Murtzcellanious: Murtz Jaffer Interviews Survivor: China's Michael 'Frosti' Zernow

Interviews, Shows

It’s not very often that I say that one of my interviews with a male Survivor contestant is one of my best. There’s no question that the Michelle and Jaime interviews are legendary, and I am happy to say my chat with Frosti can now be placed in that same elite category. This one was especially special for a variety of reasons, but two come to mind immediately. The first was the fact that I did not expect it to come from Frosti. He definitely had a lot more personality than what we saw on the show. The second was how prepared he was for the interview. It’s phenomenal and gets the must-read alert.



Murtz Jaffer: Hey Frosti, how are you?

Michael ‘Frosti’ Zernow: Well fed. How about yourself?

MJ: Are you ready to rock?

MFZ: Are you ready to be rocked? I want this to be the best Survivor interview you’ve ever done with someone who wasn’t a cute girl.

MJ: Alright, I want to start by asking you about the teams. When you saw the way that they were divided, what was your initial reaction?

MFZ: Something like “Awesome, I hope they have comfortable seats at Tribal Council!”

MJ: Did you think that the tag-team of Frosti and Erik was just as strong as the tag-team of Aaron and James?

MFZ: Yeah we were obviously set to win every challenge, as long as the challenges were all have one person do a backflip while the other plays guitar doing an impression of a goat while remaining abstinent. We totally had them.

MJ: You were definitely in the right place at the right time when you saw Amanda and Todd find the hidden immunity idol. Can you tell me more about the deal that you struck with them? Did they go back on their word because I expected you to be the last Zhan Hu member to be voted out?

MFZ: Basically it came down to if I don’t tell anybody about this you have to let me in the loop on what’s going down. Basically it was my behind the scenes pass to the Fei Long party. I had already made a deal with Todd on the first day I arrived there and he pretty much told me it was up to me to get Amanda to trust me. I never expected them to want to keep me around until the end, but with my position in their group I was told that Peih Gee would be next and then Erik.

MJ: Now the reason that you even saw the idol is because you were essentially traded to Fei Long? Did you think that was a fair twist? To me it was kind of like kicking somebody’s ass at Monopoly only to get a chance card that says that you have to give your opponent all of your assets.

MFZ: The only people this twist helped was anyone not traded. For anyone who got switched it was not only a likely elimination in the case of a lost immunity challenge, but more importantly it meant that there was already a huge target on your back. No one at Fei Long really wanted to go to the end with James or Aaron anyway and if they had been both gone pre merge it would have been great for everybody, except James and Aaron I suppose. Besides who plays Monopoly?

MJ: Frosti, come on. There’s only one game that’s even close to Survivor in terms of awesomeness and that’s Monopoly, or as I like to call it, Murtzopoly. Seriously, if Jaime saw me, you and Erik in a game of Murtzopoly, I think she’d know who the man was.

MFZ: You got me there, I don’t think I’ve ever even finished a game of Monopoly, in a game with the four of us I have no doubt you would end up with the money, the girl, and the cool hat piece.

MJ: Okay, let’s get to the showmance stuff. I know you had your eyes on Courtney out there, but I have also heard that you have designs on my girls Jaime from your season and Michelle from Survivor Fiji. Do you want to explain?

MFZ: Hey if anyone should understand having a few Survivor crushes it should be you Murtz. But I know that Jaime and Michelle only have eyes for you. But my last Survivor crush kind of ended poorly, you know the whole lying to me, backstabbing me at tribal council thing, it was all over the news. Speaking of Survivor crushes though, I’ve heard Brooke might have one for this season…you know her Murtz, is she single?

MJ: She’s married dude.

MFZ: Oh well, perhaps it’s for the best, maybe I need to start looking to other reality shows. Didn’t you just meet all the So You Think You Can Dance girls?

MJ: Haha. Yeah, I did. And they are all awesome… but come on. I have raved about Michelle forever and everybody knows about my Jaime crush. Speaking of crushes, the Frosti/Courtney pairing kind of came out of nowhere. How did that relationship develop?

MFZ: My strategy was very social, I played this game more like Real World than Survivor. I wanted to get close to people and work alliances out of relationships. It just so happened that my relationship with Courtney was a lot closer that most other people’s. When you’re living in the jungle waking up next to people you can’t trust every day and falling asleep next to those same people, sometimes you just need someone that you can feel comfortable with, someone you know will always tell you the absolute, sometimes brutal, truth. Courtney was good at that.

MJ: I know Todd is playing a pretty good game, but seriously, wasn’t Jaime the best player out there? Do you think you can put in a good word for me?

MFZ: Jaime was playing an amazing game, I mean why would all of Fei Long want her voted out if she wasn’t a threat? She had the perfect ally who would basically do whatever she wanted, she was the perfect Southern belle, who no one could get away with not liking, which I’m sure you’d agree with, and she was great at coming up really strategic plays. I think her only fault was that she figured that everyone just thought she was a dumb blonde when I think everybody kind of realized what a threat she really was.

MJ: How tight was your alliance at Zhan Hu and did you have a cool name for the alliance? Did you ever consider rejoining them?

MFZ: My alliance at Zhan Hu was really close, I mean we were all really good friends, bonded together by our own good looks. That’s why we called ourselves the Hot Babe Alliance. I was always ready to come back to the “Hot Babe Alliance” if I ever thought there was a chance we could get the numbers back on our side, but it just didn’t seem like we could pull enough people in.

MJ: Haha, it was called the “Hot Babe Alliance.” You HAVE to explain that one.

MFZ: Well just look at us. I believe it was Jaime who coined the term. I mean we had Erik, who Jaime found James had nicknamed “Beautiful”, then she nicknamed me “the Asian Sensation” then we called Peih-Gee my hot mom, and then Jaime, well you know, she’s just a hot babe.

MJ: You were the youngest player this year and I think the youngest in Survivor history. Do you think that was an advantage or a disadvantage?

MFZ: I was the youngest contestant ever, but also arguably the coolest. I think I made being young the “in” thing again this season, I mean look at the people that went early on, Chicken, Dave, and Leslie, the youth ganged up on both tribes and I managed to prove that I could sit at the popular table at lunch…even if all we had to eat was moldy rice and snails.

MJ: I have also seen some of your other interviews, and you said that Amanda actually changed her mind about participating in the immunity challenge when she saw all the other Fei Long people who decided to eat. Can you tell me more about that?

MFZ: Well when you make that decision to not eat and then you see your whole alliance sitting down to eat it’s got to suck. Amanda was all about not drawing attention to herself and she thought she would do that by not eating and just playing the challenge but it actually backfired and on her when she was the only one out there with the old Hot Babes starving and stabbing symbols.

MJ: Finally, I wanted to ask you about the parkour. Can you tell me more about it and why didn’t we get to see more of your skills this season?

MFZ: Parkour is all about moving effectively and quickly through any environment and in no way requires training in stabbing Chinese Zodiac coasters while Jeff Probst laughs at you and your supposed friends yell at you with cheeseburgers tumbling out of their mouths. This game is about seeing how people of different backgrounds and lifestyles deal with these extreme circumstances and situations, so it wasn’t so much about me doing parkour at every challenge, but more how somebody who does parkour would deal with the daily struggle of trying to survive.

MJ: Alright, so seriously, how did you get the Frosti nickname and who’s name is cooler. Mine or yours?

MFZ: Frosti was granted to me by the Norse Gods of the Mountains the first time saved the world from ending. Yours is cooler though because when you say it instantly makes me think of two things: “The World’s foremost reality television expert” and also “cool hat.”

MJ: What’s next for you?

MFZ: Just doing my same old thing, you know, saving the world. Leaping tall buildings in a single bound. The usual.

MJ: Very cool, well, this was awesome. Thank you so much!

MFZ: Yeah, glad to do it. It was good to talk to you.


Originally from Traverse City, Michigan (he attended Central High School there), Michael “Frosti” Zernow is currently a film student at Columbia College in Chicago (he’s in his junior year). Half Japanese/half Russian, Zernow has been practicing Parkour and free-running for over five years and has been hired as a traceur (a practitioner of Parkour) and free-runner in television, advertisements and corporate events, including one of Madonna’s world tours. (Parkour is essentially making the environment into an obstacle course. Through running jumping, or climbing, all obstacles can be overcome and all destinations are reachable. Free-running takes the movements of Parkour and adds style and flair. Think along the lines of urban gymnastics and building break dancing).

In high school, Zernow was captain of the wrestling and track teams. In addition, he practiced Aikido, a form of martial art that both his parents teach. While still in high school, he was suspended for a day because he dressed up like a Ninja and climbed on the roof of the school.

Zernow describes himself as creative, dynamic and determined. His hobbies include art, social philosophy and skateboarding. He recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong, where he hiked up a mountain with friends wearing three-dollar sandals.

Zernow currently resides in Chicago. His birth date is February 15, 1987.


Survivor: China airs on CBS on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Survivor: China airs on the Global network in Canada on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Sir Linksalot: Survivor: China

Please credit Murtz Jaffer & RealityDish.com when using this interview. If reposting, please post just an excerpt and link back to the rest of the piece.

Murtz Jaffer is the world's foremost reality television expert and was the host of Reality Obsessed which aired on the TVTropolis and Global Reality Channels in Canada. He has professional writing experience at the Toronto Sun, National Post, TV Guide Canada, TOROMagazine.com and was a former producer at Entertainment Tonight Canada. He was also the editor at Weekendtrips.com.