Diarrhea ultimately defeats Ultimate Slip 'N Slide
The NBC series, starring Bobby Moynihan and Ron Funches, has been pulled from the post-Olympics schedule
Sad news today for fans of TV shows about people plunging into fluids, as Variety reports that NBC has apparently given up on its diarrhea-troubled reality competition series Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide. (Actually, they wrote that it’s being “flushed” from the network’s schedule, which, really? That’s just crass.) Anyway, the series is now formally in the shitter, as the network has finally yanked it from its coveted spot immediately after the closing ceremony of the Olympics, where it was waiting to welcome viewers back to the world of competition between those who are not the apex athletes of their generation.
For those unfamiliar with the saga, Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide ran into trouble just a week before production was scheduled to wrap, when an outbreak of giardia caused a “massive” diarrhea outbreak on the set. Once production was stopped down, it was apparently unable to restart, in part because the giardia had made its way into the soil surrounding the show’s big water slides, where it could be easily re-introduced to the water and get more people sick. This was, presumably, especially frustrating because the Bobby Moynihan and Ron Funches-hosted show apparently was one of those reality series that follows a cast across several weeks of episodes, meaning that the series was left without any kind of climax for its wet and wild action.
NBC was reportedly trying to figure out some kind of finish for the show that would not involve multiple people getting diarrhea again, but don’t appear to have come to any sort of conclusion in time for the show to hit that August 8 premiere date; the network will instead air Family Game Fight in that slot. It’s tragic, in so far as we also finally got some description about what contestants actually did on Ultimate Slip ‘N Slide, asking them “to compete in a series of challenges on a gigantic slippery slide, such as Human Pong, Bocce Fall, Cornhole and Body Bowling,” which all sounds like it could have been pretty fun in a diarrhea-free environment.