A seemingly timeless star of an adventure series dramatically brings a valuable object from overseas to Los Angeles by motorcycle, plane and skydive. Tom Cruise at the Olympics? No way! We talk about Jeff Probst at Survivors!

Yes, Cruise’s epic rendition of the Olympic flag was reminiscent of many of the actor’s breathtaking action sequences as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible Films. But it also had Survivors Fans are feeling a deep sense of déjà vu. That’s because Probst did pretty much the exact same thing with the ballot box that contained the votes from the last Tribal Council, using all sorts of dramatic (and sometimes comical) means of transportation to transport them from the farthest reaches of the Earth here to the United States, where they were read and merged live.

The Survivors The presenter and showrunner scored his first dramatic vote in 2002 at the end of the Survivor: Marquesas season, jump in a helicopter, fly to New York City, hail a cab, and then arrive in Central Park with the voices. (Enjoy this first, somewhat tame attempt at over-the-top drama below.)

A year later, the far more magnificent performance of Survivor: The Amazonwhen Probst hopped on a jet ski and miraculously drove all the way from Brazil to New York City, stopping to pay tribute to the Statue of Liberty… as one does. He then hilariously jumped on the subway—just squeezing through the closing doors—and took the train to Broadway’s Ed Sullivan Theater, where the final vote count was taking place. (Watch it below.)

The real highlight, however, came at the end of the Survivor: Vanuatu Season 1 in 2004, when Probst fought his way through the jungle, Indiana Jones-style, until he came across a small propeller plane that somehow had enough fuel to take him all the way to the California desert. At that point, Probst jumped out of the plane and parachuted onto a waiting motorcycle, which he then hopped on and rode all the way to the CBS studios in Los Angeles. (You can watch that must-see adventure below.)

So when Cruise used the same combination of skydiving and motorcycling from Paris to Hollywood, Survivors Fans couldn’t help but notice. And neither could friends of Probst, who immediately started texting the hostmaster general about it, which got him thinking about a chicken-and-egg scenario. “I think the question with the Tom Cruise graduation ceremony part is: Did Tom Cruise steal from Survivorsor Survivors steal from Mission: Impossible?“, asks Probst.

“Because I really enjoyed watching him do it,” he continues. “And I realized, man, I’m no Tom Cruise. This guy jumped on his motorcycle and rode through the streets and then jumped out of a helicopter. I’m surprised he didn’t hit a bad guy! That was so much fun.”

And it was a lot of fun for Survivors Fans who remember a time when the host also did such wonderfully ridiculous stunts to deliver the final votes from Tribal Council. “I loved the comparisons,” Probst admits. “A lot of people texted me and said, ‘Probst, Tom Cruise is doing a Survivors! Tom Cruise is bringing back the votes from the island in his own way!’ And my first question was, ‘Wait a minute, is he imitating me, or have I been imitating him all these years?’

Weekly entertainment Probst has been nagging for years, saying he should Mission: Impossible style of voting. In 2014, the host revealed to EW that they had actually started filming a voting routine where he carried the votes on a skateboard for the reunion show, but when it came to a skateboarding trick he was supposed to perform as part of the routine, he realized, “I can’t do that! So we never aired it, and that was the last thing.”

In response to a further inquiry during the Winners in the war In the next season in 2020, Probst recounted the skateboarding mayhem (which can be seen in the video at the top of the article) and also explained why there is no longer such a thing. “It was fun to do. We did it several times. And we always did it in a very funny, tongue-in-cheek way. But I don’t want to repeat it. We don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it and waste time from our finale, which is already so full that there’s no time for the reunion show. So I just still don’t have a great idea.”

With Survivors Now that the show has moved to a pre-taped aftershow filmed on location in Fiji, and there’s no longer even a live vote reading or reunion, there’s currently no reason for Probst to announce the votes in epic, dramatic fashion. But should there ever be a live format again — say, for the highly anticipated 50th season, which airs in 2026 — would the host consider bringing back his action-packed transport jump after Tom Cruise upped the stakes with a full-on rappelling across the stadium? “I’m putting it in the hopper,” Probst says of his thinking. “But I’m not making any promises.”

It sounds like Survivors The fans’ impossible mission to get their favorite presenter back on a jet ski continues.