Evan Vucci/AP
President Obama has slow-jammed the news on late-night TV and sat down with wacky YouTube celebrities. The show he’s joining this week might just make those appearances look buttoned up and boring.
On Tuesday, President Obama will shoot an episode for the NBC show Running Wild with Bear Grylls. In each episode, Bear, a survivalist, takes a different celebrity into the wild.
According to NBC, the president will trek through the wilderness and “receive a crash course in survival techniques.” The president will be in Alaska to meet with leaders from the Alaskan native communities and discuss climate change. NBC says the segment will air later this year.
We’re not sure what Bear will make the president do (Will he go easy on him? Does the Secret Service have to trek, too?). Before he goes, will he call up Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who has famously roughed it on deserted islands (on purpose) for some advice?
In any case, based on a sampling of recent episodes, here are five ways the president should prepare:
1. Learn how to cook a mouse
In one recent episode with actress Michelle Rodriguez, Bear made a “backcountry” soup from a dead mouse and … urine. In another episode, actor Ed Helms tried some ants. “They go zing in your mouth,” Bear said, to which Helms replied, trying to keep a straight face “Yeah, you’re right.” Sure.
2. Figure out how to get down the steepest cliff you’ve ever seen
Sometimes you reach the edge of a giant cliff and there’s only one way down. Before rappelling off large, jagged rocks, Kate Winslet said: “If there’s a God, watch over me now.” Bear’s advice: “Don’t look down too much.”
3. Learn how to light, and throw, dynamite
In the opening scene with Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Bear throws dynamite out of the side of their helicopter in the Italian Alps to trigger avalanches — “hopefully to minimize avalanche risk.”
4. Learn how to tie a rope around a glacier
Another unsettling moment with Ferguson comes when they reach a snow-covered glacier they need to rappel down. Bear finds a piece of ice and says he’s going to tie a rope around it to hold on to. Ferguson doesn’t seem sure. He makes a face. “It looks like you’re tying it to glass.”
“Let’s try it,” Grylls replies. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll just plummet down the mountain and freeze to death.
5. Find a way to stab a glow stick
A glow stick is one of two things Bear says he won’t leave home without (the other is a poncho). Apparently, the president can pierce a glow stick to mark his path using the liquid inside or use it to light his way into caves, tunnels, maybe even the White House basement.
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