I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! Episode 16 recap

EVER since they started calling this veldt a jungle, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here has been taking bold liberties with the English language.

EVER since they started calling this veldt a jungle, I feel like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here has been taking bold liberties with the English language.

There are a lot of words being bandied about that are only clinging to their original definitions by the flimsiest of holds, not least “celebrity”, “food”, and “craft”.

In fact, words are a problem throughout this episode. For example, in the first all-in challenge, in which Chrissie and Andrew choose two competing teams by selecting celebrities using the ‘captain’s pick’ method (made “popular” by Tony Abbott), Merv Hughes is the last to be chosen.

Daddy Daddo explains that “Merv is big enough and ugly enough to cope with it”, and that sentence is clearly four words too long at the end.

The team-choosing opens up a lot of to-camera analysis of various relationships within the group.

Joel says there's a boy's club a-brewing! Do you think Merv, Freddie and Barry are breaking off from the group? pic.twitter.com/fs1hNBBfqT

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) February 22, 2015

Anna is a bit miffed that Freddie “Frair-ie Flin-off” Flintoff hasn’t even asked her what she does yet — a true shame, as most of Australia doesn’t know either.

Joel complains that there’s a bit of a ‘boy’s club’ emerging with Frair-ie, Merv, Daddy Daddo and Barry, who between them have enough hair to cover almost one and a half medium-sized humans.

All of the celebrities talk through which weeks they’ve found the hardest, which brings me to the first truly ill-defined word: “hardship”. Anna is CLEARLY floating around on an inflatable pool doughnut, and everybody knows that those things are the most fun ever. “Hardship”.

The next word that really needs to take a long hard look at itself is “stampede”. The all-in trial is called ‘Celebrity Stampede’, and will involve a bunch of tracker elephants “chasing” the celebrities as they sprint from tree to tree in the “jungle”, collecting stars.

"Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." #ImACelebrityAU pic.twitter.com/11BttUeqnw

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) February 22, 2015

We’re told the elephants have been rescued from actual, non-inflatable-pool-doughnut-style hardship, but I even have to put “rescued” in inverted commas, because they’re forced to take massive trunky whiffs of both Joel and Barry’s three-week-old head-bandannas in order to get their scent.

Then, one by one, the teams are racing through grassy trails towards trees, collecting celebrities and stars (distinction intentional) as they go. Barry takes a wrong turn and has to go back! Mareen’s star gets stuck in a tree and Tyson has to climb it! Is there time? Will they escape the thundering quadrupeds? Will they ever get enough stars before it’s too late?

Yes.

Yes, they will.

Star power ... the competitors collected red stars. Picture: Channel 10

They will also have time to shower, solve a Rubik’s cube, and illuminate a 13th-century manuscript.

These elephants are “stampeding” in the same way that I’m “charmed by medical photographs of scabs”. The celebrities scramble. The elephants amble. The celebrities puff and gasp their way across the finishing line, a mere four to six weeks before the elephants do.

In announcing the challenge winners, Dr Chris reports to everyone that both teams managed to avoid the elephants, a surprise to nobody but particularly to all of the people not mildly or recently inconvenienced by elephants. “Stampede”.

Showtime ... Dr Chris said everyone managed to avoid the elephants. Picture: Channel 10

The winning team — Daddy Daddo’s lot — get to spend an evening in a jungle bar, and I’m pleased to admit that the word “bar” is aptly applied here. It has all the elements I’ve come to expect from a bar — comfortable seats, beer, wine, cocktails, greasy food, monumentally terrible karaoke, and the distant sound of monkeys.

The only thing missing from my classic understanding of the word “bar” is an Englishman with his pants around his ankles, but that’s just because Frair-ie Flin-off donated his spot to the clearly thirsty Maureen.

That woman is sucking back glasses of bubbly like she’s the only one at a brickie’s barbecue with a bottle opener.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Maureen’s commitment to styling her hat in the most Pharrell-like fashion possible. pic.twitter.com/xv8r0NC40m

— #ImACelebrityAU (@ImACelebrityAU) February 22, 2015

At this point we also realise that the word “cook” is barely adequate to describe Julie. She cooks. She knits. She sings. She steals three centimetre knobs of ginger, putting all of her campmates in peril of punishment. Piquant, delicious ginger. I understand, Julie. Sometimes I, too, would take risks for a root like that.

‘Ginger ninja’ ... Julie Goodwin with a piece of contraband ginger. Picture: Channel 10

Meanwhile, back at the comparatively quiet loser’s camp, things are as interesting as a blank wall at Centrelink. Better not vote any interesting people out, right punters?

We have brief fireside interlude wherein each celebrity names and describes the charities they’re playing for, an important reminder that this game is about more than just eating maggots and

breathing in powdered leopard dung and using hedgehogs as toilet paper and sticking beetles up your nose.

Dinner ... Julie Goodwin whips up a meal with a piece of contraband ginger. Picture: Channel 10

Interlude over, and we finally find out why shares in swimwear and earplugs are about to plummet.

Lauren, primo shade-thrower, shrill rule-screeching banshee and eater of poo-cake, is eliminated.

The camp just lost one of its most loved and interesting inhabitants.

“Most”.

Jo Thornely doesn’t get enough attention at her day job, so she writes for various outlets, takes up way too much bandwidth on the internet, and loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her on Twitter @JoThornely