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TOAD COFFIN

Locked into a bamboo cage and lowered into a dark swamp with thousands of giant bull frogs Maria would have to depend on her partner Craig to save her. It was a long cold night that wouldn't end until they had sucked down the last drop of a blended frog as they recount in this week's Tale Of Fear.

FEAR FACTOR: So where you scared about having hundred of giant bullfrogs dumped on you?

MARIA: I was kind of freaked out about getting warts. They say that if you kiss em' they'll give you warts. But I stopped thinking about that as soon as they poured them on me. All of the sudden you have hundreds of these little cold slimy bodies climbing around on you. It's just really weird. The whole coffin was cage was filled with frogs. They don't just dump them on your body, they dump them right on your head so they were all over my face. Nobody wants to sit in a tank with frogs and cold water. It's not a fun thing to do.

FEAR FACTOR: After Craig had retrieved the keys from the scorpions and rat and freed you, the two of you had to suck down a blended bullfrog shake, what was that like?

MARIA: I immediately went back to the embryo shake we drank on top of the building. I'm thinking, "Okay, that took 30 seconds. This one will be like a minute. It'll probably be a little chunkier but we'll get through it. No big deal." I couldn't have been more wrong. The first sip just tasted like barf, barf mixed with swamp water.

CRAIG: It was bones and eyes and feet and just everything. The frog wouldn't even blend. They needed a special blender to blend that thing cause of all the bones. It was nasty. You could feel every chunk clawing its way down your throat and sliding to the bottom of your stomach. It was just nasty.

MARIA: Frogs don't really have claws, so it must've been their bones or whatever, but every single gulp was scratching your throat the whole way down. There are probably cuts on our throats.

CRAIG: One thing is for sure, these stunts aren't getting any easier.

*There has been a lot of discussion about Dean helping Ashley finish her frog drink versus each of them drinking their own glass. Here is the Executive Producer's response: Joe never describes the complete set of rules to the contestants. After Joe introduces a stunt all the contestants are informed of the specific rules of that stunt and must sign the rule sheet. In addition, Joe does not judge the contests. There are officials that keep the time and watch for rule violations. Rule number eight for this specific contest stated “Between the two contestants you must completely drink both glasses of blended frog.” Dean and Ashley chose to share the shakes (their strategy). The others did not.