Big Brother: All About The Competitions
Report Compiled by Big Sister
July 4, 2008
Competitions have been part of Big Brother since the first season, and the houseguests must compete together, against each other, or in teams to win them. Here's a close look at the Big Brother competitions:
HoH (Head of Household)
Every week, after the live eviction (except when the first HoH is crowned) the houseguests compete in the Head of Household competition. The HoH gets to nominate two people for eviction, and also gets their own private bedroom, things from home, and laundry service. The current HoH is not eligible to compete in the following HoH competition except for the final HoH competition when there are only three houseguests. In the first week of season seven, there were 2 HoHs. In this case, if both HoHs, when deciding for nominees to go up for eviction cannot come to a decision, both HoHs will become nominated, and there will be no HoH until the next live broadcast. This did not happen.
The HoH contests usually are one of three kinds of competitions. There are endurance contests to find which houseguests can last the longest doing a certain task, such holding a light switch in or hanging on to a key. These usually take place in the opening HoH competition, at some point during the midway point of a season, and in the first part of a three part competition to find the last HoH of a season.
There are also quiz contests, moderated by host Julie Chen, designed to find the new HoH before the end of the eviction show hour, and usually last a few minutes. The quizzes usually eliminate players after a wrong answer, unless everyone in a respective round answers incorrectly. Due to time restraints, there can also be a tiebreaker question after a certain amount of questions have been asked to find a winner. Quizzes are also usually held, at least once during the season, to find a person that can answer the most questions correctly, with a tiebreaker question breaking any equal scores.
Finally, there are competitions that usually require some kind of skill houseguests are allowed to practice in a given time period beforehand. For instance, there was a competition in season three that was a combination of bocce ball and golf to find someone getting a bocce ball closest to a large, golf-like hole without going in the hole or a gutter at the end of the green. Whoever did their skill the best would win HoH.
When the number of houseguests are reduced to three in a given season, the HoH competition is always a three part affair. The first part is usually an endurance competition, requiring a houseguest to hang on to their key in the face of some unusual circumstance (in season two, on a waterbed; season three, during a fake thunderstorm; season 4, during a "blizzard"; season 5, during an "earthquake"; season 6, a large safe's spinning dial; and season 7, on a volcano) with the last person to hang on winning that stage, and advancing to the final stage. The two people who lost move on to the second part, usually a contest requiring the houseguest to answer what occurred during the season.
Janelle Pierzina goes "Dumpster Diving" during a
Big Brother All Stars Power of Veto Competition.
The winner of those two parts move on to the third part, which usually is a guessing game as to what the departed houseguests thought of those remaining. Whoever wins the final part becomes the last HoH, and is the sole decider as to which of the two remaining houseguest leaves the game, and which moves on to the final vote to determine the season winner.
Nominations
One of the tasks of being the Head Of Household (HOH) is that they must selct two houseguests to put up on the nomination block. The two houseguests fight for the Power of Veto (POV) (as explained in the POV section) so they can remove themselves. After the POV ceremony is over, and the new houseguest is put on the block, the remaining houseguests (excluding the HOH and nominees) must vote to evict one nominee, with the HOH only voting to break a tie. Many houseguests have been nominated, some multiple times. However, there are the few who have managed to escape the nomination block. So far, Janelle Pierzina has been nominated the most times (over two seasons) with 9. Amy Crews has been nominated the most times in a single season, 6.
Jason Guy remains the only houseguest to never be nominated or expelled.
The Food Competition
In some weeks during the season (but not all weeks, the latter half of season six went without a food competition, and only had five total) the houseguests compete together (Or against each other) in the food competition. If a team or certain people win the competition, the houseguests win a variety of food for the week, or a given day. If they lose, they must live on Peanut Butter and Jelly, condiments, milk, and water for the week, or that given day, depending on the rules of that respective competition. In Big Brother All-Stars, the food the losing team must eat has been changed from peanut butter and jelly to "Big Brother slop" which is a thick, oatmeal-like substance. Due to his giving away food privileges for the rest of the season to win power of veto, George Boswell holds the record for most days on slop.
On occasion, the house is split up into teams for the food competition, however. Whichever team wins gets the food, whichever team loses lives on peanut butter and jelly for the week. Two exceptions to this rule have happened in season six were if a houseguest has a PB&J Pass, which allows them to eat food regardless of the outcome of a competition, passes have been transferable, adding to game strategy. But in Big Brother All-Stars the losers of food competitions would have to eat Big Brother slop and not normally PB&Js.
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