Pun fact! “Survivor 45” player is also an international pun champion

Dalton Ross
·3 min read
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Survivor is one of the longest-punning… I mean, running shows on all of television. You can forgive the mistake, because even without Sundra and Becky battling it out in a fire-making competition, season 45 (premiering Wednesday on CBS) should be one of the funniest — or eye-rollingest, depending on your perspective — seasons ever.

That's because not only do you have Brando Meyer, who in his bio lists puns as one of his favorite hobbies ("Especially when they get a good groan out of everyone"), as one of the contestants, but also in the cast is none other than Janani "J Maya" Krishnan-Jha. Who is J Maya, you may ask? ONLY AN INTERNATIONAL PUN CHAMPION!!! Not only an international pun champion, mind you, but apparently — and official records are somewhat scare on this — the youngest ever international pun champion.

Janani 'J Maya' Krishnan-Jha of 'Survivor 45'
Janani 'J Maya' Krishnan-Jha of 'Survivor 45'

Robert Voets/CBS Janani 'J Maya' Krishnan-Jha of 'Survivor 45'

The first remarkable aspect of this entire thing that you still may be wrapping your head around is the fact that here is even an international pun contest to begin with. And how exactly does one find themself competing at such an event?

"In high school, I didn't have a ton of friends," says J Maya, which sounds positively shocking when considering the event in question. "So I had a lot of free time. And one of the things I did in that free time was competitive punning."

We're going to stop right there to give you a second to digest the phrase "competitive punning." Just let it sit and marinate for bit… Okay, we good to continue?

You're probably wondering how competitive punning works. And if you're not, you absolutely 100 percent should be. Allow J Maya to enlighten us. "Competitive punning is basically a round-robin style of competition where two contestants at a time come up with puns on a subject that's given to them five seconds prior," she explains. "The first person to not come up with a pun within five seconds is eliminated. If you make an illegal pun, you're also eliminated. There are a ton of ways to be eliminated, basically. And the last person standing is the winner."

The cast of 'Survivor 45'
The cast of 'Survivor 45'

Robert Voets/CBS The cast of 'Survivor 45'

That person seven years ago was a teenage J Maya, who beat out all the other punslingers: "When I was 17, I went to the International Pun Championships and I became the youngest award winner in history, which is a very pun fact." (Yes, she just went there.)

So what's with J Maya's pun obsession? "I just love puns, and I make them all the time," she says. "It's a big part of who I am, just being silly. People say that puns are the lowest form of humor, but I think everyone laughs at them. Everyone has a reaction to them — whether it's a laugh or it's a groan. They just bring people together. So I'm always happy to be the person making ridiculous puns, even if other people feel punished, so to speak." (Yes, she just went there again.)

While J Maya feels this pun fact from her past makes her unique from all the other Survivor 45 players, everyone in the cast has something about them that makes us different, and they revealed those special attributes to us before the game began. Watch the video above to hear all the tasty tidbits from the entire cast before we meet them officially on Wednesday's premiere.

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