to the Pit Stop for elimination]], but with three teams involved, and it being a non-elimination leg anyway, it was left on a cliffhanger instead.
205* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Several female teams have fallen into this, though sisters Mary & Peach from US Season 2 are probably the best example. This seems to be a bad combination for female teams, as the girly girl tends to lag, forcing the tomboy to carry her weight.
206* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Both inverted and played straight, depending on the episode. The safest team on any given leg is ''usually'' the one made to look like they were in danger in the trailers at the end of the previous episode, which makes it all the more shocking when they play it absolutely straight.
207** Trailers that spoil have been taken to an extreme level in recent seasons, as they tend to show the final three teams at the final destination city, spoiling the final elimination.
208* TranslationByVolume: It happens, and far too frequently to list individual examples.
209* TravelMontage: Given that traveling is the main premise of the game...
210* UndesirablePrize: Sometimes when leg prizes aren't trips or money, such as boats or dune buggies, they end up going to a team that has absolutely no use for them. Like when Charla & Mirna won a pair of catamarans on Season 11, and started celebrating before realizing they didn't know what a catamaran was, or when Season 16's Dan & Jordan told Phil they would never use the scooters they had just won.
211** Some teams don't accept their prizes, such as trips, due to tax issues.
212** Averted in Season 18, where Snapple was a sponsor. It appeared the prize was solely to taste two new Snapple flavors, and then Phil revealed they were also getting a feast that night, a private Bollywood-style performance, and a million rupees (or roughly $20,000 cash).
213* UniversalDriversLicense: The show takes full advantage of the fact that many people believe this trope to be TruthInTelevision, making teams operate things like doubledecker buses, armored personnel carriers, and shipyard cargo cranes, as well as extending it to things like dogsleds and donkey carts. Count on at least one shot each season of a team member saying something like, [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong "How hard can it be?"]] just before they screw up royally.
214* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: Season 1, three teams were essentially eliminated on leg nine, as poor course design made it impossible for the two teams who technically did survive to ever catch up to the lead pack. This was fixed in later seasons with the introduction of deliberate equalizers. This has not stopped some fans from complaining about equalizers ruining the game.
215* VillainyFreeVillain: With a few exceptions, the worst thing most "villains" on the show do is be a huge {{Jerkass}}.
216* VomitDiscretionShot: A part of most eating tasks. Occasionally a VomitIndiscretionShot (or, at times, as close as it could get without trying to cram the cameraman into the bathroom stall with the racer).
217* WarMemorial: A common clue location in [[OscarBait Emmy Bait]] episodes. The most contentious of these visits happened in Season 22, where the U-Turn was located at a B-52 Bomber used as a Vietnam war memorial, only the show made no mention of its status, setting off a number of viewers, who said it was insulting to veterans.
218* WeWait: The producers are famous for subjecting the contestants to a variation of this trope during equalizers. At the beginning of many legs of the Race, the first team to start the leg, no matter how far ahead they are, race to the airport to inevitably find that the first available flight to their destination doesn't leave for hours, well after all the other teams have caught up. Or they race to some local tourist trap that doesn't open until a specific time shown on a sign.
219* WholeCostumeReference: All the time with locals and Pit Stop Greeters.
220* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: If a racer expresses a phobia at any time, expect them to have to face that phobia before the end of the season. This was much more prevalent in the earlier US seasons, where a lot of contestants were afraid of heights, and they were forced to face them multiple times per season. Later seasons greatly reduce the number of height-related tasks, and teams come in expecting them.
221* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: Racers tend to react like this when the race brings them in the presence of great natural beauty. Of course, there's also the subversion, usually brought on by bad interactions with locals, where racers declare that foreign cultures ''suck''.
222* WorldTour: One of the main premises behind the game.
223[[/folder]]
224
225[[folder:U.S. Version: General Tropes A-M]]
226* AllThereInTheManual: The show hasn't had strict 12-hour Pit Stops since the forced redesign in Season 12, partially in order to better control equalizers, but also to reduce time that the teams sat around at airports and task locations waiting for them to open, they just never mentioned the change on the show. Even before that, not all Pit Stops were exactly 12 hours either, some being 24 or 36 hours long.
227** The producers stopped letting teams intermingle at the Pit Stops midway through Season 14, which is why teams are shown interacting with each other a Pit Stops before that, but often don't know who was eliminated until everyone shows up at the airport in the next leg after that.
228** Before Season 19, the single use of a Yield/U-Turn was determined by whether you had your "Courtesy Of" sticker available. Since Season 14 featured a Blind U-Turn which did not require the use of the sticker, Luke has mentioned that he would have been able to use the other U-Turn if he got to it first.
229* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The contestants are guilty of mangling foreign languages every season, especially when they get into Eastern Europe or Asia. Sometimes they use ElSpanishO.
230** Oftentimes averted when the race brings the racers to a place where one (or more) of them is fluent (or at least competent) in the local language.
231* BlackGalOnWhiteGuyDrama: Brian & Ericka from Season 15 revealed there was some controversy in their family about their inter-racial relationship. Unlike most media examples, the white male Brian was the one who was actually portrayed as a victim of racism by Ericka's mother. Though the other teams and most of the viewers didn't bat an eye at their relationship, this revelation from Ericka serves as a reminder that any stigma surrounding interracial marriages often affects the white partner as much as it does the POC partner.
232* BreatherEpisode: Each of the first four seasons had a non-elimination leg between the final elimination leg and the finale. Since there were no penalties given out to teams saved by the non-elimination, most teams considered this a free leg, and on Season 3, Zach even deliberately threw the second-to-last leg just to appease Flo. The non-elimination leg in the Final 3 returned for Seasons 7 and 9, but with penalties in place for non-eliminated teams, it was no longer a Breather Leg.
233** Though the penultimate leg in Season 17 was technically an elimination leg, the 4th place team had fallen 9 hours behind due to a penalty from the previous leg preventing them from making a flight. This basically made the other 3 teams treat the leg as a free non-elimination leg.
234** The penultimate leg of Season 29 was a very physically easy trip through Seoul. Tasks included making Kimchi and playing ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV '' against a professional e-sports player. This is because the previous leg in Vietnam was probably the most physically intense in the history of the entire franchise. Teams were out all day in Vietnam in July and ended up biking about 20km carrying huge containers of fish and then hiking up a mountain. It was so tough that a team got a MercyKill on the course because one of them suffered a heatstroke and physically couldn’t continue.
235* CallBack: The "Switchback" tasks have teams repeat notable tasks from previous seasons. While some tasks (such as bungee jumping) are repeated without much fanfare, the "Switchback" reference the famous moments that made these tasks so memorable, and are generally held in the same location as the original task (the exception being the head shaving Fast Forward in Season 20).
236* CallItKarma: Some racers, especially in Seasons 10-15, seem to think that winning the race is all about racking up more Karma points than your opponents (Some of the fans aren't much better).
237** Call It Karma teams especially hate the Yield and the U-Turn, and will vilify any team who uses them, regardless of the context. This is despite that, aside from Freddy & Kendra (who both Yielded and were Yielded by Adam & Rebecca on Season 6) and Dave & Connor (who were U-Turned by Brendon & Rachel and U-Turned Leo & Jamal on Season 24), only one other team has won the race after being Yielded (Eric & Danielle, Season 11), while ten have won after using the Yield or U-Turn (Chip & Kim (5), Freddy & Kendra, the Linz Family, (Family Edition), BJ & Tyler (9), Tammy & Victor (14), Nat & Kat (17), Ernie & Cindy (19), Bates & Anthony (22), Dave & Connor, and Amy & Maya (25), though their U-Turn was wasted, as the team they targeted won the Fast Forward).
238* TheCameo: Season 1's Kevin & Drew appeared briefly at the beginning of Season 8 to give the teams one of their first clues in New York.
239** Wayne Newton gave the racers their final clue leading them to the Finish Line in Season 15.
240** Allan Wu, host of ''Amazing Race Asia'', gave the teams a clue in Season 16, and the finale took a trip to Industrial Light & Magic, complete with an appearance from [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]].
241** [[Series/TheNewlywedGame Bob Eubanks]] gave the teams their final clue after they completed the game show style [[FinalExamFinale Final Puzzle]] in Season 17.
242** David Copperfield ran the teams through a Roadblock in the Season 24 finale.
243** Winners of Amazing Race Season 19 Ernie and Cindy show up to give a clue in the Season 29 finale in Chicago.
244* CerebusSyndrome: Not so much of the show, but the attitude of the teams coming in has definitely shifted towards the darker over the course of the series. In the early seasons, the general attitude was one of a bunch of people taking an epic adventure around the world together, and there just so happened to be a million dollar prize at the end. Teams who played cutthroat were generally despised by the audience and the other teams, and were cut as the villains. Sometime around the first All-Stars, the general attitude shifted from "playing fair" to "playing to win".
245** Also contributing to this is the elimination of the "eat, sleep, and mingle" Pit Stops during Season 14, which means teams in later seasons spend a lot less time socializing with each other, and are therefore more willing to play cutthroat.
246** The biggest example of this shift is from Unfinished Business, where fans got upset about the teams working too much together, and giving each other answers to challenges. In the early seasons, this kind of cooperation was normal.
247* ColorCodedCharacters: By accident (or maybe not), the Final 3 teams on Season 7 all ended up being associated with different color clothing (Uchenna & Joyce: yellow, Rob & Amber: red, Ron & Kelly: light blue). After that, teammates would generally wear same color shirts, if only for the first leg or so. Teams have started referring to each other by the colors of their shirts in the first leg (as teams are not allowed to interact prior to the start of the race), and even calling themselves "The <insert color here> team".
248** Prior to this, teams were denoted by both numbers on their backpacks and different colored bandannas. However, the numbers were rarely, if ever seen, and the bandannas, when worn, were not always in a noticeable position, and often times were even completely discarded by the teams.
249* ComebackMechanic: The Fast Forward acted as this for the first four seasons. If a team fell to the back of the pack, they could use their Fast Forward to put themselves back in the front. Later, with only one or two per season, teams who had fallen behind had to hope for an equalizer, or that someone has made a worse mistake than them.
250* CringeComedy: This show is devoid of a lot of the interpersonal conflict that's ubiquitous throughout other competition shows but in the odd case that there is a blowup between two teams, it's PlayedForLaughs. Notably in season 31, when Rachel and Elissa barely beat out Corinne and Eliza the latter misunderstood something that Rachel said and took it as an insult. [[note]] Rachel said she was "blessed", meaning that she was glad she got to do the race with her sister but Eliza, in particular, took it as her rubbing their loss in their faces[[/note]] They had a complete meltdown on the mat with Phil, the little girl who was the task greeter, Rachel, and Elissa all just standing there having no idea what to do.
251* CurbStompBattle: The show itself, as a Meta example. It has dominated the Emmy's Reality-Competition Program category since its inception in 2003, winning the first seven awards, and ten overall, quintupling the number of awards won by every other reality show combined. Even if the show never won another award, it would take until 2022 for all the other reality shows combined to catch up to the show's ten Emmys.
252* DamnYouMuscleMemory: When the teams drive themselves, it's common for them to get in the left side of the car in countries where the steering wheel is on the right.
253* ADeathInTheLimelight: This has become a way for fans to determine who will be eliminated at the end of the episode.
254* DescriptionCut: The editors love this trope, and it is done several times a season. Done typically when one team says something about the placement of another team that turns out to be completely wrong. A few examples:
255** Season 1, Episode 3: While walking to the Hotel de Ville, Joe & Bill started talking about how all the other teams would get stuck in traffic or not be able to find it. Cut to almost every single team showing up at the Roadblock before them.
256** Season 1, Episode 5:
257--->'''Joe & Bill''' (reaching the Roadblock and seeing nobody else there): The fatties [Kevin & Drew] got lost.
258--->''(cut to Kevin & Drew dancing it up at the Pit Stop oasis)''
259** A slightly different, but still deliciously ironic, one from Season 2, Episode 11:
260--->'''Wil''': [[[NoAccountingForTaste Tara and I]]] have the best chance of winning, because I got Tara. I got sunshine.
261--->''(cut to pouring rain outside)''
262** Season 5, Episode 4:
263---> '''Mirna''': It would be nice to have dinner, we're starving.
264---> ''(cut to Christie and Nicole breaking down as they try to eat 2 lbs. of caviar)''
265*** A similar cut was done with Susan & Patrick (7) on their way to the 4 lbs. of meat Roadblock.
266** Season 7, Episode 9: The ''entire first half'' of the episode played out like this. Rob was feeling so overconfident with Lynn & Alex gone that he asked older couple Gretchen & Meredith if they had gotten on the earlier flight, just to mess with them. Gretchen & Meredith freaked out and went running to Uchenna & Joyce. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain The two couples borrowed someone's phone,]] [[AccidentalTruth and actually found a flight that would get them in two hours earlier.]] Rob, after "confirming" there were no faster flights to Istanbul, sat around mocking the "idiot" teams that were already in the air, getting a two-hour jump on him. Even Rob & Amber fans found this episode [[HoistByHisOwnPetard immensely satisfying to watch]].
267** Season 9, Episode 11: Ray & Yolanda, when going for the Fast Forward:
268-->'''Yolanda''': An after school favorite. What is that? A game of football? UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}}?
269-->''Cut to a bowl of crickets, the ForeignQueasine task.''
270** Season 10, Episode 8: The entire episode played out like this, with Rob & Kim and Tyler & James laughing about how Dustin & Kandice had to do the Intersection with one of the Pit Stop, and about how the Fast Forward was going to put them so far ahead, only to have Dustin & Kandice win the leg.
271--->'''Tyler''' (at the Fast Forward): No team is going to finish a Detour and a Roadblock ahead of us.
272--->'''Rob''': We're going to be so far ahead.
273--->''(cut to Dustin finishing the Roadblock, her and Kandice about to take first place on that leg)''
274** From leg 1 of Unfinished Business:
275--->'''Kris''': Amanda will be good at that, she’s good at word puzzles and things.
276--->*cut to a confused looking Amanda*
277--->'''Amanda''': What? Great, doesn't make sense.
278* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: Mark & Michael committed this in Season 14, Episode 7. One option in that episode's Detour is transportation by rickshaw with air pumps provided in the case of a flat tire. Mark & Michael hide the pumps which they get penalized for when they arrive at the Pit Stop. If that isn't bad enough, they are assessed another time penalty for following a taxi along the way. As a result, they miss out on a trip to Hawaii when a team checks in a few minutes before their penalties time out.
279* DoomMagnet: You would not believe just how many tragedies have happened in places that were just featured on the race:
280** Season 1: The ''series premiere'', which left from UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, aired on September 5, 2001, six days before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
281** Season 6: The racers traveled through UsefulNotes/SriLanka only months before it was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
282** Season 8 went through UsefulNotes/NewOrleans a month before Hurricane Katrina hit, which was actually doubly tragic, because the Schroeder family, who were actually ''from'' New Orleans, got ''eliminated'' there--and then their home was severely damaged a month later (Fortunately, the Rogers family was kind enough to take them in for a while).
283** Season 14: On the night the second UsefulNotes/{{Bangkok}} leg aired, violent protests broke out in the city.
284** Season 16 is the race's biggest example: The prize for winning the first leg was a trip to UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}}, including a skeleton ride at the Whistler Sliding Center. A fairly obvious tie-in with the 2010 Vancouver Winter UsefulNotes/OlympicGames... only one of the Olympic athletes died going down that track on the day of the opening ceremony, mere days before the episode aired. Also, that and the next leg went through Chile - aired a week before it was hit with an 8.8 earthquake. Then, after the fourth leg, one contestant (Louie) was put under investigation under suspicion of being involved in a police run cocaine ring in Rhode Island. The next leg was packed with comments from Louie & Michael talking about how their jobs as cops prepared them for the race. Then, leg 10 features He Pingping, the shortest man in the world, only to have him die between the episode filming and airing.
285** Season 18: In a less direct example, Phil's hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a major earthquake mere hours after the premiere. It then took a more direct turn when the 2011 Japan earthquake hit right after the Tokyo leg aired.
286** Season 21: The Race finished in New York City, with the episode airing a month after it was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. The Coney Island boardwalk that featured so prominently in the final episode was destroyed.
287** Season 23: One of the less fatal examples; in the second episode, Kim [=DeJesus=] first reveal to the another team that she is married to a professional baseball player. Two days after the episode aired, her husband's team, the Tampa Bay Rays, was eliminated from the playoffs. Also, The Houston Texans, the football team Chester & Ephraim played for together and whose jerseys they wore, went from a 12-4 division winner the previous season to losing 14 straight games, the second game in that streak coming the day of the season premiere.
288** Season 24: An episode featuring the teams traveling from China to Malaysia aired the day after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished and crashed over the Gulf of Thailand while traveling from Malaysia to China.
289** Season 25: Typhoon Ruby/Hagupit hit the Philippines days after the first of two episodes set there aired.
290** Season 27: A series of terrorist attacks on UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} occurred two weeks after the leg there aired.
291* DownToTheLastPlay: Many episodes have ended this way, with the last two teams in a foot race to avoid elimination. The finale of Season 2 was decided by a footrace from the cabs to the Finish Line: Wil & Tara made it out of their cabs seconds before Chris & Alex did, but Tara was asthmatic, and the physically fit Chris & Alex ran right past her and won the million dollars. The first episode of Season 30 required the first ever use of instant replay to determine an elimination, as the last two teams hit the mat less than a second apart.
292* DrivingStick: There are times when the contestants are given stick shift cars to drive. Often, neither member of a team knows how to drive stick well. Sometimes it's open for debate whether either one can drive a stick-shift at all. Teams have been eliminated from the race over this.
293** Sometimes racers who practiced driving stick at home discover that all manual transmissions are not created equal, and some foreign cars are much harder to shift gears in than they're used to.
294* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Season 1 had a couple of features that were changed in later seasons, the most notable being that Phil only showed up at the mat to greet the last team instead of being there to greet every team like he would in every season thereafter. Also, the first episode was edited challenge to challenge, meaning each task was shown to completion before moving onto the next one, making it impossible to tell what order the teams were in, especially since it was the only season not to give team placements over the course of the leg, only showing what position teams were in when they checked into the Pit Stop; the route flags were yellow and ''white'' instead of the yellow and red of later seasons (the yellow and white flags would be brought back for Family Edition, and in countries such as Vietnam, that have a yellow and red flag); clue boxes and the Pit Stop mat were not standardized, and changed to reflect each country; and poor course planning resulted in two of the final four teams [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable falling hopelessly behind with no chance of catching up to the two lead teams]], something that the producers have taken steps to avoid since then.
295** Unlike just about every other season, Season 1 did not have any tasks in the destination city. The top two teams (the third place team was a day behind) arrived in New York, got a clue, and headed straight for the finish line.
296** In season 2, Phil sometimes greeted teams by saying "You're the X team to arrive" and meaning it as a successful check-in. In later seasons, Phil is famous for saying "You're the X team to arrive" equals something is wrong - usually a penalty or the halfway point of a double leg.
297** The first four seasons as a whole had a lot more exposition than later ones, with teams (and Phil) talking about things like rules (both written and unwritten), money usage, travel, and how each little move affected their placement in the Race. Such exposition was cut out in later seasons as that information was expected to be common knowledge among fans by then. Many episodes in those seasons would also start with shots of the teams interacting at the Pit Stop, and {{Confession Cam}}s were done solo instead of in pairs.
298** Originally, penalties were issued at the beginning of the leg following when they were earned (unless the penalty eliminated the team, then Phil would call the penalized team and the last team to check in into a meeting to tell them the new results). However, after Season 4, the rules were changed so that teams could not check in until all earned penalties had been served. (Season 21 briefly reverted to the original version, though, when production had to improvise to deal with a unique situation at the moment.)
299* EvolvingCredits: Starting with Season 14. Early on each team has an "in their home environment" shot before a turn-to-the-camera-and/or-the-camera-pans-to-you portraits, both filmed in a single session (Sometimes just the same shot from two angles). Around Episode 5 or 6, each team's is replaced by action from of the the first half of the season. Teams eliminated early are often shown in their fatal challenges, while the continuing teams at that point team are shown doing other challenges or in transport - occasionally also a Crowning Moment of Funny.
300* FelonyMisdemeanor: Both racers and fans are guilty of this one. It's understandable for a team to overreact when they're Yielded or U-Turned (though Eric calling Dustin & Kandice "Dirty Pirate Hookers" was probably going too far), but there are those who are willing to vilify a team simply for copying another team's flight arrangements or, even worse, having a "bad attitude".
301* FleetingDemographic: Bertram justified only teams being selected from Seasons 12-17 for Unfinished Business by claiming that people might not remember contestants from earlier ones. Though this hasn't stopped ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' or ''Series/BigBrother'' from recycling contestants repeatedly, unlike those shows, people do not automatically become celebrities for running or even winning the Race.
302* {{Foreshadowing}}: Done both subtly and not-so subtly. There are times when you can tell [[ADeathInTheLimelight a team is going to be eliminated just by what they say at the beginning of the leg]], while there are other lines that take on a lot more meaning once you've seen the end of the season.
303** Generally, the show doesn't go too far in-depth explaining elements of the route and tasks, so if any suspiciously particular details are brought up, expect them to cause problems along the way. Money for instance is barely mentioned beyond a simple "You have $___ for this leg of the Race" statement at the beginning of the leg with exceptions being Chip running out of money to pay his cab in Season 5 after Kim chastised him for always giving overly large tips and Duke & Lauren running into money troubles in Season 10 after many people were intimidated by the zero-dollar allowance for the leg and started to count their remaining money.
304** It's a bad sign for a team if the locals they interact with have their faces digitally blurred. This was because the producers didn't get permission from these locals to have their faces on camera, which is most likely because these locals don't make a good impression onscreen. So if their faces are blurred, expect the team to be in deep trouble thanks to these locals.
305* GameOfChicken: The high risk, high reward nature of Fast Forwards can turn into this when two teams simultaneously decide to go for it. While there are still teams who value each individual leg win, the {{Metagame}} has evolved to the point where most teams would rather finish in the middle of the pack and stay in the game rather than take an AllOrNothing shot, where you have a 50% chance of winning the leg, but are almost guaranteed elimination if you fail. Generally, one of the two teams will talk themselves out of going for the Fast Forward when they see another team going for it, conceding the leg win to give themselves a better chance to stay in the game.
306* HollywoodAtlas: A lot of the challenges are stereotypical of the current location. (eating caviar in [[GloriousMotherRussia Russia]], climbing the Eiffel Tower in [[GayParee Paris]], throwing a boomerang in [[LandDownunder Australia]], selling beer in [[{{Oktoberfest}} Germany]], etc.)
307* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Season 2 onwards; it's usually a line overheard on that leg of the race. The one exception is Season 8, episode 3, "I Don't Kiss, I Make Out," which was never said during the actual episode.
308* InstantWinCondition: Even though it's not true, teams tend to see the Fast Forward as this (five times a team(s) has won the Fast Forward and failed to finish first; Dennis & Andrew (3) and Mark & Bopper (20) were so far behind when they took it, they still lost the leg). Subverted in Season 1 with Joe & Bill, when, after winning the Fast Forward, they decided to save money and take the bus instead of finding an alternate route to traverse the over 100 miles to the Pit Stop, solely because they thought there was no way the other teams could catch them. The next morning they rolled into the Pit Stop in last place, only to be saved by another team's even worse mistake.
309* InterfaceSpoiler: In the earlier seasons, viewers would know whether a leg was a non-elimination leg because Phil would only say that "the last team to arrive here...may be eliminated" instead of "will be eliminated" on them. This was fixed in later seasons with Phil saying "may be eliminated" on any leg that could plausibly be a non-elimination leg.
310* JokeAndReceive: In Season 30's Leg 7, Conor and Lucas get their vehicle stuck in the mud during the Detour and have to use a manual winch to get out. Conor says the bog was unavoidable and if anyone could get past it without getting stuck, he wants to see a instant replay of that. The show cuts to reshowing how Cody and Jen got past the same mud without getting stuck from earlier in the episode with the words "Instant Replay" in the screen corner.
311* LateArrivalSpoiler: On the cover of almost every season released on DVD, the Final Four teams are shown. Even worse is with the first two seasons released, where the only teams shown on the menus are the teams that are going to be eliminated on that disc.
312* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seasons 33-35 were filmed using a chartered plane instead of having them fly commercial.
313* LimitedWardrobe: Certain teams have become associated with certain garments, such as Linda & Karen's "Bowling Moms" shirts from Season 5.
314** Certain unfortunate wardrobe choices, amplified by the LimitedWardrobe, can lead to some very [[FanDisservice "memorable"]] outfits, such as Teri & Ian's disposable underpants (Season 3), or the Holy Trinity of ugly pants, Kelly's khakis on Season 7, Rachel's skintight gray pants on Season 12, and the multicolored nightmare worn by BJ (or Tyler) after losing all their clothes (and borrowing some from Yolanda) on Season 9.
315** Season 30 winners Jessica and Cody only carried one bag so they reused clothes more than most teams. He was usually wearing one camo shirt.
316* {{Lockdown}}: While it was never actually seen in the show, Phil spent ten hours detained in an impenetrable customs room in Season 10 when they visited Ukraine. He was using his New Zealand passport because he had been told if he was using it instead of his American one, he didn’t need a visa. He had put his American passport in his checked luggage and couldn’t get to it. The guards didn’t speak much English and were confused as to why he was traveling with a bunch of Americans on a different country’s passport. Luckily he was able to get the consulate in Kiev to print him a new passport but he made it back to do the arrivals with only ten minutes to spare.
317* LoopholeAbuse: It was common to see teams such as Rob & Amber (7 & 11) and Charla & Mirna (5 & 11) convince locals to go along with them on legs, helping them navigate past the other teams. Luckily this loophole was closed after Season 11.
318** The final legs often have a [[FinalExamBoss Final Exam Challenge]] that will require the racers to remember all of the countries they visited, sometimes placing them in the right order. In Season 17, Nat and Kat had took detailed notes and when confronted with this, whipped out their notebook which allowed them to breeze through it. [[ObviousRulePatch At the time]], this was actually not against the rules as there wasn't anything saying they could ''not'' reference their notes.
319* ManipulativeEditing: Bill & Joe, (1) have repeatedly said the same thing: The camera does not create footage. If it's on the film, it's because you said or did it. The editing, however, can add, delete, or change the context.
320** The bottom two teams in any given leg are always made to look as if they're neck and neck, no matter how far apart they really are. The one exception is in the finales, where instead it's the top two teams (or all three, in the cases of Seasons 11 and 14). Seasons 7 and 16 were especially bad, as the top two teams finished 45 and 25 minutes apart (respectively). The only exception to this was Season 1, where it was impossible to do due to the first two teams ending up on separate train rides to the finish line (and the third team still being in Alaska).
321** Several teams on the first All-Stars seemed very aware of this, as teams were very cordial towards the beginning of the race. Most teams seemed to forget about this very quickly, however.
322* {{Metagame}}: Traces of it developing can be seen in Seasons 1-7, though it does not come into full effect until Season 10. It had two major effects on the game, first, shifting it from a game dominated by young, fit teams (especially "alpha male" teams) and those with extensive travel experience, to a game dominated by intelligent teams. Second, it gave teams who would have had no shot on early seasons (like Ronald & Christina, who were weak at physical tasks) a legitimate chance to win. The longest trending development in the metagame in regards to strategy is that teams have grown more risk-averse over the years. They’ve figured out that each leg isn’t so much about winning as it is not losing. All that matters is living to fight another day until you get into the top three and getting a shot at the grand prize. In the earlier seasons, teams were a lot more willing to take a gamble on, say, a short connecting flight in order to get a slight lead than they are now.
323* MidSeasonReplacement: The recent seasons have almost exclusively been aired this way. Since the whole season is filmed at once and the editing is fairly simply, CBS can easily sit on the completed full season and swap it in once a spot on the schedule opens up.
324* MoodWhiplash: Any time the racers stop to pay tribute to a human tragedy, the sudden return to the frenetic pace of the race is jarring. In more specific examples, Season 6's visit to the Gate of No Return for African slaves was soon followed by Kendra's infamous "breeding and breeding" comments, and a stop at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Season 20 was followed by rubber chickens in a Japanese game show.
325* MusclesAreMeaningful: At the beginning of each season, it's the biggest and strongest teams that are generally the most feared, and who are usually picked to win by the fans. Though justified in the first four seasons, where physical strength was only challenged by those with travel knowledge, in later seasons it's much more likely for an "Alpha Male" team to eliminate themselves with a stupid mistake than to dominate a season.
326** Expect multiple teams to be far too worried about who they could or couldn't beat in a footrace, especially when it comes to the finale. This is despite the finale having only come down to a footrace once (Season 2), and almost every Season since 7 having been decided by the final puzzle. Tammy & Victor (Season 14) even U-Turned Kisha & Jen mainly on the reasoning that they couldn't beat the girls in a footrace (and even wrote "Sorry, but we can't outrun you" on their picture), even though Margie & Luke were the much bigger threat (only Luke pulling one of the biggest choke jobs in race history in the finale keeping them from beating Tammy & Victor).
327** Derek & Drew serve as an excellent deconstruction of this concept on the Race during Season 3. On the tails of fit male teams winning the first two seasons, many of the teams became immediately obsessed with beating the "wonder twins", despite Derek & Drew viewing themselves as barely hanging on for the first few legs. At the same time, Ken & Gerard talked about how no one was giving ''them'' any thought because of their pudgier physiques, and Teri & Ian were outright disregarded as fodder. While Derek & Drew did end up being formidable opponents, so did Ken & Gerard and Teri & Ian, who both edged out Derek & Drew to make it to the Final 3. The twins lost not because they got beat in some head-to-head competition, but simply because they couldn't find a clue.
328** Season 5 winner Chip was a huge proponent of this trope, especially when writing for the "Return of the Racers" blog for CBS.com. He constantly talked about how "alpha male" teams had a unfair advantage over all other teams, and how he and his wife never would have had a shot against one of these teams (even though they did beat the arguably stronger team of Colin & Christie). When he made a list of the strongest individual racers, the top 11 spots all went to men, with the top female racer being a physical trainer (though this was prior to Dustin & Kandice catching fire on Season 10).
329** In Season 17, Jill & Thomas averted this. Given the chance of U-Turning any team, they targeted diminutive Home Shopping Hosts Brook & Claire, citing them as the biggest threats left (and Brook & Claire did end up beating them in the end). Nick then played it straight when he had a chance to use the second slot on the Double U-Turn, wanting to target the team of Chad & Stephanie (who spent most of their time at the back of the pack) over Nat & Kat (who had three leg wins at that point), until Vicki talked him out of using the U-Turn.
330[[/folder]]
331
332[[folder:U.S. Version: General Tropes N-Z]]
333* ObviousRulePatch:
334** In Season 1, teams were only allowed to buy one set of plane tickets, and weren't allowed to switch, even if they found a faster flight or their original flight was delayed. This was changed on the very next season, and multiple flight bookings has become an important part of the {{Metagame}} ever since.
335** The first two seasons had no rules in place for when a team's car broke down. These were instigated in Season 3 after several time credits were issued in Season 2 (including one that saved Blake & Paige from an elimination, which they received after Paige threatened to sue).
336** After Season 3, it became standard on selling tasks, where teams had to reach a certain amount of money made, for each individual item to have a minimum amount it could be sold for. This was after Ken & Gerard completed such a task by selling massive amounts of fruit for what would average out to be very low prices, and repeatedly going back to the stall to get more to sell.
337** Ties were disallowed after Season 4, to prevent having to give out multiple prizes for 1st place ties, and, more importantly, to keep two teams from accidentally tying for last.
338** Limits on how many Roadblocks a racer could perform were instigated after Season 5, after the three women who made the Final 3 that year performed a total of three Roadblocks combined.
339** After the first All-Stars, limits were put on the practice of bringing locals along in the team's vehicle to help with navigation and other tasks (see LoopholeAbuse).
340** The original penalty for qutting a Detour was 24 hours (far longer than the 4-hour Roadblock quitting penalty), which had only been applied twice (Nancy & Emily in Season 1, Maria & Tiffany in Season 15). Due to the production complications this would cause if someone quit on a non-elimination leg (since they would still have to keep track of the lagging team despite them being essentially done for - see the mess in Season 21 when James & Abba lost a passport on such a leg), the penalty was shortened to 6 hours after Season 15, which only applied to Nick & Vicki in Season 17.
341** After the teams on Season 17 were smart enough to take detailed notes throughout the race in anticipation of the FinalExamFinale, Season 19's Final Exam Finale instructions specifically forbade the use of notes. (There was no Final Exam Finale in Season 18.) This did have a precedent in Season 12 which disallowed the use of a pen and paper to solve its final task.
342** Somewhere along the way, it became forbidden for teams to pay taxis to drive somewhere and follow behind them in self-driving legs. The first time the rule was enforced in the show was when Michael and Kevin got a penalty for doing it in Season 17.
343** When the cheese hill task from Season 14 was brought back for Season 22, they made a rule where teams had to use proper equipment to carry their cheese, fixing the loophole that allowed teams such as Margie & Luke to just roll their cheese down the hill and chase after it, rather than carrying it. Chuck & Wynona were eliminated as a result of rolling their cheese.
344** Other minor changes were made to keep teams from taking advantage of loopholes, such as buying cellphones from locals (which Rob & Brennan did on Season 1) or switching their damaged car for another team's car at the Pit Stop (Dustin & Kandice on Season 10).
345** After the group of five alliance steamrolled its way to the top five spots in season 32 via excessive answer sharing (the only other big alliance group came in season 10 but it was with the back of the pack teams), the production team changed the rules.
346* OddballInTheSeries:
347** TAR 8, the "Family Edition", which instead of teams of two racing around the world, had families of four racing mostly around the USA, with a couple of excursions. It was meant to mimic the American tradition of the family road trip, but it proved unpopular with fans and was never done again.
348** TAR 33, due to external circumstances, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the race was suspended for a year and a half after three legs were completed. Secondly, when the race finally reconvened, four teams had been "discharged", because for various personal reasons they were unable to return. Thirdly, that led the producers to fill out the cast by bringing back two teams that had been previously eliminated. Fourthly, continued COVID restrictions meant more restricted travel; the teams mostly avoided public transit, they flew on charter flights rather than commercial travel like every other season, and they didn't race around the world, instead running a few legs around Europe before returning to the United States.
349* OscarBait: At least one episode per season serves as Emmy Bait by taking time out of the competition to have the teams talk about the heart-wrenching or inspirational local sights. Considering they've won the ten of the twelve Emmys given out for "Outstanding Reality-Competition Programming", it's obviously worked. More specifically, they often use India legs for this purpose.
350** The two most obvious Emmy Bait moments, neither of which actually ended up getting nominated for the Emmy, were the Slave House visit in Senegal in Season 6, and the Auschwitz visit in Season 11.
351* OvershadowedByAwesome: Guaranteed to happen on any All-Star seasons, as an increase in competition means that teams who led their seasons are all of a sudden running with the pack, while teams that would otherwise be expected to make the Final 3 on a normal season are all of a sudden scratching and clawing to stay in the race. Unless they're a top tier team like Dustin & Kandice and Rob & Amber (on ''All-Stars''), Zev & Justin (on ''Unfinished Business''), or Dave & Connor (on the second ''All-Stars''), no team really has a chance of standing out. In the case of Unfinished Business, this happened to every former Final 3 finisher, with the aforementioned Zev & Justin who finished 9th and Gary & Mallory who finished 6th being the dominant teams.
352* ParanoiaFuel: InUniverse. Not for the viewers, but the racers. It's well known how quickly fortunes can turn on the Race, and not knowing where the other teams are, especially on the later legs when there's only four or five teams left, can cause some pretty entertaining freak outs. Rob & Amber and Dustin & Kandice were two of the more popular teams for others to focus their paranoia on.
353* PinkMeansFeminine: The second most popular choice for female team colors behind light blue. Pink is generally assigned to the more girly teams, though it's generally downplayed due to teams being asked to dress alike by the show.
354* ProductPlacement:
355** Most seasons have a leg that feature the Travelocity roaming gnome, starting with Season 7. Even discounting that, one of Phil's OnceAnEpisode lines is "For winning this leg of the race, you have won a trip to beautiful [place] from Travelocity."
356** Travelocity would be replaced several seasons later with Expedia (whose parent company Expedia Group also owns Travelocity), with the trip prizes for several legs being One Key rewards and the beginning of one leg having the teams book flights using the Expedia smartphone app in a brief canned segment.
357*** Season 35 even had a Roadblock where racers flew in a glider and had to find a group of five boats in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bled Lake Bled.]] One of the boats had Expedia's directional arrow logo pointing to the first digit in the clue's[[note]]"What year did UsefulNotes/{{Slovenia}} gain its independence?"[[/note]] answer,[[note]]1991[[/note]] which was pointed out by one of the racers, and they had to write the correct answer on a clipboard with the full Expedia logo on it when they returned to the airfield.
358** Kodak [=EasyShare=] cameras were the leg prize four times, and were used in a challenge, in Season 3.
359** In general, seasons often have Ford loan cars for a leg for the contestants to drive, in exchange for the show going out of its way to point out that the cars were made by Ford (usually once near the beginning when they get to the cars, and again at the Pit Stop) and usually including a challenge designed to show off some aspect of the car model being used (such as using a rear view dashboard cam to read a location, using parking assist, or driving a hybrid electric with a minimal amount of gas).
360** Leg 7 of Season 16 had a "7" theme, including a sponsored prize by 7-Up at the end of the leg.
361** Season 18 included a leg in India with a lot of tea-themed tasks, sponsored by Snapple. In a subversion, they resisted the urge to plug Snapple at every opportunity and didn't even explain that the teas used were Snapple-brand until the finish line. Zig-zagged when one clue was a bottle of iced tea, as the bottles were unlabeled but the racers still recognized them; Jen and Kisha even thought they had to find a Snapple factory until they found the real clue under the cap.
362** Averted in Leg 11 of Season 19, which had a task based on the comic ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' and aired at about the time [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin2011 a movie adaptation]] hit theaters, but no reference was made to the movie at all; Tintin was presented as merely a Belgian cultural icon.
363** Fitbit became a major sponsor in Season 26, with the racers wearing them and ads providing stats that they gathered about the racers' activity.
364* ProductionThrowback: Due to seasons 33 and 34 being filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic and having more limited travel options, self-driving was brought back to being more in line with how much they were doing it in the earlier seasons.
365* RealityShowGenreBlindness:
366** Phil has two variations on the CatchPhrase he uses to greet teams at the Pit Stop. He normally uses, "You are team number ''n''," to check the teams in. However, he sometimes uses the far more ominous, "You are the ''n''th team to arrive," which ''always'' precedes either a penalty or another clue, yet teams are always caught off guard when Phil follows it up with, "However..."[[note]]Though this was finally averted by [[Characters/TheAmazingRace23 Nicole in Season 23]].[[/note]]
367** Though there was a non-elimination leg in the Final 3 in seven of the first nine seasons, the show has not had one since, yet most recent teams are still surprised that, when it gets down to leg 10 and there are still four teams left, leg 10 ends up being a non-elimination leg.
368* RearrangeTheSong: Between Seasons 13 and 14. Then again between Seasons 22 and 23.
369* RuleOfFunny:
370** Almost any time they make the racers dress in costume. There's no special need for it, it's usually not for safety, and it's just there to make the racers look ridiculous.
371*** To prove this example, in Season 18, the teams have to dress up as kangaroos... for no real reason.
372** Several challenges have a band playing local music, for no apparent purpose except driving the racers completely nuts as their patience wears thin and the music keeps distracting them.
373** Then there are the non-musical locals whose only purpose is to laugh at the teams when they mess up.
374** In Switzerland during Seasons 14 and 22, the racers had to take 50-pound wheels of cheese down a ''very'' steep hill... and were ''intentionally'' provided with very cheap equipment.
375* RunningGag: At least OnceASeason the show has legs where teams are given $1 for the leg, and it always manages to get laughs from the teams. Multiple teams have even given Phil the dollar back when getting eliminated at the end of these legs, and Flight Time & Big Easy carried their dollar throughout Unfinished Business so they could give it back to Phil at the Finish Line.
376* SharePhrase: "It's on like Donkey Kong", originally said by Frank near the end of Season 1, has been quoted by several teams over the course of the series, such as Chip on Season 5, B.J. on Season 9, Jen on Season 12, Cara on Season 14, and Cord on Season 16. (Chip's usage of it is probably the most well-known.)
377* ShooOutTheClowns: The lighthearted, easy going, and comedic relief teams generally tend to trail off near the end of each season, when things get more competitive and they find it harder to keep up with the more cutthroat teams. three such teams have managed to win the race (Chip & Kim from Season 5, BJ & Tyler from Season 9, and Josh & Brent from Season 21), but only after they had an elimination scare and [[LetsGetDangerous got serious]]. Other such teams are:
378** Jon & Al (4th place on Season 4) are probably the most fitting, seeing as they were actual clowns.
379** Danny & Oswald finished 4th on both Seasons 2 and 11, winning three legs on both Seasons.
380** Wisecracking Zev & Justin fell just short of the Final 3 on Unfinished Business.
381** Andy & Tommy finished 4th on Season 19, becoming the first team with at least five leg wins to miss the Final 3.
382** Ken & Gerard (3), Nicolas & Donald (12), and Dan & Andrew (13) all made the Final 3, only to finish a distant third.
383** There's the "[[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Fan Favorites Finish Fourth]]" trend, which (aside from the above) includes Kevin & Drew (1), Linda & Karen (5), Gretchen & Meredith (7), and Flight Time & Big Easy (15).
384** Starting with Season 7, 5th place became the axing point for such teams with Lynn & Alex (7), the dysfunctional Paolo Family (8), Fran & Barry (9), Erwin & Godwin (10), Uchenna & Joyce (who on All-Stars did not seem to have the same drive after winning Season 7), Kynt & Vyxsin (12 and Unfinished Business), Mark & Bopper (20), Meghan & Joey (22), and Becca & Floyd (29) going out.
385* SignatureLine: Colin's "My ox is ''broken!'' This is bull***!" from Season 5. ''My Ox Is Broken'' even became the name of a tie-in anthology book.
386** A Switchback task in Season 25 echoed this in the Philippines.
387* SplitScreen: Beginning with Season 14, which made it easier for viewers to keep track of where teams were in relation with each other...[[ManipulativeEditing so long as the editors were being honest, that is]].
388* SpoilerOpening: Early seasons included the phrases "Who will be eliminated... tonight?" and "The last team to the Pit Stop will be eliminated," and any deviation was an instant tip-off that it was a non-elimination leg. Production quickly made it standard procedure to use ambiguous language ("Who will be eliminated... ''next''?" and "The last team to the Pit Stop ''may'' be eliminated."). Even the teams picked up on this, and it was pointed out by Tara & Wil in Season 2.
389* SlowAndSteadyWinsTheRace: This has become an increasingly popular strategy. Nowadays teams don’t necessarily care about winning individual legs unless there’s a game-based prize like an express pass. A lot of teams who win individual legs don’t even end up taking the prizes because they end up paying half the value in taxes. A team who wins a lot of legs gets a lot of vacations they don’t want to pay for. All that matters is being consistent and getting yourself into the final three to give yourself a shot at the prize. Kisha & Jen and Colin & Christie who’d win returnee seasons both say that this was the lesson that they learned the first go around. It’s better to pace yourself and not run out of steam at the end so you can win the last leg (although the latter team wound up winning several legs anyways).
390* TitleDrop: It seems required that someone say, "Amazing," at least OnceAnEpisode. And while most of the episode titles [[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming are just random lines said by the racers]], others are significant enough to become Title Drops as well. Such as:
391** "Follow That Plane!" (Wil, Season 2, Episode 11); After losing their clue, Tara & Wil direct their charter plane to follow Chris & Alex by using this line. Later in the leg, Chris & Alex tail Tara & Wil to the Finish Line, and pass them up in a footrace.
392** "Good Doing Business With You" (Dustin, Season 11, Episode 10); Dustin & Kandice buy Danny & Oswald's Yield (the last Yield ever used). Danny & Oswald later act like it was a DealWithTheDevil, and seem to lose any and all heart to win the race.
393** "It Starts With an “F”, That’s All I’m Saying" (Dan, Season 15, Episode 10); the infamous "Franz" incident, where Dan refuses to help Big Easy at the Roadblock, and Big Easy ends up taking a four hour penalty instead.
394** "They Don't Call It The Amazing Race For Nothin!" (Brook, Season 17, Episode 1); counts as both a regular TitleDrop, as well as providing the title for that episode, after Claire shot the watermelon into her face.
395** "Tastes Like a Million Dollars" (Kat, Season 17, Episode 5); vegetarian Kat eats half of a sheep's head to win the Fast Forward, and it took on a whole lot more meaning after the finale.
396* TokenMinority: A handful of teams every season, with Season 10 being the one exception, as 8 of the 12 teams could be considered a minority in one way or another.
397* TrueBlueFemininity: Light blue is an even more popular choice than pink for all-female teams when they're given team colors, and is generally assigned to the less girly or more mature teams. The most well known is probably Dustin & Kandice, with their light blue jackets across Seasons 10 and 11, and Nat & Kat were also assigned blue when they won Season 17. Like with PinkMeansFeminine, downplayed due to teams generally being forced to dress alike, at least early on.
398* UglyAmericanStereotype: In the earlier seasons, there was typically a team or two who fit this stereotype. The most notorious example would be Kendra of season 6 who called a couple of low income countries they visited some variant of “dirty” and wondered why people in Africa kept “breeding and breeding”. This casting choice has fallen out of style for obvious reasons and now they go out of their way to find more respectful people (as well as having a formal diversity quota).
399* UnderdogsNeverLose: Played straight for the first 12 seasons, as whatever team was built up to be the invincible favorites going into the Top 4, [[ManipulativeEditing whether or not they were that much stronger than the other teams]], always ended up falling short. It happened to Dustin & Kandice ''twice in a row''.
400** Inverted in Seasons 13-15, as the obvious favorite won when the underdog team(s) choked away their lead on the final puzzle, only to return to playing it straight on Season 16.
401** They tried to play it straight again on Season 17, by attempting to make Jill & Thomas look like the heavy favorites going into the final leg. However, the general view at that point tended to be that all the teams were pretty much even, and they all had a good chance at winning.
402** Played straight again on Seasons 18 and 19, with Zev & Justin and Andy & Tommy looking unbeatable, only to suffer Shocking,]] [[{{Foreshadowing}} albeit heavily foreshadowed,]] Eliminations.
403** Averted in Season 20, but gone back to being played straight in Season 21, then averted again in Season 22.
404* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: Before the rules/types of challenges truly got hammered out, the first ten seasons or so put two-women teams at a huge disadvantage. The partners were not required to split roadblocks and the challenges were more based on brute strength and being able to consume large amounts of food. Teams with at least one male partner would have him do all the strength and/or eating tasks while it took a two women team a lot longer to do them. In season 5, the top three teams were all man/woman and the ladies did one roadblock apiece. The challenges these days are more based around teamwork/brain power and they have to split the roadblocks equally. Now even in a man/woman team, the woman will almost certainly have to do some sort of strength or eating roadblock due to the law of averages. It wasn't until season 17 (out of 32 aired and 33 filmed), that a two women team managed to win and they were pretty much the perfect storm. Nat and Kat were anesthesiologists who were best friends that ran half marathons together. Meaning they were smart, detail-oriented, never argued, knew how to work together calmly in stressful situations, and were fit.
405* ValuesDissonance: InUniverse The female teams are often treated quite badly in India. It took Nancy & Emily (Season 1) ''one and a half hours'' to buy train tickets there, and Tian & Jaree (Season 4) complained about being groped during a very crowded train ride there. It remains a very popular destination for the show but nowadays one of the guys will almost always help the female teams out to stop them from getting groped/ hit on.
406* VisibleBoomMic: The show is usually very careful about editing the show to hide any trace of the camera and sound team following along with each team of Racers, but sometimes they get caught in shots anyway.
407** In Season 4, leg 2, the teams are packed into a crowded alley, and it became all but impossible for the cameramen to avoid each other.
408** In Season 5, leg 8, after Colin changes the spare tire on his cab, the sound guy can be seen getting back into the cab with them.
409** In Season 6, leg 2, the camera/sound crew are clearly visible when Meredith & Maria finish the Holmenkollen challenge.
410** The infamous scene in Season 6 where Jonathan shoved his wife Victoria in a fit of rage at a Pit Stop showed a cameraman in the frame.
411** In Season 7, leg 2, Brian & Greg's cameraman got caught on camera during their race to the Pit Stop with Megan & Heidi. Then when Brian & Greg flipped their car, all pretense got dropped as both Brian & Greg and Lynn & Alex's camera crews got each other on camera.
412** In Season 8, leg 1, during Phil's opening speech, an extra person can be seen standing off to the side near the line of teams.
413** In Season 14, leg 6, during Jaime's rant at her cab driver in the streets of Jaipur, a second cameraman can be seen running ahead of them.
414** At Season 19's 8th Pit Stop, a fan can be seen taking pictures of teams running up to the mat.
415** In Season 20, leg 7, during the fight between Brendon & Rachel and Art & JJ and Vanessa & Ralph at the Nairobi airport, shots of various cameramen can be seen as they angle to get shots of everyone's faces.
416** In Season 21, leg 1, an overhead shot of the in-progress starting line challenge showed multiple cameramen scurrying around on the bridge. In leg 4, when Trey & Lexi's cab was passing Gary & Will's, you can see Gary & Will's camera and sound guys through the open windows. In leg 7, sound men can be seen as Jaymes & James and Natalie & Nadiya are at the pool Detour. In leg 9, the cameraman can be seen as Natalie & Nadiya do the Fast Forward. The finale (legs 11 and 12) included at least a dozen of these.
417** In Season 32, leg 5, you can briefly see the cameraman in the car with Will and James when one of the other cars drives past them at the Paris airport.
418* WeWait: There are many equalizers (flights, operating hours, Intersection) that forces teams to wait, and allows trailing teams to catch up. Teams will usually camp out in front or snag a hotel room for the night.
419* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Used on the racers themselves in Seasons 7, 8, 9, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 32, and 35. The teams get a clue telling them to go to mat and find Phil, only to have him tell them that they're still racing, and hand them their next clue.
420[[/folder]]
421
422[[folder:U.S. Version: Season-Specific Tropes (and Routes)]]
423
424!!Season 1 (Fall 2001)
425->'''Start:''' Central Park, New York City, New York\
426'''Destinations:''' South Africa / Zambia / France / Tunisia / Italy / India / Thailand / China\
427'''Finish:''' Flushing Meadows Park, New York City, New York
428
429* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Teams had to go through one of these in Paris.
430* AntiClimax: The finale's final fifteen minutes were mostly filler, as the top two teams got on two different trains, fifteen minutes apart, to the Finish Line, while Joe & Bill were still stuck in Alaska.
431* Mystical108: The infamous Fast Forward that indirectly cost both Bill & Joe and Nancy & Emily the race involved dropping 108 coins into urns in a Buddhist temple.
432* SpoilerOpening: The opening titles showed actual locations teams would be going to and tasks they would be doing, making it quite easy to work out whether certain teams were going to make it through to the next leg of the race. It was not until Season 14 that they started to show shots from the season during the credits again, and then they were only ever shots from the current or previous episodes.
433* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: The way the hours of operation worked for two stops on Leg 10 made the race this for two of the teams in the final four. Both of them were open from 8-5, and the top two teams were able to leave the pit stop and complete both of these challenges before the businesses shut down for the day, while the bottom two teams were caught and had to wait more than half a day to carry on. Case in point: The 2nd team to leave the pit stop on Leg 11 left 17 hours before the 3rd team did.
434
435!!Season 2 (Spring 2002)
436->'''Start:''' Pahrump, Nevada\
437'''Destinations:''' Brazil / South Africa / Namibia / Thailand / Hong Kong, China / Australia / New Zealand\
438'''Finish:''' Fort Baker, Sausalito, California (Across the Golden Gate Bridge, overlooking San Francisco)
439
440* ShoppingMontage: There was one of these, with several teams involved, and was used to set up the flirtation between Alex and Tara, as well as the cliquish nature of the teams. This was obviously before teams learned the importance of money management. In the next leg, Oswald & Danny, while waiting for a booking agency to secure them flights, took time off to shop, refreshing themselves and distancing themselves from the more cutthroat teams. The net result? They got the first flight out, drove in luxury to the airport, and came in an easy first on that leg. And most importantly Danny got that perfume he wanted.
441
442!!Season 3 (Fall 2002)
443->'''Start:''' Everglades National Park, Florida\
444'''Destinations:''' Mexico / England, UK / Scotland, UK / Portugal / Spain / Morocco / Germany / Austria / Germany / Switzerland / Malaysia / Singapore / Vietnam\
445'''Finish:''' Gas Works Park, Seattle, Washington
446
447* SavedForTheSequel: Jill was originally a finalist to appear on Season 1 with her brother, then he later died in 9/11, and she started dating John Vito, after which they applied to race together.
448
449!!Season 4 (Summer 2003)
450->'''Start:''' Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California\
451'''Destinations:''' Italy / Austria / France / Netherlands / India / Malaysia / South Korea / Australia\
452'''Finish:''' Papago Park, Phoenix, Arizona
453
454* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Teams had to go through one of these in Vienna.
455* GayAesop: The last several episodes played out like this, with Jon Corso playing the "homophobe" who was "learning a lesson" about stereotyping homosexuals. This is the first and last time the show has devoted significant airtime to such a storyline.
456* SharkTunnel: Leg 11 had racers wait in one of these while their teammate did a Roadblock in the surrounding tank.
457* WorldOfSteves: Five players of the season shared names with one another, with two racers being named Jon and three being named Steve. There was also a Dave and David.
458
459!!Season 5 (Summer 2004)
460->'''Start:''' Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California\
461'''Destinations:''' Uruguay / Argentina / Russia / Egypt / Kenya / Tanzania / United Arab Emirates / India / New Zealand / Philippines / Canada\
462'''Finish:''' Trammell Crow Park, Dallas, Texas
463
464* BinocularShot: In Episode 12, the racers had to identify the UsefulNotes/{{Philippine|s}} flag through binoculars. At one point, Brandon looked through the binoculars with the lens cover still on one side, and a single circular frame, offset to one side of the screen, was shown.
465* GilliganCut: From Episode 9:
466--->'''Colin''': "Chip and Kim are great. I feel like we can trust Chip and Kim more than we can the other teams. We can help each other to get into the top three."
467--->'''Kim''': "Chip and I want Colin and Christie to self-destruct."
468* TheMaze: The finale.
469* RunningGag: Episode 6: The Roadblock has teams digging through a patch of sand searching for a wooden scarab. As each team reads the clue, they invariably ask: "What's a scarab?"
470--->'''Colin''': Is this it?
471--->'''Christie''': That's a rock.
472
473!!Season 6 (Fall 2004 - Winter 2005)
474->'''Start:''' Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois\
475'''Destinations:''' Iceland / Norway / Sweden / Senegal / Germany / Hungary / Corsica, France / Ethiopia / Sri Lanka / China\
476'''Finish:''' Ping Tom Memorial Park, Chicago, Illinois
477
478* BarSlide: A task had the teams do this while aiming for a target on a bar made entirely of ice.
479* EdibleAmmunition: In a Detour, teams had to shoot melons out of a catapult.
480* EvenEvilHasStandards: In a season full of nasty people, no one really hesitated about giving money to Don and Mary Jean so they didn’t have to beg for money in Senegal.
481* MoodWhiplash: The visit to the Gate of No Return for African slaves was soon followed by Kendra's infamous "breeding and breeding" comments.
482* RecapEpisode: Only one of two in the series. It took place after leg six, at the midpoint of the series' first double leg, leaving the ToBeContinued CliffHanger hanging for two weeks.
483
484!!Season 7 (Spring 2005)
485->'''Start:''' Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California\
486'''Destinations:''' Peru / Chile / Argentina / South Africa / Botswana / India / Turkey / England, UK / Jamaica / Puerto Rico\
487'''Finish:''' Bonnet House, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
488
489* RecapEpisode: Only one of two in the series.
490* SavedForTheSequel: Uchenna & Joyce made it all the way to the pre-race sequester for Season 6, only to be cut at the last minute.
491* StormingTheCastle: The Roadblock at the end of leg 9 had teams climb a ladder up the wall of Halil Pasa Kulesi in Istanbul, then retrieve a key to unlock their clue.
492
493!!Season 8 [Family Edition] (Fall 2005)
494->'''Start:''' Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park (below Brooklyn Bridge), New York City, New York\
495'''Destinations:''' New Jersey / Pennsylvania / District of Columbia / Virginia / South Carolina / Alabama / Mississippi / Louisiana / Panama / Costa Rica / Arizona / Utah / Wyoming / Montana / Canada\
496'''Finish:''' Joseph Davis State Park, Lewiston, New York
497
498* BlindfoldedTrip: Teams were put onto a bus to be taken to a mystery location (Huntsville, Alabama), attributing to the Weaver Family's infamous Waffle House breakdown.
499* TheCameo: Season 1's Kevin & Drew appeared briefly in the first leg to give the teams one of their first clues in New York.
500* ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime: The producers said this about this season in general.
501* MobileKiosk: Kevin & Drew had a hot dog cart during their Cameo.
502* OddlyNamedSequel: "Family Edition".
503* SpySpeak: The Roadblock in Washington, D.C. had the racers exchanging a briefcase with a spy after exchanging code phrases.
504-->'''Contestant:''' The sky is blue.
505-->'''Spy they were searching for:''' And the sea is green.
506
507!!Season 9 (Spring 2006)
508->'''Start:''' Red Rocks Park, Morrison, Colorado\
509'''Destinations:''' Brazil / Russia / Germany / Sicily, Italy / Greece / Oman / Australia / Thailand / Japan\
510'''Finish:''' Red Rocks Park, Morrison, Colorado
511
512* BookEnds: The season began and ended at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado.
513* MischiefMakingMonkey: The Roadblock in Bangkok had teams preparing a feast for sacred monkeys. The monkeys kept interrupting the task by dashing in and grabbing the food, forcing racers to keep fixing their work.
514* SwanBoats: Teams had to paddle one of these to get to the 11th Pit Stop.
515
516!!Season 10 (Fall 2006)
517->'''Start:''' Gas Works Park, Seattle, Washington\
518'''Destinations:''' China / Mongolia / Vietnam / India / Kuwait / Mauritius / Madagascar / Finland / Ukraine / Morocco / Spain / France\
519'''Finish:''' Saint Basil Academy, Garrison, New York
520
521* ArrowsOnFire: The second leg Roadblock involved shooting flaming arrows to light a target on fire.
522* ChariotRace: The Roadblock in Morocco featured one of these.
523* FiveTokenBand: The Back Pack, which consisted of Lyn & Karlyn (black single moms from Alabama), Erwin & Godwin (Asian brothers, one of whom went to Harvard), David & Mary (a coal miner and his wife from Kentucky), Tom & Terry (boyfriends), and Kellie & Jamie (college cheerleaders).
524* NeverSmileAtACrocodile: The leg 5 Detour involved transferring a crocodile between pits at a croc farm.
525* ParanoiaFuel: Intentionally invoked by the producers in the first leg with the surprise elimination of Bilal & Sa'eed at the Meridian Gate which would otherwise be a normal conditional bunching point, threatening the other racers to stay aware of what other twists might be prepared for them later on.
526* ProducePelting: One Detour late had the locals pelting racers with tomatoes as part of La Tomatina, the local tomato festival.
527* TankGoodness: A Roadblock involved driving tanks.
528
529!!Season 11 [All-Stars] (Spring 2007)
530->'''Start:''' Palmetto Bay, Florida\
531'''Destinations:''' Ecuador / Chile / Argentina / Mozambique / Zanzibar, Tanzania / Poland / Malaysia / Hong Kong, China / Macau, China / Guam\
532'''Finish:''' San Francisco Botanical Garden, San Francisco, California
533
534* BlindfoldedTrip: There was one where they took the teams to Auschwitz.
535* CallBack: As an All-Star season, it had a number of {{Call Back}}s to the teams' previous seasons, especially during team introductions.
536** During leg 4, the Roadblock had racers searching through bags of mail for one of two letters written to them by a team from their original race.
537* TheCameo: Eric was allowed to call Jeremy after winning the Race.
538* MyGreatestSecondChance: All-Stars qualifies for the teams that were not Uchenna & Joyce.
539* NeverTrustATrailer: The producers hurt themselves by repeatedly calling All-Stars a race between the "best of the best," when in fact they had cast the teams they deemed the most memorable, not the ones who had been best at the game. The backlash caused by fans complaining about what constituted the "best" teams caused them frame the next All-star season as a second chance season instead, in order to justify the casting of any teams.
540* OddlyNamedSequel: "All-Stars"
541* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: Poor Bill and Joe got hit with this again in one of the most poorly designed duo of legs (6&7) in the show’s entire history. When they were in Tanzania in 6, there was a local holiday that messed with the flight schedule. They couldn't get on a flight to Poland and ended up over half a day behind everyone else with Eric and Danielle. They were saved by a non-elimination leg on 6 which got them a thirty-minute penalty if they didn't come in first (this was before the speedbump). 7 had a Fast Forward with teams already racing before they checked in for 6 which made not coming in first a ForegoneConclusion. They were able to make up a lot of time on 7 due to a bus equalizer but the poorly designed intersection made it impossible to get thirty minutes ahead of anybody. Dustin and Kandice had wanted to do the intersection with them to help them since they were friends but they got there in an odd placement and had to work with Charla and Mirna. They beat Eric and Danielle (who were their intersection partners) at the roadblock but not by thirty minutes and were eliminated. To this day, they still maintain that Eric deliberately slowed them down at the intersection to stop them from getting thirty minutes ahead of any of the other teams.
542* WireFu: One of the Hong Kong Detours had the teams climbing a bamboo scaffold while stunt men fought around them.
543
544!!Season 12 (Fall 2007 -- Winter 2008)
545->'''Start:''' Playboy Mansion, Los Angeles, California\
546'''Destinations:''' Ireland / Netherlands / Burkina Faso / Lithuania / Croatia / Italy / India / Japan / Taiwan\
547'''Finish:''' Girdwood Airport, Girdwood, Alaska
548
549* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: T.K. & Rachel, Nathan, and Stella had all attended the same high school in Fountain Valley, California.
550* Mystical108: The wedding garland teams had to make in a Detour in India contained 108 flowers.
551* AStormIsComing: Used in leg 3, when it started storming in the middle of the leg, when two of the teams were still trying to milk their camels at the Roadblock.
552* StormingTheCastle: One of the Detour options in leg 6 had teams rappel down and then scale a rope ladder up to a cliffside fortress.
553
554!!Season 13 (Fall 2008)
555->'''Start:''' Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California\
556'''Destinations:''' Brazil / Bolivia / New Zealand / Cambodia / India / Kazakhstan / Russia\
557'''Finish:''' Pittock Mansion, Portland, Oregon
558
559* ForeignWrestlingHeel: The Roadblock in Bolivia had one team member learn a wrestling routine in which they had to fight against a local woman, making them this by default.
560* TryEverything: The Roadblock in the second leg involved finding the location of the Pit Stop on a wall filled with Portuguese words and phrases. Instead of trying to work out the clue logically, most teams just wrote down everything and repeated it all to the judge until they got it right.
561* TwoMenOneDress: The cow costumes teams were forced to don for the Act Like Fools Detour in Kazakhstan. They then had to run all around Almaty wearing them.
562* WouldHitAGirl: See ForeignWrestlingHeel, during which male contestants who took the Roadblock were forced to do this.
563
564!!Season 14 (Spring 2009)
565->'''Start:''' Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos, California\
566'''Destinations:''' Switzerland / Germany / Austria / Romania / Russia / India / Thailand / China\
567'''Finish:''' King Kamehameha Golf Club, Waikapu, Hawaii
568
569* BothSidesHaveAPoint: The Kisha & Jen / Margie & Luke fight. Luke definitely childishly overreacted to Jen running into him (a tendency he's shown on all of his seasons) but, at the same time, it was late in the season and Jen should probably have known better at that point to run up behind him and scare him because he couldn't hear her. Then at the mat, Kisha and Jen having escalated finally came to a head. Kisha tried to apologize (as pointed out the next episode by Victor) but Margie was then the one who wouldn't have it. However, given that she has a disabled and gay son, it's also understandable that she's very sensitive to even the perception of him being made fun of.
570* BeachEpisode: The finale in Hawaii, which had the teams in bathing suits for the entire episode.
571* FairytaleWeddingDress: The brides in the Russian Bride Detour.
572* {{Fanservice}}: The whole point of the underwear run Roadblock.
573* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: The route had to be redirected to an unprecedented three legs in mainland China due to the then ongoing swine flu. Tammy and Victor were able to spend all of those three legs getting the locals to help them without any of the other teams knowing what they were saying.
574* MoodDissonance: While Jen & Kisha and Margie & Luke were having the fight at the mat, the Pit Stop Greeters sat calmly and ate their food.
575* PieInTheFace: One on the Detour choices in Germany.
576* {{Precap}}: Almost exclusively in Season 14.
577* RuleOfCool: The premiere had the teams bungee jumping off of the dam from the beginning of ''Film/GoldenEye''. As it was the only task in that part of Switzerland, sandwiched between two train rides, the Roadblock was there simply to allow the racers to emulate Film/JamesBond.
578* SavedForTheSequel:
579** Margie & Luke (with two other family members) were in consideration for the Family Edition before being ultimately cut.
580** Creator/MikeWhite was originally chosen for Season 13 with director friend Jon Kasden. Jon backed out, and Mike was paired with his father for Season 14.
581
582!!Season 15 (Fall 2009)
583->'''Start:''' Sixth Street Viaduct, Los Angeles, California\
584'''Destinations:''' Japan / Vietnam / Cambodia / United Arab Emirates / Netherlands / Sweden / Estonia / Czech Republic\
585'''Finish:''' Casa de Shenandoah, UsefulNotes/LasVegas, Nevada
586
587* AmazingFreakingGrace: Sung in the finale. By an Elvis impersonator. In a wedding chapel. In UsefulNotes/LasVegas.
588* BlindfoldedTrip: Between the second and third legs, the Pit Stop, the Bassac III Riverboat, took the teams from Cái Bè to My Tho, Vietnam.
589* CallBack: Leg 8 repeated the infamous hay bale Roadblock from Season 6, though this time it was placed right next to the Pit Stop and they made it a non-elimination leg.
590* TheCameo: Wayne Newton gave the racers their final clue leading them to the Finish Line.
591* DownLADrain: The season started there.
592* EdibleAmmunition: One of the Detour choices in leg 9 had teams fire small vegetables at a moose sign with slingshots.
593* FunnyBackgroundEvent: When Ericka is shown scouring the Estates Theater long after the other teams have left, the guy who played Don Giovanni is shown sitting next to Brian clearly having lost interest in playing his role.
594* HahahaNo: The Roadblock on leg 10 involves searching the Prague Opera House for a tiny case with a tiny cello inside. Some teams try bringing a empty case or a giant cello, only to have the judge give a "Hahaha...No" laugh at them.
595* OutOfGenreExperience: The Japanese Game Show Roadblock in the premiere, including the sound effects and graphics to go along with them.
596* {{Precap}}: In the episode with Mika's water slide meltdown.
597* SharkTunnel: The water slide in Dubai went through a shark tunnel.
598* VivaLasVegas: The finale took place in UsefulNotes/LasVegas. It involved traveling from casino to casino, an Elvis impersonator in a wedding chapel, a visit to Cirque de Soleil, Wayne Newton, and counting out a million dollars in poker chips. The season also featured Maria & Tiffany, a pair of professional poker players (however, they were eliminated before the finale).
599
600!!Season 16 (Spring 2010)
601->'''Start:''' Vista Hermosa Natural Park, Los Angeles, California\
602'''Destinations:''' Chile / Argentina / Germany / France / Seychelles / Malaysia / Singapore / China\
603'''Finish:''' Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California
604
605* BlindfoldedTrip: Between the fourth and fifth legs, the teams were taken by bus from Hamburg, Germany to Les Monthairons, France.
606BothSidesHaveAPoint: In the U-Turn incident in Leg 9, Carol & Brandy correctly point out that it was a bad move when Jet & Cord were a stronger team, and being an {{Omniglot}} is only a threat in the first few legs before placements take precedence. At the finish line, Caite brings up an equally valid point, saying Brandy can't treat people the way she does and expect people to sit back and take it even if there are smarter options.
607* TheCameo:
608** Allan Wu, host of ''The Amazing Race Asia'' gave the teams their first clue during the ninth leg.
609** The finale took a trip to Industrial Light & Magic, complete with an appearance from [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]].
610* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Averted; a leg in France had WWI-themed tasks and described the bravery of the French soldiers against Germany.
611* DigitalAvatar: Used in the Industrial Light & Magic challenge in the finale.
612* IfYouCanReadThis: The final challenge required the teams to place psychedelic posters of the eliminated teams in the order of their elimination. They also had to place three posters representing the three non-elimination legs. These posters featured host Phil Keoghan's complete OpeningNarration that was played along with the show's opening theme in Season 1.
613* TheMagicPokerEquation: Averted during the five card stud task in the third leg. Only one team won their hand with something higher than a low pair (Brent & Caite's two pair), and several teams won with a high card.
614
615!!Season 17 (Fall 2010)
616->'''Start:''' Eastern Point Yacht Club, Gloucester, Massachusetts\
617'''Destinations:''' England, UK / Ghana / Sweden / Norway / Russia / Oman / Bangladesh / Hong Kong, China / South Korea\
618'''Finish:''' Greystone Mansion, Beverly Hills, California
619
620* AntiClimax: Despite being a ''very'' memorable season over all, the last two episodes in general were this. Nick & Vicki got pushed so far behind in the penultimate leg due to their penalty for quitting a Detour that their elimination was a ForegoneConclusion. Nat & Kat then so thoroughly dominated the final leg that it was clear they were going to win halfway through the episode, and they didn't see another team past the midpoint of the leg.
621* BearsAreBadNews: Had two ''fake'' bears, one on a dogsled course in Sweden, one in a circus in Russia.
622* CameraAbuse: During the Gorodki Roadblock, there were cameras set up behind the pin formations, which would repeatedly be knocked over by the teams' bats.
623* TheCameo: [[Series/TheNewlywedGame Bob Eubanks]] gave the teams their final clue after they completed the game show style [[FinalExamFinale Final Puzzle]].
624* ChekhovsGunman: All of the greeters were wearing hats. In the finale, identifying the greeters and their hats became the subject of the FinalExamFinale puzzle.
625* ContinuityNod: The final puzzle had the teams searching for the pictures of the eleven greeters who had met them at the mat at the end of each leg. In amongst the eleven right pictures were dozens of wrong pictures, which were all greeters from previous seasons of the race.
626* EdibleAmmunition: The watermelons teams shot at suits of armor using a giant slingshot.
627* FailedASpotCheck:
628** Episode 3: Almost every single team who chose the option of decoding phrases into symbols for the Detour couldn't find the decoder key located on a wall just around the corner from where they were (the sole exception being Connor & Jonathan, who completed it before the others showed up). All of them ultimately opted for the second Detour option, and the cameras kept on showing them running right past the decoder key - if they had just glanced behind them, they would have seen it.
629** Episode 7: Every single team had trouble spotting a colorful figurine of a building in an otherwise drab colored tower they were scanning the skyline from. In fairness, the figurine was placed behind the racers, in the exact opposite direction of the skyline.
630* FakeFood: The "find a fake piece of food in a table full of real food" Roadblock.
631* GlobalIgnorance: The teams were visiting a school in Ghana and tasked with identifying Ghana on a map. It went about as well as you would expect.
632* LanguageBarrier: Exploited in the finale. Even though the teams were back in the U.S., none of the idling cabs waiting outside the Rose Bowl (the ones set up by production to be waiting for the teams) had drivers who even remotely spoke good English.
633* LateArrivalSpoiler: The DVD summary says that a female team finally wins the race, not only spoiling the end of this season for those arriving late, but the previous 16 as well (Season 11 in particular, as two of the teams in the finale were female/female).
634* ThePianoPlayer: In one challenge, there was a room full of Russian pianists repeatedly hammering out iconic classical pieces while the racers constantly freaked out trying to identify them.
635* StormingTheCastle: The first task of the Race had teams scaling the walls of Eastnor Castle while dirty water was thrown on them.
636* TemptingFate: In the infamous [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cfeTZNcA3g&feature=youtu.be watermelon scene]] from this season. After failing to hit the suit of armor with her first two watermelons in the slingshot challenge, Claire is encouraged to hit the armor "right in the kisser". Perhaps they should have specified whose kisser it was, namely the suit of armor's and not ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard Claire's]]''.
637
638!!Season 18 [Unfinished Business] (Spring 2011)
639->'''Start:''' San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, Palm Springs, California\
640'''Destinations:''' Australia / Japan / China / India / Austria / Liechtenstein / Switzerland / Brazil\
641'''Finish:''' Pigeon Key, Florida
642
643* [[BaseballEpisode Basketball Episode]]: While waiting for the train to Kunming, China. The Globetrotters broke out a basketball, and played a game with Jet & Cord and Kisha & Jen.
644* CallBack: As an All-Star season, it had a number of {{Call Back}}s to the teams' previous seasons, especially during team introductions.
645* ChekhovsGun: At the beginning of leg 6, teams were told to go to a tea shop and given tea to drink, then given a clue telling them to fly to India. Zev even called it a pointless task. After landing in India, the Roadblock involved identifying that tea on a table full of cups of tea.
646* ComedicSociopathy: One of the locals watching the final trailer setting task got in a great line while the teams were fighting against the wind knocking down all their work:
647-->When they do something stupid, we think it's funny.
648* ContinuityNod: The premiere had the teams fly to Sydney, Australia, where the audience was welcomed to Sydney by the Pit Stop greeter from the Race's initial trip to Australia in Season 2. The {{Establishing Shot}}s for the episode also featured the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge, both locations of tasks in Season 2.
649* CoveredInMud: The Frog of Luck Detour resulted in this for all the teams who chose it.
650* FlashbackEffects: Justified, in that this is the first season shot in HD, so all {{Call Back}}s to previous seasons were all shot in SD, and in 4x3 format instead of 16x9, so all "flashbacks" were in lower quality video with borders on the side to fill out the screen.
651* HistoryRepeats: Brook & Claire, a team considered essentially a shoo-in to be invited back for an All-Star season, had to drop out after Claire got pregnant. Colin & Christie, another shoo-in team, had to drop out of All-Stars for the same reason. They were both also invited back for a third season but this time the trope was subverted. Brook & Claire were going to return for season 24 but Brook couldn't get a month off of work. Colin & Christie would race again all the way in season 31 after they decided their kids were old enough for them to go away for a month.
652* ManipulativeEditing: Past the second non-elimination leg, the editing implied that all the teams had it out for Jet & Cord. However based on the deleted scenes and post-race interviews, the teams actually all had a informal agreement to U-turn Kent & Vyxsin because they had already burnt theirs in China and would have no way to retaliate.
653* MeditatingUnderAWaterfall: A Detour in Japan featured this.
654* MyGreatestSecondChance: It's called "Unfinished Business" after all. Of course, for the teams returning, this also led to...
655* MyGreatestFailure: This was emphasized for nine of the eleven teams returning for Unfinished Business. Only Jaime & Cara (14) and Amanda & Kris (14) were exempt, as the former finished 2nd without any obvious mistakes, and the later was U-Turned out of the Race. Those mistakes were:
656** Kynt & Vyxsin (12) having [[DrivingStick stick shift problems in Italy.]] However, no mention was made of their ultimate elimination after U-Turning a team that was in front of them until much later.
657** Christina (12) panicking and falling apart on the Final Puzzle.
658** Mel & Mike (14) sticking with a bad cab in Phuket.
659** Jen (14) [[PottyEmergency "pissing away a million dollars"]] on the penultimate leg.
660** Luke (14) choking on the final surf board in the Final Puzzle after having 8 of the 11 surf boards placed by the time the other teams got there.
661** Zev & Justin (15) losing a passport on the fourth leg.
662** Big Easy (15) being unable to unscramble the word "Franz," even with the "F" spotted to him, and taking a game ending penalty instead.
663** Jet & Cord (16) standing by as Dan & Jordan cut in line at the Shanghai airport in the finale, and allowing it to affect their game afterwards.
664** Gary & Mallory (17) getting lost for nine hours in Oman due to buying an uninformed map.
665* NeverTrustATrailer: The promo shown at the end of Season 17 prominently featured a large number of teams, more than could be in a single season, and led to a number of false cast lists popping up on various sites.
666* OddlyNamedSequel: "Unfinished Business"
667* SchmuckBait:
668** The Austria Detour was a choice between "Long Hard Walk" or "Quick and Easy Meal". Three teams took the bait, a task which was nearly impossible to complete since it required both teams to finish a meal full of meat within a strict time limit. On top of that, failure essentially meant you had to do the other option since it's not like you can eat any more the second time.
669** The penultimate leg's detour was a choice between "On the Rocks," a straightforward drink mixing task, or "On the Beach," in which a team had to sell bikinis, and the women had to change into them right on the beach, which almost no one is going to do in front of random strangers. Zev & Justin only chose the latter because they were so far behind that it was their only (incredibly long) shot.
670* SharkTunnel: The premiere had racers wait in one of these while their teammate did a Roadblock in the surrounding tank.
671* ShoutOut: A roadblock in Austria had the teams doing chimney sweeping. The clue was [[Film/MaryPoppins "Who's feeling lucky, as lucky can be?"]]
672* SpotlightStealingSquad: Season 14 with taking 5 of the 11 cast spots (plus first alternate Steve & Linda, who finished 10th originally), leaving only six cast spots for the other five seasons, including zero representatives from Season 13, and only a 6th place team from Season 17 (though the two best candidates from Season 17, Nat & Kat won the race, disqualifying them for ''Unfinished Business'', and Claire got pregnant). Bertram Van Munster called 14 a "very unique season" in order to justify this overcasting (with an tiny addition of Season 14 alum Jodi being a casting director). [[{{Irony}} Ironically, 4 of the 5 teams cast from that season were eliminated in the bottom 4 places]], Amanda & Kris were halted by a U-Turn again, Mel & Mike were forced out of the running due to medical concerns, Jaime & Cara were foiled by a Roadblock in China, and Margie & Luke suffered an extremely shocking elimination when Luke choked on the Roadblock in India. But then Kisha & Jen turned around and won the whole thing.
673* ThisIsGonnaSuck: At the beginning of the 6th leg, after two straight legs in China, teams were given a clue telling them to find a tea shop, eliciting groans from everyone (except Chinese speakers Ron & Christina) about how they were going to have to stay in China. However, after drinking a cup of tea, they were sent to India.
674* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The final episode was a two-hour finale with two legs - the last elimination leg and then the final leg of the race. One of the trailers CBS aired for the finale, however, showed all of the teams but one in the final destination city, leading a number of viewers to guess (correctly), that the team in question was eliminated in the penultimate leg.
675* UndesirablePrize: Subverted, where Snapple was a sponsor. It appeared the prize was solely to taste two new Snapple flavors, and then Phil revealed they were also getting a feast that night, a private Bollywood-style performance, and a million rupees (or roughly $20,000 cash).
676
677!!Season 19 (Fall 2011)
678->'''Start:''' Hsi Lai Temple, Hacienda Heights, California\
679'''Destinations:''' Taiwan / Indonesia / Thailand / Malawi / Denmark / Germany / Belgium / Panama\
680'''Finish:''' Swan House, Atlanta, Georgia
681
682* AntiClimax: Ernie & Cindy completely dominated the finale when the other two teams made vital mistakes early in the leg, to the point where they didn't see another team after leaving the first task.
683* BarelyThereSwimwear: Much to the embarrassment of everyone except Ernie and Marcus during the bodybuilding task.
684* BreakingTheFourthWall: Though different from the usual kind. The show normally ignores stuff surrounding the production, but the premiere showed how spoiler hounds tracking racers' progress on Twitter helped Kaylani & Lisa recover their lost passport, preventing their automatic elimination.
685* ChekhovsGunman: Throughout the penultimate leg, Ernie & Cindy, Marcus & Amani, and Jeremy & Sandy voiced their annoyance that their cab drivers were all discussing directions with each other, with Marcus & Amani getting taken to the wrong Detour as a result. However, they were all much happier when those same cab drivers helped them get into the Final 3 over Andy & Tommy.
686* ChewingTheScenery: The Roadblock that required contestants to memorize a Hans Christian Andersen poem called for "dramatic flair," which invariably led to a lot of this.
687* FailedASpotCheck: Exploited in the 2nd leg, when one task included a sign of additional directions that weren't in the clue.[[note]]Teams not only have to give the Detour money to the orphanage, they must also give ''all'' of their money in their posessions before checking in the Pit Stop.[[/note]] Eight of the eleven teams missed it and had to backtrack, causing the three who did notice to jump as many as seven places to the top of the standings.
688* FanService: The whole point of the body building pose-athon.
689* HiddenInPlainSight: The first clue in Taiwan is one of the most notoriously tricky in the series. They were simply told to go into a commercial district and "look up." The clue was a giant red and yellow sign written in Chinese that many of the teams spotted then disregarded at first.
690* ProductPlacement: Subverted. The 11th leg had a task based on the comic ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' and aired at about the time [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin2011 a movie adaptation]] hit theaters, but no reference was made to the movie at all; Tintin was presented as merely a Belgian cultural icon.
691
692!!Season 20 (Spring 2012)
693->'''Start:''' Bridlewood Estate Winery, Santa Barbara, California\
694'''Destinations:''' Argentina / Paraguay / Italy / Germany / Azerbaijan / Tanzania / India / Japan\
695'''Finish:''' Secret Island, Waikane, Hawaii
696
697* BaitAndSwitch: In the first leg, the teams are told to drive to a small airport, where they find a Roadblock clue. Most teams automatically suspect that it's a sky diving challenge, only to find that, once they open the clue, they're only half right. The Roadblock involved following a map to the landing zone for their partner after ''they'' sky dived.
698* BreatherEpisode: Leg 6, where everybody dance along together until they are allowed to race, scrubbing oil off of hairy naked men and Rachel Reilly didn't {{Wangst}} for once. After this the race became way more nasty.
699* CallBack: Leg 10 repeated the head shaving Fast Forward from Season 7 (Season 5 was not mentioned).
700* ContinuityNod: When the teams competed in a Japanese Game Show Roadblock, the host for the task was the same person who hosted the Japanese Game Show Roadblock all the way back in Season 15.
701* FanDisservice: Not just for the fans, as one Detour had the teams scrub oil off of hairy, nearly naked men.
702* MoodWhiplash: A stop at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial was followed by rubber chickens in a Japanese game show.
703* OutOfGenreExperience: The Japanese Game Show Roadblock in the finale, including the sound effects and graphics to go along with them.
704* {{Precap}}: There was one used in leg 7 to recap the major storylines of the season so far, and show where they would be heading starting in that episode.
705* RegionalRiff: Played with during a cricket Detour. After having the teams compare the challenge to "just like hitting a baseball," the challenge is scored by sitar versions of "Charge" and "Take Me Out To The Ball Game".
706* SavedForTheSequel: In Season 19, Kaylani's original partner was supposed to be Rachel Reilly, but as Rachel was asked to return for ''Big Brother'' 13, she had to change to Lisa, and Rachel was cast for the following season with Brendon.
707* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The premiere, instead of featuring the normal, [[OnTheNext "Next week on ''The Amazing Race'',"]] instead featured a preview for the entire upcoming season, including scenes from the 7th episode, the 8th, the 10th, and even the finale. It became fairly obvious that certain teams were safe until those scenes aired.
708* WeWait: The Water Supply Detour in leg 8 was simple, all you had to do was fill up nine jugs with water, only you had to wait in a line for forty minutes or so to get to the hose.
709
710!!Season 21 (Fall 2012)
711->'''Start:''' Colorado Street Bridge, Pasadena, California\
712'''Destinations:''' China / Indonesia / Bangladesh / Turkey / Russia / Netherlands / Spain / France\
713'''Finish:''' Gotham Hall, New York City, New York
714
715* AmphibiousAutomobile: The Fast Forward in the Netherlands in involved eating herring on an aquatic bus.
716* BeachEpisode: The three teams had twelve hours to waste in Barcelona, so they went to the beach.
717* CallBack: Leg 9 repeated the ditch vaulting Roadblock from Season 12 (Jaymes even recognized it as they were driving up).
718* ChekhovsGunman: Observant viewers might have noted that the greeters at each of the Pit Stops in Season 21 said [[JustForFun/{{Hello}} hello]] and [[ThatsAllFolks goodbye]] to the racers in their native languages. This turned out to be important later when the [[FinalExamFinale final challenge]] was to match the words/phrases for "hello" and "goodbye" to their native countries. Unfortunately, most teams did not pay attention to this detail and the people who did the roadblock spent at least two and a half hours trying to complete it.
719* FailedASpotCheck:
720** The opening leg required teams to find an elderly Chinese woman working an abacus. In addition to many Racers mispronouncing the word "abacus", several teams walked right past her more than once.
721** The finale had all three teams constantly miss the seemingly inconspicuous poster among others posted at Coney Island Boardwalk. Appropriately, it was titled The Amazing Houdini.
722* GayAesop: Monster Trucker Rob has a mini-Gaesop at the Finish Line. Coming from the South he had some preconceived notions about homosexuality. Racing with the winning Beekman Boys caused him to re-evaluate his beliefs.
723* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: See LoopholeAbuse. The other trailing team saved by the U-Turn manipulation ended up winning the race.
724* LoopholeAbuse: In the second Double U-Turn, the leading three teams going into Amsterdam - all which had a good 3+ hour advantage on the trailing two teams - conspired to use the Double U-turn specifically against the stronger of the trailing teams, Abbie & Ryan (who were also the ones in contention for the $2 million prize); one team used their U-Turn on Abbie & Ryan, while a second team used the U-turn on the team that provided the first U-turn, knowing full well it wouldn't affect them, but specifically to deny Abbie & Ryan from using the U-turn on the other trailing team.
725* ThatRussianSquatDance: This was a Detour option in Moscow, and all but one of the teams did it.
726* TrailersAlwaysSpoil:
727** The premiere showed clips from leg 9 and the finale.
728** Likewise, in the episode prior to the finale, the preview for said finale featured shots of Lexi doing the final Roadblock at the United Nations building in New York City, and Jaymes & James on the Coney Island boardwalk.
729* VictimizedBystander: The bamboo Detour in leg 5 involved teams carrying forty bamboo poles to a rickshaw and then taking the rickshaw to a construction site. The teams repeatedly lost control of the poles as they turned corners, and kept smacking locals with them.
730
731!!Season 22 (Spring 2013)
732->'''Start:''' Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California\
733'''Destination:''' French Polynesia / New Zealand / Indonesia / Vietnam / Botswana / Swaziland / Germany / Scotland, UK / Northern Ireland, UK\
734'''Finish:''' Mount Vernon Estate, Mount Vernon, Virginia
735
736* AntiClimax:
737** Leg 5, Vietnam. What could have been an extremely exciting leg involving a Double U-Turn (with ''obvious'' divides between alliances, no less) was rendered a ForegoneConclusion after Dave & Connor quit early in the leg due to the former's injury, thus ensuring the rest of the teams were safe even before the first commercial break.
738** Bates & Anthony did not see another team after the Spy Roadblock, which was halfway through the episode.
739* BaitAndSwitch: During the final leg, in Washington, D.C., the teams all go to 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, where they are to get pictures with [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama the President]]. The teams are all surprised... but it turns out that they are just going to get pictures of themselves taken with an image of the President photoshopped onto the pictures.
740* BrickJoke: [[note]]On the part of the editors.[[/note]] At the beginning of the German leg, there was a puzzle regarding UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's "[[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Tear Down This Wall]]" speech. Max was the first to the puzzle and had (incorrectly) guessed UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy as the speechmaker [[note]]and further established his and Katie's VillainCred by stating that Creator/RushLimbaugh "would be upset with him" for getting a question on Reagan wrong[[/note]]. Guess what ''other'' American President turned out to be the password to the Roadblock later on?[[note]]Not a ChekhovsGag as only one team had this experience, at least on-screen.[[/note]]
741* CallBack:
742** The leg 4 Roadblock had the teams search through a number of surfboards for one that had the picture of a Polynesian priest who had blessed them in the second leg (with the clue only telling them to look for something they had "encountered" on the course). Aside from that, the task was also a simplified version of the Final Exam Finale Puzzle from Season 14.
743** Leg 8 repeated the cheese carrying task from the Season 14 premiere, only this time teams had to do it in the snow. The episode title itself, "My Cheese Is Out of Control," was a direct Call Back to the Season 14 episode title, "Don't Let A Cheese Hit Me."
744** The finale also repeated the spy Roadblock from Family Edition. Unlike with other Switchbacks, while clips from the original task were shown, they did not mention what season they were from. Also notable in that it was the first Switchback not to draw from a memorable moment or episode, meaning most fans might not have recognized it as a Switchback had it not been pointed out.
745* {{Calvinball}}: The shemozzle race in New Zealand, which involved crawling through a crate dripping with molasses and a tunnel full of feathers, then riding an inner tube down a tarp into a muddy pond, all while holding eggs.
746* ChekhovsGunman: In the second leg, teams were blessed by a Polynesian priest before getting their Detour clue. Two legs later, a Roadblock had the teams search through a number of surfboards for one that had the picture of the same priest on it (with the clue only telling them to look for something they had "encountered" on the course).
747* DisneyAcidSequence: The Roadblock in the German leg had teams traveling through a freaky labyrinth inside Berlin's Salon zur wilden Renate. Multiple racers even said walking through the maze was like being on a drug trip (see MindScrew below).
748* FailedASpotCheck:
749** A subtle version of this in the first leg sandcastle Roadblock. As confirmed by Matt & Daniel, many teams didn't think to dig underneath the sandcastles, expecting the clues to simply appear when they knocked the castles over ([[ReadTheFreakingManual despite it saying they would be beneath the sandcastles in the clue]]). Though searching 400 sandcastles and having to rebuild them would be taxing in itself, this led to teams not finding a single one in all of them and thus the last three teams felt it better to take a penalty over continuing their fruitless efforts.
750** The penultimate leg (set in Belfast, Northern Ireland) had a Detour in which one of the challenges involved teams going to the dry dock where the ''Titanic'' was built and serving a five-course first-class meal to reenactors. Three of the final four teams attempted this challenge, and all of them initially didn't realize there was a reason why the menus they picked up only had two of five courses listed for each person at the table - the menus were sitting on a signboard which listed the other three courses.
751* HumanChess: A Detour had the teams setting up human pieces on a Chinese Chess board.
752* InnocentlyInsensitive: The show itself became this in leg 5, as Leg 5 was set in Vietnam and featured a communist propaganda song and the wreckage of an American B-52 bomber that - though the show didn't mention this part - served to commemorate a victory over the Americans. Production had acknowledged they made a mistake and a formal apology was offered at the start of the next episode, though this was only broadcasted on CBS.
753* TheMaze: The labyrinth Roadblock in Berlin.
754* MindScrew: The labyrinth in Berlin's Salon zur wilden Renate was built to deliberately invoke this.
755* PatrioticFervor: A Roadblock had teams sitting and watching the performance of a patriotic Vietnamese song and dance.
756* ThePrecariousLedge: The Roadblock at Eiger mountain in Switzerland, where teams had to climb out on a slim board bolted to the mountain's north face.
757* SavedForTheSequel: Chuck & Wynona were originally cast in Season 21, but had to drop out due to a family death.
758* SpySpeak: The Switchback in Washington, D.C. had the racers exchanging a briefcase with a spy after exchanging code phrases.
759* TarAndFeathers: Shemozzle racing in New Zealand involved getting covered in molasses and feathers.
760* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Season 22 had a two-hour finale featuring the final elimination episode and the final leg. Like with Seasons 18 and 21, the promos aired on CBS showed three of the teams in the Final Destination City, Washington D.C., leading to the (correct) assumption that they were the Final 3.
761* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: This season seemed particularly geared towards this kind of reaction with a route primarily consisting of scenic rural locations and endless Racer soundbites about how cool the surrounding environment was.
762
763!!Season 23 (Fall 2013)
764->'''Start:''' Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio, Santa Clarita, California\
765'''Destinations:''' Chile / Portugal / Norway / Poland / Austria / United Arab Emirates / Indonesia / Japan\
766'''Finish:''' End of North Douglas Highway, Juneau, Alaska
767
768* BaitAndSwitch: Like in Season 20, the Roadblock of the race was designed to fool teams into thinking the Roadblock was a physical thrill task, in this case paragliding. However, the non participating team member had to do the paragliding, and the Roadblock was to instead follow their teammate to the beach.
769* ChekhovsGun: The bag of Viking Coins the teams picked up in Norway were later used to decode the code for the electronic locks on their [[ProductPlacement Ford Explorers]] in Abu Dhabi.
770* ContinuityNod: When the teams competed in a Japanese Game Show Detour, the host for the task was the same person who hosted the Japanese Game Show Roadblocks in Seasons 15 and 20.
771* FallingChandelierOfDoom: The unused Detour in Austria involved assembling a chandelier. If they failed to do it correctly, the task judge would drop the chandelier to the floor.
772* {{Fanservice}}: The salt bath Detour, though Phil tweeted that there was no requirement to get into swimwear. Everyone just followed suit after Jason & Amy changed.
773* FlatWorld: Lampshaded InUniverse during the Miles Detour in Lisbon, where teams had to measure out Magellan's circumnavigation route via a giant compass and a flat map. Three teams forgot the world was round when they got to the end of the map, while one team was able to correct this, restart from the other side of the map, and give the right number, two other teams kept giving ridiculously large numbers to the task judge until they just gave up and switched Detours.
774* TheMaze: Teams had to navigate a hedge maze to get their final clue in Austria.
775* OutOfGenreExperience: The Japanese Game Show Detour in the finale, including the sound effects and graphics to go along with them.
776* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The CBS-made promos prior to the two-hour finale spoiled the final elimination again.
777* WholesomeCrossdresser: The polka Detour in Poland had teams dressing up in traditional Polish costumes to do a polka dance routine, and had to remain dressed like this for the remainder of the leg. One teammate dressed as a male and the other as a female, this included ''all-male'' and ''all-female'' teams. Most teams had no problem cross-dressing for the purpose of the Detour, but Danny complained long and hard about dressing as a woman, much to Tim's annoyance.
778* WrittenSoundEffect: Used during the Japanese Game Show Detour.
779
780!!Season 24 [All-Stars] (Spring 2014)
781->'''Start:''' College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, California\
782'''Destinations:''' China / Malaysia / Sri Lanka / Italy / Switzerland / Spain / England, UK / Wales, UK\
783'''Finish:''' Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Nevada
784
785* AntiClimax: The eliminations of Joey & Meghan, Margie & Luke, and the Globetrotters were obvious by the middle of their respective episodes.
786* CallBack: As an All-Star season, it had a number of {{Call Back}}s to the teams' previous seasons, especially during team introductions.
787* TheCameo: David Copperfield ran the teams through a Roadblock in the finale.
788* FakeDifficulty: The toy chariot racing in Rome. It was easy when teams were alone, but got harder when more and more teams shows up.
789* FlashbackEffects: All flashbacks to previous seasons are done in muted colors with travel documents layered in over the edges of the screen.
790* MyGreatestSecondChance: For all the teams, with three of them (along with one half of a fourth) having their third chance.
791* MobstacleCourse: Done in leg 6 with tuk-tuks, as seven teams raced to fill up four tuk-tuks apiece, with only two gas pumps available. This caused traffic jams at the pumps as contestants fought to get their tuk-tuks to the gas pump, with contestants standing in front of, block, redirecting, and even pushing tuk-tuks out of the way.
792* NewRulesAsThePlotDemands: It was not the producers' fault, but they should have told the viewers about the new Roadblock rule at the start of the season, not when everybody realized that Dave did only 4 Roadblocks over the course of the first 11 legs, thus giving the illusion of this.
793* NoodleIncident: Several team placements changed between the first and second leg with no explanation. Dave & Connor and Margie & Luke switched 3rd and 4th place, Margie & Luke moving up, Dave & Connor down. Joey & Meghan also moved up two spots from 10th to 8th.
794* OddlyNamedSequel: "All-Stars"
795* RearrangeTheSong: The season kicked off with the theme song played by the UCLA marching band. The normal title sequence played a little later on, though.
796* RubberbandAI: Averted for the first five legs, as the teams were not all fully equalized for the first time until the beginning of leg 6. However, leg 6 the proceeded to hit the teams with three equalizers, an operating hours equalizer, followed by two trains.
797* SecondHandStorytelling: In the finale, there was a fight between Rachel and Caroline & Jennifer in the customs. Since they couldn't film the fight in that section of the airport, the fight had to be told by confessionals from all three teams. From Caroline & Jennifer's POV, Rachel appearantly cut in front of them. From Rachel POV, she arrived at the customs first, and then Caroline accused her of cutting in front of them.
798* SpotlightStealingSquad: Season 22 became the spotlight stealing season this time around, providing four of the teams for All-Stars. However, unlike with Season 14 on Unfinished Business, only one of the teams, Dave & Connor, was really expected to be brought back by most fans. Jessica & John were considered an outside possibility due to the embarrassing nature of their elimination, while Joey & Meghan and Caroline & Jen were surprises.
799** Just as surprising, the season most expected to steal the spotlight, Season 21, only ended up contributing one team, Natalie & Nadiya, while Jaymes & James, Trey & Lexi, and Abbie & Ryan were all snubbed.
800* TruncatedThemeTune: For every episode except the first and last, they cut all the teams out of the title sequence, playing a shorter version of the theme before showing the title card after a few seconds. They would go back to the full theme in every episode in the following season.
801* UnwinnableByDesign:
802** For three teams in Leg 3. The flights out of China were split 6-3 with a three-hour deficit for the last three teams, making it impossible for those teams to catch up and guaranteeing they would be the last three teams to check in.
803** The second Roadblock, which was the final task in the finale, where a contestant had to sky dive from a helicopter to finish the race. It basically meant that the first person that signed up for the charter won the race.
804* VivaLasVegas: The last leg takes place in Las Vegas.
805* WhatHaveWeEar: In the finale, David Copperfield pulled clues out from behind the contestants ears.
806
807!!Season 25 (Fall 2014)
808->'''Start:''' Times Square, New York City, New York\
809'''Destinations:''' United States Virgin Islands / England, UK / Scotland, UK / Denmark / Morocco / Sicily, Italy / Malta / Singapore / Philippines\
810'''Finish:''' Point Vicente Lighthouse, Rancho Palos Verdes, California
811
812* BaitAndSwitch: The Painters or Posers Detour in leg 7 did this with the clue. The Posers task was much faster, as teams only had to remember ten outfits, and could work together, but because the vague description of the task in the clue, and the four team limit they put on the Painters task, made it look like the time consuming and detail oriented Painters task was faster, and all the teams raced for that one instead.
813* BritishRoyalGuards: One of the Detour choices in the second leg had teams changing the guard at Buckingham Palace.
814* CallBack:
815** For their 25th season, the show started with Phil at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, where the first race had started, with shots of that season starting. Later, at the Starting Line in Times Square, Phil pointed out that some veteran racers had shown up to see the race start ([[Characters/TheAmazingRace1 Frank from Season 1]], and [[Characters/TheAmazingRace13 Terence and Andrew from Season 13]]). The first clue of the season told teams to go where the first season had ended (the Unisphere in Queens), and all the teams ran over to Frank to get the answer.
816** Later in the leg, when the final three teams at the Roadblock all decided to take four-hour penalties, the editors cut to shots of the three teams who had similarly decided to take four-hour penalties at the Roadblock in leg 1 of [[Characters/TheAmazingRace22 Season 22]].
817** The Switchback in Leg 10 was the ox-plough Detour from Episode 11 of Season 5, the last time the Race went through the Philippines, though this time it was used as just an additional task. Included with the task were shots of Colin in the middle of his VillainousBreakdown, with Phil calling it the "biggest breakdown ever." The name of the task on screen was even "My Ox is Broken."
818* TheCameo:
819** [[Characters/TheAmazingRace1 Frank from Season 1]], and [[Characters/TheAmazingRace13 Terence and Andrew from Season 13]] were in the crowd at the Starting Line. Luke (Seasons [[Characters/TheAmazingRace14 14]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace18 18]], and [[Characters/TheAmazingRace24 24]]) was also reportedly at the Starting Line, but was not shown.
820** Leg 9's Pit Stop Greeter was Melody from ''Characters/TheAmazingRaceAsia1''.
821* GreenAesop: The fourth leg in Copenhagen centered around this, with one task involving driving 20 miles in an energy efficient car while using less than a tenth of a gallon of gas, and the Pit Stop was outside of a self-sustainable apartment building.
822* HistoryRepeats: As in Season 22, the premiere featured a lengthy Roadblock on the beach involving the teams digging in sand. Eight of the teams got it, leaving a trio of a pair of firefighters, a pair of blonde women, and a couple. The couple decided to propose to the other two teams that they all quit the task and take the four-hour penalty and race it out to the Pit Stop. The two biggest differences in the ending were that the teams knew they'd be in a footrace to the Pit Stop instead of racing it out via boat, and the blonde team was eliminated instead of the firefighters.
823* TwistEnding: Episode 11 revealed that the final leg would be run by 4 teams.
824* WhamLine: Phil tells Brooke and Robbie at the mat that "the final leg starts now."
825
826!!Season 26 (Spring 2015)
827->'''Start:''' Castaic Lake, Castaic, California\
828'''Destinations:''' Japan / Thailand / Germany / Monaco / France / Namibia / Netherlands / Peru\
829'''Finish:''' Continental Avenue Bridge, Dallas, Texas
830
831* AntiClimax: Episode 5 turned into one twenty minutes into the episode, when Kurt & Bergen abandoned the car they needed for the leg in favor of taking a cab, essentially putting them in an unescapable hole. There was one small hope of them surviving, as Tyler & Laura had misplaced their fanny pack, but once that was recovered the show made no attempt to hide their imminent elimination.
832* BaitAndSwitch: The show did this to the teams in leg 8, sending them to Swakopmund Skydiving Club, making them think they were sky diving for the Roadblock, only to send contestants running into the desert after an air dropped case, leading to disappointment from many teams.
833* BingeMontage: A quick one was used near the beginning of episode 3, when several of the teams ended up hitting an overnight equalizer at Patong Beach in Thailand, with said teams having drinks together.
834* BlindDate: Five of the teams met each other for the first time at the Starting Line.
835* CallBack: To go along with the dating theme of the season, the premiere opened with a montage of (mostly) couples who had previously run the race together. Included were [[Characters/TheAmazingRace20 Brendon & Rachel]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace25 Dennis & Isabelle, Brooke & Robbie, Adam & Bethany]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace23 Amy & Jason]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace10 Rob & Kim]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace20 Ralph & Vanessa]], [[Characters/TheAmazingRace17 Chad & Stephanie]], and [[Characters/TheAmazingRace21 Brent & Josh]]. Also included in the montage were [[Characters/TheAmazingRace23 Tim & Marie]], who were exes at the time.
836* RomanticSpoonfeeding: One Detour in leg 2 had teams feeding each other noodles with chopsticks.
837* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: Due to an overnight equalizer, the teams ended up staying overnight in Thailand, and were provided with five rooms, for what ended up being eight teams, including five BlindDate couples.
838* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Right before the show took a three week break for the NCAA basketball tournament, the show featured a lengthy trailer showing clips from episodes as late as the 11th episode.
839
840!!Season 27 (Fall 2015)
841->'''Start:''' Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California\
842'''Destinations:''' Brazil / Argentina / Zambia / Zimbabwe / France / Netherlands / Poland / India / Hong Kong, China / Macau, China\
843'''Finish:''' 1620 Meadow Lane, Southampton (Long Island), New York
844* AlwaysSecondBest: Averted with the final four. Usually, Justin & Diana were in first, Kelsey & Joey in second, and Logan & Chris and Tiffany & Krista racing to avoid last place.
845* BoringButPractical: Despite that the season had one of the most "average" routes ever, it did increase the difficulty.
846* CallBack: Everyone remembered the Batoka Gorge task from season 1. It mightve been so remembered because of Kevin's infamous quote and also cause it is the very first task in Race history.
847* Face-Heel Turn: Pre-race, Justin had set up a fake amazing race for him & Diana and then proposed under the Northern Lights in Iceland, however he turned into a verbally abusive boyfriend who was very cocky.
848* NiceGuysFinishLast: The three teams that made it to the final leg could be considered villains (Justin & Diana were very arrogant, Chris & Logan were always fighting and about to kill each other and Kelsey & Joey were willing to do anything). However, the nicest of the three teams did end up winning.
849* NoSenseOfDirection: Defintely subverted; Ford dropped their sponorship, making this the first season without self-driving.
850* SequenceBreaking: There was three u-turns in the race
851* SpotlightStealingSquad: The poor editing made Justin & Diana the stars of the season (and so did their dominant performance), while most of the other teams were OutOfFocus
852* TokenMinority: This season had 6 teams that could be considered minorities.
853* UnderdogsNeverLose: Kelsey & Joey beat Justin & Diana in the final leg, and Tiffany & Krista shocked everyone by making the final four.
854
855!!Season 28 (Spring 2016)
856->'''Start:''' (No specific place; contestants begin their race at their stated hometowns)\
857'''Destinations:''' Mexico / Colombia / Switzerland / France / Armenia / Georgia / United Arab Emirates / Indonesia / China\
858'''Finish:''' Grassini Family Vineyards, Santa Ynez, California
859* HistoryRepeats: Many fans have said that Blair & Brodie's relationship on the race is similar to that of Eric & Danielle. The fans have also feared that they will return, just like the latter.
860* ProudToBeAGeek: Some of the teams this season.
861* SpotlightStealingSquad: Just like the previous season, the most dominant team got the most focus due to the poor editing.
862* StuntCasting: All the teams this season were internet celebrities and/or very popular on social media.
863* UnderdogsNeverLose: Matt & Dana, who were consistent but often slumped into the middle of the pack, and Sheri & Cole, who were always on the bottom, finished in the top two and beat Tyler & Korey (who won 6 legs), Kurt & Brodie (who won 3 legs), and Burnie & Ashley (who were usually in 2nd or 3rd place).
864
865!! Season 29 (Spring 2017)
866->'''Start:''' Grand Hope Park, Los Angeles, California\
867'''Destinations:''' Panama / Brazil / Zanzibar, Tanzania / Norway / Italy / Greece / Vietnam / South Korea\
868'''Finish:''' Milton Lee Olive Park, Chicago, Illinois
869* CallBack: The two switchbacks (Bungeejumping off the Corinth Canal in season 9 and the Shrimp Basket Bikes in season 3 returned) along with Scott remembering that the Buckingham Fountain was visited before. Subverted, since he said season 9 instead the correct answer of season 6.
870* HistoryRepeats: Just like with Season 19's Andy & Tommy, Matt & Redmond were an "invincible" team that got eliminated on the penultimate leg. Also, Brooke & Scott and Tara & Joey are similar to season three's Flo & Zach and Teri & Ian, respectively, in both their storylines and finishes (the fighting team that surprised people by beating the older team that won three legs).
871* ManipulativeEditing: Yes, Brooke whined a lot but the fact that she had had back surgery six months before the show was filmed and wasn’t back to 100% was never brought up.
872* NoodleIncident: Mike & Liz got mad at London & Logan for not helping them when the two teams were in last and again at Brooke & Scott for U-Turning them, despite the fact that they U-Turned Vanck & Ashton two legs earlier.
873* SiblingYinYang: While this did not work for Shamir & Sara and Vanck & Ashton, it is the main reason why London & Logan made the final 3 and are well-liked.
874* ShockingElimination: One of the many reasons why the season is considered a success, as it happened a lot, especially with Seth & Olive, Becca & Floyd, and Matt & Redmond.
875* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: This season had the most scenic route since Season 22.
876* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: A commerical shown after the premiere had pics of teams in Italy, Greece, & Vietnam, which were in the second half of the season.
877
878!! Season 30 (Winter 2018)
879->'''Start:''' Washington Square Park, New York City, NY\
880'''Destinations:''' Iceland / Belgium / Morocco / France / Prague, Czech Republic / Harare, Zimbabwe / Bahrain / Chiang Mai, Thailand / Hong Kong\
881'''Finish:''' USS Hornet, Alameda, California
882* CallBack: One switchback (Franz Kafka Roadblock in season 15)
883
884!! Season 31 (Spring 2019)
885->'''Start:''' Hermosa Beach Pier, Hermosa Beach, CA\
886'''Destinations:''' Tokyo, Japan / Laos / Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam/ Dubai, United Arab Emirates / Kampala, Uganda / Grindelwald , Switzerland / Spilt, Croatia / Amsterdam, the Netherlands / London, United Kingdom\
887''' Finish:''' Fort Wayne, Detroit, Michigan
888* AdaptedOut: According to the contestants, there was a Head-to-Head task (where teams compete in badminton) that is not aired in Leg 4.
889* BaitAndSwitch: Leg 5 had a Detour labelled Fall or Find, the description of Fall told teams they'd plunge off the Burj Khalifa. That along with only 2 spots being reserved per team made Fall sound like the easier task. Turns out the Detour involved playing a video game simulation of plunging down the Burj Khalifa then each answering a set of questions after playing. Due to the limited space, if you got even one wrong you were sent to the back of the line and had to wait to play again.
890* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Team captions are colored differently based on each team's show of origin: veteran Racers have yellow, ''Survivor'' castaways have green, and ''Big Brother'' houseguests are blue.
891* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The top two teams in leg 7 were able to finish the course in about two hours. The U-turn vote started at 07:00 and Chris and Bret came across a clock while looking for the Pit Stop that showed the time as about 09:10.
892* ManipulativeEditing: As mentioned above, Leg 4 had an unaired Head-to-Head that messed with the placement. Colin and Christie's win was edited to seem like a MiracleRally when they just won the game of badminton, Leo and Jamal jumped from 3rd to 6th which was implied to be because they got lost, and it seemed like the final two teams came down to a foot race when it actually was due to the game.
893* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The Switzerland leg being non-elimination was spoiled by the promo aired at the end of the first episode that showed the U-turn vote with seven teams.
894
895!! Season 32 (Fall 2020)
896->'''Start: '''Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA\
897'''Destinations:''' Trinidad, Trinidad and Tobago / Bogota, Colombia / Manaus, Brazil / Asunción, Paraguay / Paris, France / Berlin, Germany / Almaty, Kazakhstan / Hyberbad, India / Siem Reap, Cambodia / Manila, Philippines\
898'''Finish:''' Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
899
900* CallBack: The leg in Paraguay is the first "double switchback" - the Detour options are doing a bottle dance or stacking watermelons which are the exact same things teams had to do when the race was in Paraguay before, in season 20.
901* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In Leg 3, there was outcry among the fanbase for showing underage girls without shirts on. While they at least censored out anything too revealing, it showed how aspects of nudity are viewed in different cultures
902* ProductionThrowback: This season brings back the Yield which hasn't been used since season 11. However, it's been tweaked. In episode 2, they searched for either ten or twenty minute hourglasses and are able to use it once throughout the season when the yield comes up.
903* PublicDomainSoundtrack: They played the Jamaican folk song "Day-o" as the roadblock in the first task in order to not have to pay to license something.
904* RealityShowGenreBlindness: For some reason, the five of the teams at the front of the pack decided to make a mega-alliance even though the entire point of the show is to take out your biggest competition, not keep them around. This arguably caused the highest placing team to come up short in the finale.
905* SiblingTeam: This season has the most sibling teams ever at four. Aparna & Eswar are the first brother and sister pair since Justin & Jennifer way back in season 19.
906
907!! Season 33 (Winter 2022)
908->'''Start:''' (No specific place; contestants begin their race at their stated hometowns)\
909'''Destinations:''' London, England / Glasgow, Scotland / St. Gallen, Switzerland / Corsica, France / Thermaikos, Greece / Almada, Portugal\
910'''Finish:''' Dignity Health Sports Park, Carson, California
911
912In 2020, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic halted the many versions of the show from filming, as the world suffered from global spread of the disease and made it unsafe to travel and saw many countries cracking down on who could come and go. The American version had filmed two legs in the UK and Sweden in February before production halted and everyone was sent home. Van Munster has said they're planning on just returning the cast and picking back up where they left off when it's safe to resume production. The US version resumed production in September 2021. They decided to pick off where they left off but changed the route to stay mostly in Mediterranean Europe since it had high vaccination rates and good enough weather to keep the race outside as much as possible.
913
914* BackFromTheDead: The year-and-a-half layoff, and the fact that four teams couldn't make it back to resume racing, led the producers to bring back two teams that ''did'' get eliminated before production was suspended. Michael and Moe (eliminated in Leg 1) and Arun and Natalia (eliminated in Leg 3, immediately before the hiatus) were brought back to Switzerland when the show resumed with Leg 4.
915* CatharsisFactor: Seemingly invoked in leg 9. The first challenge was a brutal needle in a haystack challenge, which was followed by a Detour where one option was smashing plates to hunt for a clue. Needless to say, every team picked the smashing plates challenges in order to vent some stress.
916
917!! Season 34 (Fall 2022)
918->'''Start:''' Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Germany\
919'''Destinations:''' Patsch, Austria / Innsbruck, Austria / Bologna, Italy / Florence, Italy / Aqaba, Jordan / Petra, Jordan / Amman, Jordan / Toulouse, France / Les Eyzies, France / Domme, France / Malaga, Spain / Ronda, Spain / Reykjavik, Iceland / Hrunamannahreppur, Iceland\
920'''Finish:''' Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
921
922* TheCameo: Caroline and Jen from seasons 22 and All Stars appear in the finale, playing music in the guitar store and encouraging the teams as they came through.
923* DiegeticSoundtrackUsage: The final task in the final episode was a musical task in which the teams had to hit keyboard notes in a particular order, that order being the order of tasks on the race. As the teams ran into the sports arena, they were greeted by an orchestra, which was playing the show's theme song.
924* RealityShowGenreBlindness: The ol' "not being able to swim" situation popped up again. This time in the penultimate leg in Iceland, there were two swimming tasks and David and Aubrey had to quit because he couldn't complete the leg.
925
926!! Season 35 (Fall 2023)
927->'''Start:''' Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles, CA\
928'''Destinations:''' Bangkok, Thailand / Mueng Nonthaburi, Thailand / Sam Phran, Thailand / Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam / Can Tho, Vietnam / Amber, India / Jaipur, India / Cologne, Germany / Ljubljana, Slovenia / Lake Bled, Slovenia / Socerb, Slovenia / Stockholm, Sweden / Dublin, Ireland\
929'''Finish:''' Clise Mansion, Redmond, Washington
930
931* BaitAndSwitch: Production gave Rob & Corey a lopsided edit despite being level-headed, getting along well, and not winning any legs until Leg 11. Joel & Garrett started getting a bigger edit as well before the finale with the story of Garrett's daughter needing a service dog. Greg & John, while they had the best finishing average all season, kept to themselves and didn't hog the cameras, preferring to focus on the tasks. Because the previous 4 winners taking up considerable portions of the edit, production capitalized of that to make Greg & John's win less obvious. They also benefited huge considering Greg & John had one of the franchise's biggest come from behind victories after spending most of the leg in last place behind two teams with a bigger edit.
932* ProductionThrowback: The Season saw the return of teams booking their own flights, the Express Pass, and the voting U-Turn.
933[[/folder]]
934
935[[folder:International Versions]]
936!!''The Amazing Race Asia''
937* AmazingFreakingGrace: Season 4, leg 1, had teams sing one of their clues to this tune.
938* AntiClimax:
939** The Season 3 finale had one team put on a bad flight after a ticketing agent messed up their tickets, and another team get a horrible cab driver to begin the leg, making it obvious the third team was going to win with half the episode remaining.
940** The finale of Season 4. One of the teams was on a flight that arrived hours after the other two teams, and half-way through the episode the team that was in second quit the Roadblock and took a 4-hour penalty.
941* BookEnds: Season 1 began and ended in Malaysia, and visited the Kuala Lumpur Tower in both legs.
942* CallBack: One of the Detour option in leg 6 of Season 4 was a "Flashback" challenge to the bungee jumping task from Season 1.[[note]]There's no explanation why they do not use the term "Switchback," as it aired a year after it was introduced in U.S. 15[[/note]]
943* TheCameo:
944** Paula, a contestant from Season 2 was the greeter of the first leg of ''Amazing Race Asia'' 3.
945** Geoff from Season 3 did have an appearance in ''Amazing Race Asia'' 2. He is known as "Sam" even though Marc called him Geoff.
946** Zabrina and Joe Jer from Season 1 were the greeters in Leg 3 of Season 5.
947* DartboardOfHate: Season 4 did this with the bow and arrow Detour in the penultimate leg, as teams were aiming for the picture of another team, and had to hit it three times to complete the task.
948* EpicFail: Season 3 had a trifecta in consecutive episodes.
949** First Natalie & Pailin got eliminated after Natalie quit a Roadblock another racer gave her the answer.
950** Then, Niroo & Kapil spent hours not understanding how to get the keys out of their automatic transmission car then quit the Roadblock.
951** Finally, Mai & Oliver spent hours on the first task and the place wound up closing putting them so far behind that their cab breaking down was basically KickThemWhileTheyreDown.
952* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the end of each episode of Season 4, they would innocently show the advertisements of the newly built Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore. As the promo for the final episode rolled in, clips of the promo all point to the resort. Eventually, the final tasks and the finish line all ended at the Marina Bay Sands.
953* HonorBeforeReason: Most of the teams in Season 5 where none of them decide to U-Turn in Philippines anybody since they think is a cheap move, by doing so they indirectly saved Louisa & Treauri [[note]]Front runners who finished 1st in 3 consecutive legs [[/note]] from elimination.
954* LighterAndSofter: In comparison to where the original series was going at the moment. The Asian series aired during U.S. Seasons 10-17, when the game was getting far more competitive, and teams could be serious and make game moves without being seen as villains by the other teams. This level of competitiveness never made it to ''Asia'', resulting it teams being far friendlier with each other, doing things such as giving money to teams hit with a mugging penalty or when they couldn't pay for their cabs. At the same time, while there were teams who were seen as villainous by the other teams due to playing "dirty," no one, save for Laura & Andy in Season 1 and Geoff in Season 3, were ever portrayed as being villainous on air. This level of friendliness was most likely due to most of the teams being media personalities in their own countries, with careers and images to worry about. This mentality still persist in Season 5, 6 years later.
955* ManipulativeEditing: Leg 2 of Season 4 had five of the ten teams receive four-hour penalties for not finishing the Roadblock in time. However, the beginning of the next leg had two of those teams, Alan & Wendy and Claire & Michelle, only receive two hour and twenty minute penalties[[note]]Alan & Wendy supposedly left at 7:20, while the team who checked in after them, Ivan & Hilda, left at 5:00[[/note]], while Jess & Lani and Hussein & Natasha received full four hour penalties. To further muddle things up, Claire & Michelle supposedly left the Pit Start at 7:30, yet somehow managed to be at the ticket counter at the airport at 7:25. So either two of the teams received shorter penalties for no reason and Claire & Michelle learned to time travel, or every team received only a two-hour penalty, but Alan & Wendy and Claire & Michelle's start times had to be modified to explain why they made a flight that took off an hour before they were supposed to start the leg.
956* MythologyGag: The second clue of Season 4 told teams to go to the Pit Stop from ''The Amazing Race'' Season 16, episode 8.
957* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: Unintentionally in leg 7 of Season 4, where upon arriving in Sydney teams had to find a man holding an umbrella in his right hand and ask him, "Any clue about the weather, mate?" As it was about to rain when teams got in, almost everyone was carrying an umbrella, resulting in a mad scramble to ask everyone they saw.
958* NightmareRetardant: The Spookers Haunted House in New Zealand in Season 2. InUniverse for every team except Sophie & Aurelia, as teams were not scared, but instead spent more time laughing, and Pamela & Vanessa even got annoyed and pushed past several of the "ghosts."
959* ProductPlacement: Is known to make a lot of product placing. Many of the miscellaneous tasks require teams to use a brand-product provided by their sponsors just to do a task or go to another destination. For example, one team member had to take a picture of another team member doing the roadblock or locals singing a traditional song while another team member is recording using a cam-coder. One particularly blatant example was in the seventh leg of the first season, where teams flew from New Zealand to Singapore simply to perform a task that showed off a new brand of car (washing mud off the car) before immediately leaving to Thailand.
960** Season 5 can be called as "The Amazing Race Indonesia" as an unprecedented 5 of their legs is located in Indonesia.
961* RecapEpisode: There was one right before the Season 4 finale.
962* RubberBandAI: The seventh leg of Season 1 had four equalizers at the beginning of the leg, before the teams even got to the Roadblock, two flights and two "hours of operation" points.
963* SeriesContinuityError: Season 4, episode 5 started with Allan saying, "Once again, the Richards took 1st place," even though it was their first leg win.
964* SharkTunnel: Season 1, leg 4 had racers wait in one of these while their teammate did a Roadblock in the surrounding tank.
965* SmallRoleBigImpact: ''The Amazing Race Asia 4'' is not as well-known as other international versions, but the tasks, mechanics, and locations were used as a template for many future seasons that would go on to be acclaimed: Hamerotz Lamillion 2, Australia 2, and 25 [[note]] Leg 9 was almost a replica of the final leg of Asia 4 [[/note]].
966* SwanBoats: Season 2 had the teams paddle one of these in South Korea.
967
968!!''The Amazing Race Latin America''
969* ActionMom: Renata & Ana Paula in Latin America 4, who became the second team to win the first three legs of the race (After Rob & Amber in All-Stars), and six of the first eight. And are only the second team (after Marc & Rovlison in Asia 2) to put up two streaks of 3+ straight leg wins. Besides Renata being a fire fighter, the few times they struggle with tasks they repeat the names of their children.
970* CelebrityResemblance: Some teams in the Brazilian version gave married couple Perri & Maristela the nickname "[[Series/MrBean Mr. and Mrs. Bean]]" due to Perri's resemblance to Creator/RowanAtkinson.
971* DownToTheLastPlay: Though the finales in all three seasons have been pretty close, the second season has the record of being the closest of all the versions of the show. It ended with a boat race and then a sprint to the finish line with only a few yards separating the two teams.
972* HilariousOuttakes: The credits of the Brazil version had some.
973* NonGameplayElimination: Perri & Maristela of the Brazilian version, despite being the strongest team in the season, quit the mandatory eating task in the finale resulting in them being disqualified, reasoning that the cold temperature and number of times they were vomiting wasn't worth it.
974* OddlyNamedSequel: The Latin American seasons: ''The Amazing Race en Discovery Channel 1'', ''The Amazing Race en Discovery Channel 2'', ''The Amazing Race 3'', and ''The Amazing Race: Edição Brasil'' (The show had moved to a different channel).
975* OneSteveLimit: Averted, Latin America Season 1 had a mother/daughter team who were both named Casilda, and Latin America Season 2 had a father/son team both named Edison.
976* ThemeTwinNaming: Averted with Nicolás & Cristóbal (Latin America 3).
977
978!!''The Amazing Race Australia''
979* AdaptedOut: According to Chezzi's podcast, a Roadblock occurred in season 7 before the Bollywood dancing Intersection.
980* AsianDrivers: The Roadblock in season 2, leg 3 had teams earning their driver's license in India, which led to many of the teams talking about how crazy the drivers were there, and about how ridiculous it was to learn the rules of the road when no one followed them.
981** This challenge was repeated in season 7.
982* BaitAndSwitch: The third season started as normal, with Grant raising his arm to start the race, only to then put his arm down as take the teams off to a tug of war challenge between the two countries.
983* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Like the US version, the Australian version implemented this in later seasons to make it easier for the production crew to locate teams. This is probably most obvious in the intial part of season 7, although Bec and Kate's teal boob tubes were a similar shade to Team Denyer's teal shirts.
984* CelebrityImpersonator: In the [=AvNZ=] finale, teams had to travel to Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles and take pictures with three people impersonating Australian born celebrities.
985* EpicFail: In the first episode of the revived series, Gen Z Siblings Alana and Niko [[FailedASpotCheck grabbed the wrong postcard]] and went to the Lotte Tower. Realising their blunder, they went back to the first checkpoint, and by the time they ''finally'' click into gear, they missed the roadblock due to arriving there at night. [[spoiler: Needless to say, they checked in last and were eliminated.]]
986* FairytaleWeddingDress: The Greek wedding dress challenge in season 6. Notably, all the men in the male/female teams wore the dress.
987** The Indian wedding dress in season 7 which some men had to wear.
988* KnightsAndKnaves: Referenced in the second leg of [=AvNZ=], when the Roadblock had two monks serving as task judges, one of whom would always tell the contestants they had failed, even if given the correct answer.
989* LaterInstalmentWeirdness: Season 3 had 5 Australian teams against 5 New Zealand teams instead of Australians against other Australians.
990** Due to the effects of COVID, seasons 5 - 6 tried a bunch of twists, including stowaway teams, salvages/sabotages, [[SequelEscalation increasing the number of legs and competitors]] and racing around Australia.
991* MatryoshkaObject: Leg 6 of [=AvNZ=] had teams taming up with their fellow countrymen to locate three complete sets of Russian nesting dolls from amongst several rooms filled with them.
992* MusclesAreMeaningful: The raft task in leg 1 of Season 2 subverted this in general. Though the task involved rowing rafts to the Pit Stop, so it looked like the male/male teams would have an advantage, the teams had to build their own rafts, and because the male teams were heavier in general, the actual paddling part of the task became much harder as a result of quickly built rafts being bogged down and even falling apart.
993* MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: One China Detour in Season 2 (lifted from US Season 14) required teams to listen to customers ordering food in Chinese, then repeat the orders to a chef. It led to the teams saying such phrases as, "Salty fried small tea bag."
994* MythologyGag: This version of the show in general is notorious for borrowing tasks from the U.S. and Asian versions, as the first two seasons seemed to have half their tasks rehashed.
995** Season 2 had a mechanical bull riding task in leg 10, and during the intro to the task they played the {{Leitmotif}} used for professional bull riders Jet & Cord in US Seasons 16 and 18.
996** When the second leg of [=AvNZ=] visited Cambodia, the greeter, though a different woman, was dressed the same as the greeter from [[Characters/TheAmazingRace15 US Season 15]], leg 4[[note]]the same episode where Zev & Justin lost a passport[[/note]].
997** Australia 3, when Emily was blowing into her coconuts to more quickly complete the Detour in the third leg, a song sounding suspiciously like "Sweet Georgia Brown," the theme of the Harlem Globetrotters, played in the background. Sweet Georgia Brown would be played again twice in the 9th leg, both times for Ashleigh & Jarrod.
998** Australia 3, while mostly free of task borrowing through the first four legs, only borrowing the rock climbing task at Railay Beach in Thailand from [[Characters/TheAmazingRace1 U.S. 1]] and [[Characters/TheAmazingRaceAsia1 Asia 1]], borrowed a clue from [[Characters/TheAmazingRace17 U.S. 17]] in leg 5, when they gave the teams a little statue of the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood instead of a normal clue to their next location. On top of that, the cab situation in the city caused most of the teams to run to the Pit Stop, something that was required during the task in U.S. 17.
999** Australia 4 borrows the speed-stacking task from [[Characters/TheAmazingRace29 U.S. 29]], albeit with both members completing the challenge under 8 seconds (as opposed to the American 1 member under 7 seconds).
1000* NoSenseOfDirection: Due to being filmed during Covid-19, mainly set in Australia and the ridiculous high amount of legs, Season 5 has a lot of legs they had to self-drive, some even spanning 100km between 2 challenges. This causes instances where teams dropped placements due to this.
1001* NunsAreFunny: Missionaries of God's Love sisters Judy and Therese, from the revived series. In the first episode, they take a long time dealing with the postcard clue and turn to God for help, Judy takes her time to complete her roadblock set to [[https://youtu.be/cKkDMiGUbUw?t=82 "The Blue Danube Waltz"]], and had one of their dumplings stolen by Instagrammers Sid and Ash as they ask for more dough to make them.
1002* OddlyNamedSequel: "Australia versus New Zealand" for season 3 and "Around the World" for season 6. The latter lampshades the fact the Race was back to being international after COVID-19 forced season 5 to stick to Australia.
1003* {{Precap}}: Season 3 had one for the entire season prior to the first episode, giving away that some teams would be lasting several legs.
1004* ProductPlacement: Season 6 would ''really'' like you to know they're sponsored by Isuzu. Early on, it almost became an occurrence OnceAnEpisode for the host to mention the prize was the money and two Isuzus...and then, the final shot was the winners with their cars while Beau advertised a casting call for the next Race.[[note]]This ended up not panning out, as season 7 turned out to be a CelebrityEdition.[[/note]]
1005* RealityShowGenreBlindness: All of Season 1's final 3 teams were blindsided by the FinalExamFinale flag Roadblock in the finale leg, despite it being similar to a rather notable task in US Season 9's finale. The teams even admitted to not bothering to take note of the flags, and struggled enough that ''any'' team who had bothered to take notes (a common strategy in the US metagame) probably would have easily won the race.
1006* SavedForTheSequel: Lucy & Emilia (2) were originally chosen for Season 1, but had to drop out due to their mother falling ill.
1007* SequelEscalation: Season 4 was produced by a new channel and it felt that way. Australia 5 changed the stakes ''a lot'' to the point some fans claimed they were trying to do too much at once by adding an abundance of twists, and having a whopping 16 teams and 24 legs. Season 6 upped the ante again with 20 teams.
1008* AStormIsComing: The snowstorm in Greece in season 6.
1009** The Indian monsoon in season 7.
1010* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The extensive marketing on season 6 meant spoilers for Beau's replacement were circulating as early as when the season began airing, while an early ad with Beau discussing hotel room service foreshadowed his COVID lockdown in Greece. Furthermore, Channel 10 took the liberty of advertising near their logo what country the Race was going to (most notably "Greek Week", a phrase also used in advertising of ''Gogglebox'' during the relevant period, but also "Turkey Mayhem").
1011* YouAreTooLate: Judy and Therese fell victim to this. While they did spend a little bit of time with the wall at the Demilitarised Zone, they were in ninth place by the time they were on the verge of checking in... [[ShaggyDogStory before Nurses Femi and Nick passed them on the home stretch by mere moments]].
1012* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: Used on the racers themselves in Seasons 1 and 2. The teams get a clue telling them to go to mat and find Grant, only to have him tell them that they're still racing, and hand them their next clue.
1013
1014!!''The Amazing Race Israel''
1015* TheCasanova: Shay & Guy's plan for the race during their introduction was to flirt with the many female teams in competition.
1016* DumbBlonde: Hadas & Inbal (Season 1) were generally a subversion, but the [[HilarityEnsues results]] of their first task almost played the trope absolutely straight. To explain, during the safari drive task of the first leg, instead of tying their log to the towing hook like everyone else did, they actually tied it to the truck, and to make sure it didn't fall off, they double and triple knotted it; cue them falling from 1st place to 4th place when they try everything they can to get it off, including trying to untie it unsuccessfully, burn the rope, cut it with their leg razors, and eventually smashing a mirror they had with them and using a shard to cut the rope. They [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] their stupidity only moments after leaving the task.
1017* IWasQuiteALooker: Brought up by Carmit during the nude posing Fast Forward in Season 2.
1018* {{Leitmotif}}: Hannah & Margalit of Season 1 had their own Klezmer-style theme.
1019* ManOnFire: In Season 2, there was a Roadblock where teams had to do a stunt which involved being set on fire.
1020* NonGameplayElimination:
1021** Hannah & Margalit were forced to quit the race after Margalit suffered a severe abdominal infection in leg 5 and was rushed to hospital. She recovered soon after they were removed from competition, and thus were able to [[BackForTheFinale return for the finale.]]
1022** Pnina from Season 4 was really unlucky, as she and her daughter Hen didn't even last a full first leg. She had to be hospitalized for a broken wrist after tripping ''right at the Starting Line'' and then had to be sent straight to the Pit Stop to be eliminated.
1023* OneSteveLimit: Averted. The first six seasons of the series thus far manages to have at least two contestants sharing the same names as one another. Season 1 had two Inbals, Season 2 with two Alons, Season 3 with two Elirans, Season 4 with ''three'' Shays (though one went by with his last name on the show), Season 5 with two Lees and a team who are both named Avi, and Season 6 with a team who are both named Mor. Finally played straight with Season 7, as all contestants have different names. Season 8 is an interesting case, as there are two Netas, even though one was promoted preseason as Netanel. Plus, one team shares the same names with a team from a previous season (Both Seasons 7 and 8 have a Tali & Gili, though the former are an all-female team of friends while the latter are a team of siblings).
1024* SequelEscalation: While the first season was fairly standard, the second season had more challenging tasks (the very first thing teams had to do at was climb rope ladders to their cars which were each suspended by cranes) but was also longer both to the racers (13 legs compared to 10) and to the viewers (28 episodes compared to 20. There was even one episode that was entirely devoted to the teams getting from the final clue to the Pit Stop.)
1025!!''The Amazing Race Canada''
1026* BaitAndSwitch: The poorly kept secret that the second season would be leaving the country was never mentioned to the teams, and they spent two legs in Canada before the clue to start the third leg told them to fly to Hong Kong. Though considering teams had to bring their passports with them, and other such things people have to do before traveling abroad to certain locations, there was at least some sort of hint that it would be happening.
1027* BookEnds: The first season started and ended in the Toronto Region.
1028* CanadaEh: Averted, as the whole goal of the first season was to give people a greater appreciation of their own country.
1029* ChekhovsGun: Season 1, each clue at the start of each leg had a flag of the destination province while the greeters at the end of each leg (including the Chocolate Task judge in the final leg) were each wearing their respective provincial flowers. Only 1 team remembered this detail and vaulted them from last to first to win the race.
1030* DrillSergeantNasty: The RCMP task judge in Season 1, who chewed out Jet for his sarcastic attitude and reduced Celina to tears.
1031* FaceYourFears: The first task in Season 1 involved teams reaching in terrariums filled with animals for clues. The teams who grabbed clues out of the terrariums with the scarier animals (snakes, spiders, rats, and scorpions) got on the better flight.
1032* FailureMontage: This was done during the Sports Broadcasting Roadblock in the first episode of Season 3. It got so bad that one of the task judges (the host of the sports show) did a HeadDesk while the rest of the production crew of the sports show were laughing.
1033* FatalFamilyPhoto: Canada utilizes on this much more than any other version, as the series frequently shows photos of the teams long past the team introductions. If a team has photos shown at the beginning of the episode, it's generally an indication that something important will happen to them that leg, in particular being eliminated.
1034* {{Foreshadowing}}: Season 2's leg 2 prize were two round trip tickets to Hong Kong. In the previews for Leg 3, the contestants are shown heading to Hong Kong.
1035* HistoryRepeats: Both of the first two seasons had only one of the Final 3 teams enter the finale having previously won a leg. This had only happened in one other season in the franchise to that point, Vietnam's second celebrity edition, which aired the same summer as Canada Season 2.
1036* MythologyGag: When teams completed the Country Line Dancing Roadblock in Calgary in Season 1, the show played Cowboys Jet & Cord's {{Leitmotif}} from US Seasons 16 and 18.
1037* ProductPlacement: In Season 1, teams used an Interac debit card as currency (since the race took place only in Canada). Though most teams still withdrew paper money just in case.
1038** The entirety of Season 1 can be considered this, as a 10 episodes long commercial for Canada as a tourist attraction.
1039** Season 8 had a lot for the discount clothing brand Marshall's, the most glaring instance was in Leg 6 when they had an entire task centered around shopping there. It didn't even matter as two consecutive equalizers brought all the teams together.
1040* RecapEpisode: Seasons 2 and 3 had the "After the Race" episode, which took place after the 6th leg, and featured the five eliminated teams sitting together and talking in a very ReunionShow style manner.
1041* ReunionShow: All three seasons had this.
1042* RubberBandAI: The third season was particularly guilty of this as due to the unusual course with legs in the same province not run consecutively, everyone had to fly between each destination meaning that all teams were always bunched together. The first leg was even worse, after trying to complete a task that involved finding a pair of bicycles, teams were split in two flights to their initial destination, only to be bunched again when the venue they were looking for would not open until the next morning.
1043* StartMyOwn: The US version of the Amazing Race was popular in Canada, and they asked if casting could be extended to Canadian citizens. Due to legal reasons, they couldn't, but told Canadians that they could make their own version. Which they did.
1044* ThrowTheDogABone: In the Season 1 finale, the final 3 teams received a free upgrade to business class on their flight to Toronto.
1045
1046!!Other International Versions
1047* ActionGirl: Beauty Queens Valeria & Bohdana from Ukraine 1, who rattled off five straight victories to win the season, and set the record for the best finishing average of any female team in any version until Natalie and Meaghan in Canada 2.
1048* BackForTheFinale:
1049** Some foreign editions of the Race [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zag this]] by not even featuring the eliminated teams at all at the Finish Line, such as in China Rush Season 1.
1050** Particularly averted with Chen from Philippines Season 2. See WeUsedToBeFriends below.
1051* BookEnds: The Norwegian version began and ended at Holmenkollbakken in Oslo.
1052* TheCameo: Rick from the first season of China Rush handed out clues in a Roadblock in China Rush 2.
1053* CelebrityEdition: Vietnam Seasons 2 and 3 were billed as this, as was China Season 1.
1054* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Richie & Mimi from the Vietnamese version.
1055* ProductPlacement: China Rush with Hilton. While it's manageable enough as they are prizes for leg wins, in the later stages of Season 3 Hilton teddy bears pop up for some reason.
1056* [[ReadTheFreakingManual Read the Freaking Clue]]: The most painful example of this in the series had to have happened to Phuc Vinh & Linh Chi in Vietnam Season 2. In the final leg, they arrived at the Finish Line 1st and would have won, except they were issued a 30-minute penalty for using notes during a task and violating traffic regulations. While serving their penalty, Lam Anh & Thu Hien checked in and were declared the winners.
1057* RealityShowGenreBlindness: In China Rush 3, Janelle & Karin and Yu Ping & Yu Chenjing decided to take the Fast Forward in Jilin...when they knew that they were one of the last teams to arrive. Luckily for both of them, the other teams opted not to take it. But not so lucky for Yu Ping & Yu Chenjing, Janelle & Karin finished the Fast Forward first.
1058* TemptingFate: China Season 2's contestants, on a special preparation episode before the Race premiere agree that bungee-jumping would be the most terrifying challenge to face. Lo and behold, Leg ''2'' features bungee-jumping as a Roadblock!
1059* ThemeTwinNaming: Played straight with Khai Shing & Khai Sheng of China Rush 3; averted with Frank & Ivar (Norge).
1060* WeUsedToBeFriends: Right after being eliminated due to [[ReadTheFreakingManual failing to read their clue properly]] in Leg 2, Luz & Chen from Philippines Season 2 got into an ''extremely'' heated argument at the Pit Stop which concluded with them deciding to not be friends anymore and the end card even reveals that they had not spoken to each other ever since. Chen did not even come BackForTheFinale to cheer with Luz for the Final 3 teams at the Finish Line.
1061[[/folder]]
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