Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race

Plot

The series parodies popular travel and competition style reality shows, including The Amazing Race. It takes place around the world and features pairs of contestants, rather than teams, in the style of the reality series it is parodying.

The first season of The Ridonculous Race consists of mostly all new characters, with four characters - Leonard from Pahkitew Island with Geoff, Noah and Owen from Total Drama Island - returning from the original Total Drama series. All characters will be split into 18 teams of two, and must complete challenges around the world to win and split a one million Canadian dollar prize.

Racers visit a different country in every episode and perform in "legs" while the team to finish in last place may or may not be eliminated. In each of the 26 different locations, each pair must go to a "Don box" to receive clues that let them decide which challenge they want to perform in.

Challenges are of four different types: an "either-or" (similar to Detours from The Amazing Race), a "botch-or-watch" (similar to Roadblocks), an "all-in" or a "superteam'. An "either-or" gives the teams a choice from two challenges, the "botch-or-watch" is a challenge that must be done by one person on the team, specifically the person who did not take on a prior challenge's component, an "all-in" is a challenge that both team members must take part in, and a "super team" is a challenge in which multiple teams complete together in a challenge.

However, at some point in the game if any person doesn't follow the specific directions of the challenge, they will be faced with a timed penalty once reaching a "Chill Zone", the finish line for each leg, before stepping foot on the "Carpet of Completion".

Cast and characters

Characters in bold are reused characters from the original series while the rest are new. However, some voice actors and actresses who previously worked on Total Drama returned to voice new characters. Also, Anne Maria, Blaineley, and Chris McLean all made a non-speaking cameo appearance in the season finale. All the voice actors, their characters and their episode count are listed below:

Production

Production commenced on January 1, 2014 and concluded on October 30, 2015. It was announced that Alex Ganetakos was producing the show, Terry McGurrin was writing the screenplay, and that Chad Hicks was directing. The new host Don was revealed in a Fresh TV post in October 2014. It was confirmed that 26 episodes would be picked up for the show and that it would air sometime the same year. However, one of the producers, Alex Ganetakos, stated that many Ridonculous Race seasons are possible if the first season is successful. In June 2015, the entire first episode was leaked online, revealing all of the characters three months before Fresh TV could release their designs in their website.

Casting

Even though some of the characters from the main series will make appearances, the spin-off series will primarily have a new cast. The spin-off series will be a "Buddy Comedy" and will include 36 characters (18 teams of two), four which are from the original series (Owen, Noah, Geoff, and Leonard) and the rest brand new characters. Kristin Fairlie, the voice actor for the character Bridgette from the original series, was cast to voice one of the new contestants, Carrie. Scott McCord (voice of characters Owen and Trent in the original series) as well as Carter Hayden (voice of Noah in the original) were also revealed to be returning to the cast, and were seen in the recording studio together. It was later confirmed that the actors were indeed going to voice the characters Owen and Noah. It was eventually revealed that the first pair is to be the aforementioned character Carrie and her best friend Devin, who is played by Jeff Geddis. In February, the second pair was revealed: Stephanie and Ryan. The two are voiced by Nicki Burke of Dead Rising 2 and Joseph Motiki, from Rescue Heroes. In a new promotion by Cake Entertainment, Geoff was also revealed to be among the returning cast, teamed up with Brody, one of his friends from home. The father-son team of Dwayne and Dwayne Jr. was also revealed.

In June, a pair of goths called Ennui and Crimson, and Mary and Ellody, two close friends who are dubbed the "Geniuses", were revealed with news that returning voice actors Carter Hayden and Emilie-Claire Barlow (voice of Courtney) from the original series would play them. A week later, the fourth pair to be released are Emma and Kitty, who are Asian sisters with opposite personalities, referred to as the "Sisters". A week later, another team was confirmed; Chet and Lorenzo, known as "the Stepbrothers". Next to be revealed are twins Mickey and Jay, called "the Adversity Twins", who are plagued with countless phobias, allergies, injuries, disorders, and ailments. The rest of the teams were all revealed shortly thereafter.

Setting

Many countries and their geographic elements are used as settings for the whole series, with a different country used for each episode. The starting point for the first episode is the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where characters must then travel to many other locations throughout the race. The countries that are shown in the series for the characters to visit are: Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Brazil, China, Finland, France, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. They also enter the Arctic Circle during a leg that leads them back to Canada. The finish line is located in New York City.

Episodes

The series comprises of twenty-six episodes:

Elimination table

This table summarizes the order which players rank overall throughout the series; players are listed in reverse order of elimination.

Key

Each column shows the results of the leg of the race from that episode of the series. The team's position at the end of the episode is noted by the host. The team finishing first place are denoted by WIN for winner. The team finishing last may be eliminated, which is denoted by OUT instead of an ordinal place. A team with two or more ranks means that they are tied with another team. A team who withdrew from the race due to injury is marked with WD.

The Surfers win in the United States, Latin America, Brazil, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Indonesia, Poland and Russia. The Police Cadets win in Canada, Italy, Hungary, and Romania.

Reception

The show received positive reviews with an average of 7.5/10.

Media

A video game has also been released that allows players to use any of the series' 36 main characters and race them in short endless running type games. The game, titled "Donculous Dash", was released on January 4, 2016, but it is only available in Canada. The game can be downloaded on the Canadian app store and a demo version is also available on their Cartoon Network website.