If there is one thing I have bugged Jeff Probst about more than anything else over the years, it is my utter disappointment — nay, dismay! — that he long ago ceased doing wonderfully absurd epic vote deliveries during live Survivor reunions.

There was the time he took a helicopter from the Marquesas to New York City and then jumped into a cab. Or the time he jet-skied from the Amazon to NYC on a single tank of gas, circled the Statue of Liberty, and then hopped on the subway right before the doors closed. And, of course, the time he bushwhacked through Vanuatu to find a waiting propeller plane, then jumped out of the plane, skydiving into the desert where a motorcycle just happened to be waiting for him.

This was not only the height of Survivor, but the height of all popular culture as we know it. But after season 9… nothing. Sure, there was an attempt with a skateboard that was shut down during filming because the host simply could not master it, and the time he considered repelling into Madison Square Garden, as one does, but other than that… nada. And then the live reunions went away after COVID and never came back… until now.

With the return of the live reunion Wednesday night on CBS, and for the anniversary season of Survivor 50, no less, it would seem the perfect time to also bring back a hilarious Jeff Probst vote delivery. After all, isn’t this season supposed to be all about having fun? The host has been rapping, doing contestant impressions, and even taking part in a challenge. How could he not do an epic vote delivery?

I asked Probst exactly that question, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I am so invested in this happening that I have actually sent the host my own ideas for various methods of incredible vote transportation.

“You’ve sent me some ideas,” Probst laughs. “I got your ideas. We toyed with ideas. As of this moment, there isn’t one.”

But the host says it is not for lack of trying (mine or his). It’s just that if he does do the epic vote delivery, he wants it to be truly epic.

“I’m being completely sincere,” Probst tells me. “I would love a great idea that was producible and I thought would be worth the screen time it would take. And that is usually my metric for it. It’s not that there’s not time; it’s what is the idea? Is it truly producible audio, visual editing, and storytelling? Is it funny? Is it worth it? Will it live up to the line of corny that it has to be, and right now we don’t have it.”

Or do they? Because Probst also reveals something else. “We had one that I’d written a script on.”

WAIT, WHAT?!?!?! TELL ME EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY!!

“No, I can’t,” says the host, shattering my heart into a million pieces. “But we had one, and I think it was really fun. I mean, obviously I wrote it, so I think it’s funny. But it was a bigger shoot, and I couldn’t justify the money or the time.”

To which I say: Take my money! I will pay for it! But Probst remains unconvinced.

“There’s just a lot more that goes into producing those things, and the more I learned about storytelling, the more I realized back in the day, we did some pretty silly ones and they were just ridiculous,” he says.

“It was just me going from one mode of transportation to another,” he continues. “I don’t think that pays off, unless there’s something like the Statue of Liberty and it’s after 9/11 and you have some really emotional meaning or something really funny. But otherwise, I think those felt better in that era. And I think right now the reaction would be, ‘Ah, man, I think you’re gilding the lily a little bit. Why don’t you just f—ing read the votes, Probst?’”

I spent a good five minutes after that trying to convince the host how wrong he was and how much Survivor fans would lose their minds if he brought the votes from Fiji via scuba or piloted a Fiji Airways wide-body Airbus A330. Seemingly to no avail. But then…

“I mean, it’s still sitting in the hopper,” Probst says of his own scrapped idea. “But I just don’t see one happening right now. Honestly, maybe I wake up tomorrow and reread your idea and go, ‘Oh, I know a way to do this,’” he says, being kind enough to not completely extinguish my torch of hope. “You’re back in my head a little bit. I’ll admit.”

But even that act of kindness was not enough for me. So I did what any demented obsessive would do. I went over his head. I went straight to the original creator of the Survivor epic vote delivery. I called Mark Burnett.

The mere mention of the epic vote deliveries of yesteryear put the Survivor Svengali in a reflective mood. “Remember him carrying the votes on the subway in New York?” Burnett says, laughing. “And didn’t he come in a helicopter and also jet-ski around the Statue of Liberty? And then he was carrying the votes in the back of the house through the screaming audience? It was great.”

As fond as Burnett appears to be of those days of yore, he says it is no longer his decision to make. “It’s a great question, but it would be inappropriate of me to be suggesting something to Jeff that Jeff should do considering Jeff runs the show,” he says, before offering a flickering light at the end of the Survivor 50 tunnel.

“But I do promise you, I’ll speak to Jeff later today, and I’ll say you asked that question,” he tells me.

And I will keep asking it, whether the vote delivery Wednesday night on Survivor 50 is epic or not.