Jeff Probst reveals the incredible process for making mud on Survivor

Survivor is back with a new season on CBS, and with it, the iconic Survivor mud baptism is, too!

In Survivor's New Era, almost every season begins with a reward challenge, also known as the marooning challenge, that forces all 18 new players through a mud pit with a net covering. It's a somewhat spiritual introduction to the messy game of Survivor that we all know and love.

In the Survivor 47 premiere, which aired on Wednesday, Sept. 18, Jeff tells the players that the "mud is birthing you into Survivor," as they crawl through the course covered in mud before having to carry huge puzzle pieces back to their tribe from the jungle and then solve a puzzle. It's an epic challenge to start the game.

Well, on the new episode of the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast with producer Jay Woolf and Survivor 46 runner-up Charlie Davis, Jeff revealed how the iconic mud is made, and it's INSANE!

How Survivor makes the mud for its challenges

"The mud represents a birthing; it's symbolic," Jeff tells Charlie and Jay. "There are other ways to do it. Forcing players to jump off a ship into the ocean is another thing we like to do, but the way behind it is always the same. I don't want players to ease into Survivor.

Then, Jeff begins by explaining that they don't just fill up a pit with dirt and add water. No, there is an intensive process that happens to create the perfect consistency for the players to dive headfirst into during the challenge.

First, they actually ship the dirt in from another location. This is not island dirt. This is the good stuff. Then, to make sure that the players don't get injured by rocks or get debris and things in their eyes, they actually force the crew to sift through the dirt to eliminate the imperfections into a "very fine grain kind of like a gold miner would do," according to Jeff.

"Then, we dig the hole where we want to play in the challenge, and we line the hole with plastic," Jeff says. "Then, we dump this dirt into the plastic-lined hole, and we little by little kind of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears until the desired viscosity is attained."

That is absolutely incredible, to me! The attention to detail is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons Survivor is still going 24 years later. Sure, it's about fan interest and all of that, but the show is at the cutting edge of reality TV, and it shows with things like this mud-making process.

"Nothing on Survivor, not even mud, is an afterthought," Jay says.

It doesn't stop there, though! Jeff also revealed that they don't let anyone into the mud prior to the challenge, not even the Dream Team gets to jump in that mud. For those who don't know, the Dream Team is the challenge testers who make sure everything is good to go and ready for the players. They do the puzzles, run the courses, demo the challenge, and everything else that needs to be done. They're also who we get to see preview each challenge on TV!

Who knew that the mud-making process was so intensive? From now on, every time you see the Survivor players running, jumping, diving, and crawling through all of that mud, it's important to remember how much work went into curating the perfect consistency to hinder but not hurt the players.

That's the work that makes Survivor the best competition reality TV show of all time!

New Survivor 47 episodes air on CBS on Wednesdays throughout the fall. You can listen to On Fire with Jeff Probst immediately after each episode of Survivor!