The Challenge Hall of Shame: Colie Edison

The Challenge isn’t for everyone. There will always be those who excel in competition (see the Hall of Fame winners) and unfortunately, there will always be those who consistently find themselves at the bottom. Maybe they’ve embarrassed themselves. Maybe they couldn’t win an elimination to save their lives. Worst of all, maybe they quit on themselves or their teams. Either way, they played poorly enough to enter the Hall of Shame.

Colie Edison is a successful person. She’s the first female CEO of the Professional Bowlers Association, and long before that she was the president of her sorority at Tulane University. You would think someone with a Type A personality would at least be a decent competitor, but Colie sucked on The Challenge.

The Inferno III was Colie’s first season, and she made it pretty far along considering her rookie status. That’s not necessarily a good thing. Colie got disqualified on the first daily challenge, the third daily challenge, and twice more after that. Her coordination and overall physical abilities are simply bottom of the barrel. She even struggled on a wall climbing challenge with legendary climber Alton Williams on her team. She also joined the Susie Meister and Cara Zavaleta partnership, becoming the third wheel of their popular girl alliance when she could have been Paula Meronek’s number one.

Eventually Colie was mercifully eliminated by Jenn Grijalva. The fact that Jenn called her “The DQ Queen” says everything about Colie’s contribution to the Good Guys team. Due to her disqualifications and time penalties, she helped her team lose more than she helped them win.

For some reason Colie was invited back for The Island where she spent the majority of her screen time facilitating the voting deliberations. She did finally compete in a three-way elimination, but she lost quickly and easily. At least she wasn’t deluded regarding her position in the game. At the end of the episode deliberation she gave a weird scripted speech to the competitors, asking them to send her home so that her buddy Johanna Botta can stay. In a rare display of unity, everyone agreed to send Colie away. Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio summed her up pretty well: “You didn’t contribute to the island. And as far as I’m concerned, you were dead weight around here. So bon voyage, young lady.”

There is one moment Colie truly did shine. She referred to Dunbar Merrill as a “giant asshole” and didn’t back down when he tried to argue with her. It’s easily her best contribution to The Challenge.

The Challenge Hall of Shame: Danny Jamieson

The Challenge isn’t for everyone. There will always be those who excel in competition (see the Hall of Fame winners) and unfortunately, there will always be those who consistently find themselves at the bottom. Maybe they’ve embarrassed themselves. Maybe they couldn’t win an elimination to save their lives. Worst of all, maybe they quit on themselves or their teams. Either way, they played poorly enough to enter the Hall of Shame.

Poor Danny. He started out his reality TV career on The Real World: Austin by having his face punched in, and his Challenge career didn’t go much better. If he hadn’t been part of such a popular Real World season, Danny probably wouldn’t have been invited back to The Challenge so many times. But even with all the opportunities he had to win, Danny only lost.

Danny didn’t have a problem with daily challenges (so he wasn’t a constant liability to his teams), but he could not win an elimination to save his life. Now, no one can fault Danny for losing to heavy hitters like Wes Bergmann on Fresh Meat or Darrell Taylor on The Ruins. Danny actually put up a decent fight against Darrell. But Danny was one elimination away from the final on The Gauntlet III, and he failed miserably against the much smaller Adam King in a physical elimination. He talked a big game, saying something about tearing off Adam’s arm and beating him with it, and Adam ended up running circles around Danny. Even worse, Danny clearly quit on himself during the elimination, hunching his shoulders and accepting defeat. It’s the same posture he had on The Inferno III when he allowed Davis Mallory to knock him out of the game. Over the course of his Challenge career, Danny had six chances to survive elimination, and he failed every time.

Of course, a challenger doesn’t have to be great in eliminations in order to reach a final. If Danny had a better political game, he definitely could have made it to the end of a season. But for some reason Danny adopted Wes’ “I’m better than you” attitude, and it did not suit him at all. Wes could at least back up some of his bravado while Danny could not. Danny was never well liked, and it led to him getting thrown into elimination every season. It’s too bad that Danny hasn’t been back since his final appearance on Battle of the Seasons, because he finally seemed to become a more likable guy. That being said, even if he made a return, it’s unlikely Danny would make it anywhere near a final.