DC ExtraTime Special: The Many Sides of Johnny Bananas - Part 2

 FOLLOW-UP  The Many Sides... Pt. 1
BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Last month, Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio marked his twentieth season competing on MTV's The Challenge with adding another jewel in the crown with his record seventh title on Total Madness. Him besting the men's field of crossover MTV star Cory Wharton, defending champion Rogan O'Connor and Big Brother 20's Fessy saw Johnny cross the $1.5 million mark in career winnings - more than another challenger. And this win also places him in the top-tier of some of the biggest names in the entire reality television genre, not just the MTV section of it.

Johnny has been an omnipresent staple of most every Challenge season since he debuted on The Duel in 2006 after he first came into our lives when Key West, Florida welcomed The Real World, and a Challenge doesn't really begin until he proposes a toast to begin the proceedings after the challengers move in. And it was four years ago this week that he pulled out the most talked about Challenge moment ever: him stealing all of the money of partner Sarah Rice on Rivals III - which brought him much notoriety ever since... although he didn't have to deal with much hate being spilled his way after conquering the Czech Republic for #7.

But along with being part of Team MTV, in the past two years he has also had a very good side gig of being the host of 1ST LOOK TV, NBC's weekend lifestyle & travel show that enjoys the coveted spot of airing after Saturday Night Live. This has allowed him to get out of his comfort zone of being around The Challenge community 24/7 to log in even more frequent flier miles around the globe to go on unique adventures that allows us to venture along with him like what we see on his Instagram stories whenever he's not competing or training.

In Part 1 of this ExtraTime Special yesterday, we looked at most of Johnny's first season of 1st Look that brought him to Scotland, the Desert, Coney Island and to Alaska to explore what this world really is about when you get to live freely as he does. And now here in Part 2, we join him for even more of these nice adventures, including traveling to the Caribbean for fun in the sun, a venture to one of the world's most guarded borders, and more special guests that you may be familiar with. That includes the precursor to the Total Madness ice-breaker with that gingerman from the Midwest.

DC ExtraTime Special: The Many Sides of Johnny Bananas - Part 1

 FOLLOW-UP  A 1st Look at Bananas

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Three weeks ago tonight, Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio plowed his way through the snow in the Czech Republic to stamp his place as the "Greatest of All Time" in the annals of MTV's The Challenge in upping his record number of titles to an untouchable seven in winning Season 35 of Total Madness. It feels only fitting that in his twentieth regular season on the fifth major pro sport that he returned to his rightful place on the throne at season's end, reclaiming the overall money lead with over $1.5 million in career earnings. And just as we did after his last title four years ago and after the chaos that surrounded that subsided when we spotlighted his friendship with #1 fan & cancer survivor Kasey Harvey, Bananas is the subject of his own postseason DCBLOG ExtraTime post -- make that, two posts.

By the time we reach the end of this summer, it will have been fifteen years since Johnny found himself in a similar situation so many of us have been through while watching this Challenge: in lockdown and stranded in a hotel room waiting to enter The Real World Key West house during Hurricane Katrina. It was a more than chaotic start to his MTV journey where, as he basks in the glow of another Challenge championship, he has now become of a household name in more homes than those of us who have followed him for at least part of this ride. And the reasoning for this rise in his stock comes in two shows that air outside the MTV channel, reflecting the fame and notoriety he's garnered since he infamously stole Sarah's money on Rivals III four years & two days ago in the first Wednesday of August in 2016.

This spring, Bananas competed on the sixth celebrity installment of Food Network's Worst Cooks in America, where he joined Full House's Dave Coulier, Mike Tyson's ex Robin Givens and New York Real Housewife Sonja Morgan in the kitchen. He made it all the way to the final two, where in the end he finished runner up to Bachelor Nation's Wells Adams of JoJo Fletcher's Bachelorette class (the one with Ex On The Beach alums Chase, Chad & Daniel and Juliette's Siesta Key ex Robby Hayes). It's also the same show that the man who was eliminated first on Total Madness, AYTO alum Asaf Goren, also competed on as has Gina from 2017's Stranded with a Million Dollars.

The other show is the one that gave him his mainstream big break: in May 2018 while the last non-Bananas Challenge was airing (Champs vs. Stars 2), NBC's weekend late night series which airs after Saturday Night Live, 1ST LOOK TV, dedicated an entire episode to Bananas as they handed the hosting reigns for one week to him on the free to everyone universe of local broadcast television. From sumo wrestling to gentlemanly matters to dressing up in drag, those who didn't hear of him got the opportunity to see another side of a person who is known for just about everything that we love and hate about The Challenge, and showed another side of this unique man.

Execs at the Peacock loved him so much after that guest episode aired, that they gave him something that another proud Real World alum, CVS host Mike "The Miz" Mizanin also has: duel citizenship from different networks, just as they have with the WWE champ in the Miz having both his own USA reality show with his wife & baby, and hosting its new competition series Cannonball. And starting with the 2018-19 season, Bananas has become full-time host of 1ST LOOK... and he relaxes with Challenge title #7, we'd like to share with you his adventures around this wide world of ours as only he can, with plenty of fun and special guests joining him on this two-part ExtraTime.

DC ExtraTime: An Exposé of the GOAT

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Tuesday night, we saw the first half of the two-part reunion for The Challenge Final Reckoning, where most of the cast joined host and WWE wrestler Dolph Ziggler to hash out leftover drama from what went down in South Africa... as mentioned earlier here, DCBLOG will be covering the last act of this long season on here next week. But while viewers were watching Hunter and Ashley have it out, Cara face Faith & Angela and Devin get into it with his biggest vendetta, perhaps the biggest drama of the night took place not in that Times Square studio, but on social media.

In our five years covering MTV Reality, we offer you the fans a front-row seat to the other show that takes place at the same time as the show as it is airs each week. Through our SocialPulse diaries which have covered every single episode of The Challenge since Rivals II, the entire run of Are You The One?, the twists that have turned The Real World on its head and much more, every big moment of the shows that get us talking have been covered through the Twitter sphere. That includes the latest jaw-dropping moment of Ashley stealing the money from Hunter in the Final Reckoning finale.

Social media is, has and always has been an outlet for fans to make their voices heard about The Challenge and everything related to MTV Reality. This includes agreeing or disagreeing about cast members, suggestions and complaints being directed to the big wigs, and interacting with the cast which often gets heated among fans and the cast. And of course, there are the Twitter Stans who are nothing but obsessed with these shows and its people, and will do whatever they can to defend their favorites and go after fellow fans in this always heated and intense social environment.

It's with this in mind that while the Final Reckoning reunion was airing, a Twitter user decided to take their hate for the six-time champion of this series, Johnny Bananas, to a whole new level that caused everyone to drop their jaws by this mic drop. And a couple days after the the first part of the fun-fest aired, a respected Challenge blogger also took the opportunity to vent about the man who, until two days before Thanksgiving, had the biggest jaw-dropping moment in Challenge history.