| Presenter: | Reno Collier |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Network: | NBC |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 8 |
Great American Road Trip is a reality television competition series that aired on NBC. It follows seven families as they go on a road trip and compete against each other at different landmarks in and around U.S. Route 66 in the United States. The series is hosted by comedian Reno Collier.
The show premiered on July 7, 2009 as the lead-in to America's Got Talent. However, due to poor ratings, NBC moved the show to Monday nights, with the next episode coming less than a week later.[1] In the second week, ratings declined about 10 percent, as seen in the chart below.
The families are given recreational vehicles for use throughout the competition. They drive from place to place to compete in various challenges. There are two contests each week. The first is the "King of the Road" challenge, in which the winner receives a reward, and the second is the "End of the Road" challenge, in which the losing team goes home.
The following families are in the competition. They are listed with their hometowns:
| Family | Members | Hometown | Placing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DiSalvatore | Amy, Blake, Mason & Silvio | Yonkers, New York | Winners | |
| Coote | Cassidy, Jake, Jennifer & Keith | Lockport, Illinois | Runners-up | |
| Pollard | Aaron, Amie, Anslie & Ron | Wicksburg, Alabama | Eliminated Episode 7 | |
| Montgomery | Alecia, Darius, Darius Ross & Tylier | Montclair, California | Eliminated Episode 5 | |
| Faverey | Ashley, Dee, Dylan & Lenny | Wantagh, New York | Eliminated Episode 4 | |
| Rico | Danielle, Erica, Ricardo & Ricky | Katy, Texas | Eliminated Episode 3 | |
| Katzenberg | Andrew, Hyleri, Marc & Sami | Westport, Connecticut | Eliminated Episode 1 |
These hotels were locations during the scavenger hunt:
| Episode Number | Title | Air Date | King of the Road Challenge | KOTR Winner | KOTR Bottom 3 | End of the Road Challenge | EOTR Winner & Runner-Up | Eliminated Family | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One member of the family wears a giant presidential bobblehead. The other 3 family members are the "Secret Service Agents" helping the "President" navigate the course. The "President" carries ballots and tries to get as many as possible into the ballot box at the end of the course in under 3 minutes.[2] | Families will have a certain amount of rope attached to a ball that they must push through a series of obstacles, in which there is only one correct path to cross the finish line. | |||||||
| 2 | Each family has to perform a four-minute show showcasing their families' talents. | The parents have to make their way through a maze of classic cars, grab some food from a concession stand, and bring it back to their family while wearing high-tech versions of blindfolds and being guided by their children. | |||||||
| 3 | The dads have 30 minutes to cook and the best burger. | The families have to take a bunch of Texas-sized items and fit them on a map of the state. | |||||||
| 4 | The families have to take mannequins and get as many of them on the plane in the given amount of time, take-off ready. | Items are launched into the air and the families have to identify each of them. Afterward, the families had to place the objects on a board in the order that they saw them. | |||||||
| 5 | Arizona is known for the "Vortex" so for their next challenge the families get to try out their own vortex. A member of the family will spin the vortex, with someone on it, stop it and then that family member will have to walk to the gong and hit it.[3] | Each family member is put in a separate train car. They must work together to pass along codes that open up safes at either end of the train.[4] | |||||||
| 6 | Families had to make their very own hydroelectric plant at the Hoover Dam. | As the challenge to win the special night in Vegas, the families must now find their dads (Keith and Ron), who are now somewhere in Las Vegas. They two families are off on their Vegas scavenger hunt.[5] | |||||||
| 7 | The final three families are taken in a car up a mountain to a zip line platform above Bootleg Canyon. Each family member will ride the zip line and drop paint balls onto large photos of cast members along the way.[6] | There is red car in the center of other cars that needs to be driven out of the square, first by moving the other cars around it to create an opening. The catch? The cars can only be moved backward and forward. | |||||||
| 8 | Both families were to solve a puzzle using cubes with pictures of themselves at each landmark they have visited and place them on a large USA map. | None |
In episode two, no teams were eliminated. Instead, the top three teams in the King of the Road challenge (Pollards, Cootes, and Ricos) faced off in a second challenge, with the winning team receiving a prize. The Cootes received a trip to an upcoming movie premiere in Hollywood.
In episode 6, instead of an End of the Road challenge, the top 2 families compete for the luxury.
In episode 7, there were only 2 teams in the bottom instead of 3.
| Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Final Episode 8 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| King of the Road | Coote | Pollard | Coote | Coote | Coote | Coote | DiSalvatore | (none) | |
| Bottom Two/Three | Favery Katzenberg Montgomery | DiSalvatore Favery Montgomery | DiSalvatore Favery Rico | DiSalvatore Favery Montgomery | DiSalvatore Montgomery Pollard | DiSalvatore Pollard | Pollard Coote | ||
| DiSalvatore | Safe | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 2 | King of the Road | Winner $100,000 | |
| Coote | King of the Road | Won Luxury | King of the Road | King of the Road | King of the Road | King of the Road | Bottom 2 | Runner-Up | |
| Pollard | Safe | King of the Road | Safe | Safe | Bottom 3 | Won Luxury | Bottom 2 | Eliminated (Episode 7) | |
| Montgomery | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Safe | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Eliminated (Episode 5) | |||
| Favery | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Bottom 3 | Eliminated (Episode 4) | ||||
| Rico | Safe | Safe | Bottom 3 | Eliminated (Episode 3) | |||||
| Katzenberg | Bottom 3 | Eliminated (Episode 1) | |||||||
| Notes | none | See note 1 | none | See note 2 | none | ||||
| Order | Episode | Rating | Share | Rating/Share (18-49) | Viewers (millions) | Rank (Night) | Rank (Timeslot) | Rank (Week) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Pilot" | 3.0 | 6 | 1.3/6[7] | 4.66 |
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| 2 | "Gateway to the West" | 2.2 | 4 | 0.9/3 | 3.30 |
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| 3 | "The Heartland" | 2.3 | 4 | 1.0/3 | 3.46 |
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| 4 | "Road Warriors" | 2.1 | 4 | 1.0/3 | 3.56 |
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| 5 | "Are We There Yet?" | 2.8 | 5 | 1.3/4 | 4.62 |
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| 6 | "Vegas Baby" | 2.8 | 5 | 1.3/4 | 4.37 |
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| 7 | "California or Bust" | 2.8 | 5 | 1.4/5 | 4.51 |
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| 8 | "End of the Road" | 3.0 | 5 | 1.4/4 | 4.79 |
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