All aboard!
As hosts of The Real Love Boat, premiering Oct. 5 on CBS, real-life married couple Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn join the illustrious pantheon of reality-competition hosts like Survivor's Jeff Probst and Project Runway's Heidi Klum. While hosting a beloved series is no easy feat, ascending to the upper echelon of iconic hosts requires one important thing: a memorable catchphrase.
As two self-professed reality TV aficionados, Jerry and Rebecca knew the task at hand was make-or-break.
"In those elimination ceremonies, Rebecca and I had to come up with a send-off tag," Jerry exclusively told E! News. "'The tribe has spoken,' Probst already has that. 'Auf Wiedersehen,' that's Heidi Klum. Another one is 'Sashay away,' from Drag Race. So coming up with this elimination term, it had to be nautical. We tried a lot of things."
Jerry revealed they tried "Get off my ship," but ultimately said it was "kind of weird, people weren't into that."
"We tried ‘It's time for you to walk the plank,'" Rebecca said. "That's a little pirate-y."
Hard to argue with that.
"So this is where we ended up. Are you ready?" Rebecca eventually revealed. "'I'm sorry, you've been eliminated. It's time for you to shove off.' Which also felt a little aggressive, not gonna lie."
Hey, there's no time for needless pleasantries on The Real Love Boat!
On the new dating series, an homage to the classic '70s comedy The Love Boat, a group of singles board a luxury Mediterranean cruise looking for love—with challenges, destination dates and surprise twists along the way.
For Jerry and Rebecca, it was a peek behind the reality TV curtain, which wasn't always such an easy transition.
"This is not a muscle that Jerry and I had ever really flexed before because we're used to watching these shows from the comfort of our own sofa," Rebecca said. "So to be there in the middle of the drama was a great learning curve for us. It was new for us."
Rebecca explained, "It was hard for us not to have emotional reactions," but said she was more successful than her husband.
"Jerry had a harder time with it than I did," she joked. "Jerry kept reacting. Every time somebody would get eliminated, he'd go, ‘Nooo!' He'd have this big reaction. It was explained to us that we're supposed to remain neutral. That was a real challenge for both of us, but especially Jerry."
The Real Love Boat premieres Oct. 5 at 9 p.m., joining Survivor and The Amazing Race for CBS' All Reality Wednesday nights.