Television series
Bankzitters: Overleven in Het Wild
Bankzitters: Overleven in Het Wild strips the Flemish teen-comedy gang of phones, comfort and patience, dropping them into genuine wilderness for physical challenges, foraging and shelter-building. It's less about survival skill than watching five familiar friends squabble, panic and improvise under pressure — light, silly, character-driven reality comedy for fans who already love the group's chemistry from the original show.
If you liked this
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!2002
The blueprint for celebrity wilderness misery-as-comedy: put reasonably famous people in a jungle, strip their comforts, and watch friendship and dignity dissolve in real time over bug-eating and bickering.
But British tabloid culture and Z-list celebrity gossip are load-bearing; if you don't recognise anyone, half the jokes vanish.
Celebrity Bear Hunt2025no page yet
Newer, glossier, and just as chaotic — celebrities hunted through the wilderness by literal bear-suited stalkers while trying to survive challenges. Same DNA as Bankzitters, turned up to eleven.
But The chase gimmick can overshadow the actual survival comedy, and some viewers found the premise more mean than funny.
Expeditie Robinson2000no page yet
The original Dutch Survivor, running for decades, and the show every Bankzitter fan already half-knows from cultural osmosis. Same tropical islands, same starvation, same alliances — played dead straight.
But It's a genuine strategy competition with real tension and elimination politics, not a comedy — the tone couldn't be more different.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Gilligan's Island1964
Same premise stripped to its studs — a small group stranded together, forced to improvise shelter and food while their personalities collide — just sixty years earlier and fully scripted instead of filmed as reality.
Long before reality TV existed, this sitcom nailed the exact comic engine Bankzitters is running now: a mismatched group stuck outdoors, forever failing to get home, turning survival chores into slapstick.
But The jokes and gender politics are pure 1964 — broad, dated, and sometimes wince-inducing by modern standards.
More like this (5)
The Island with Bear Grylls2014no page yet
Ordinary people, not celebrities, dumped on a real deserted island with nothing but knives and their own incompetence. Watching amateurs fail spectacularly at basic survival has its own comic horror.
But It's earnest rather than jokey — the humour comes from watching people struggle, not from anyone trying to be funny.
Scared of the Dark2023no page yet
Celebrities forced through pitch-black challenges wearing night-vision rigs, panicking at things that aren't remotely as scary as they think. Pure, dumb, delightful discomfort comedy in the same spirit.
But No wilderness, no survival — it's a studio-based fear gauntlet, so the outdoorsy overlap is thin.
Survivor2000
The granddaddy of the format, decades deep, still inventing new ways to make hungry people betray each other on a beach. Worth it just to see where the genre came from.
But It's a serious strategic game with real stakes and real cruelty — nobody's cracking jokes to camera here.
Total Drama2007no page yet
Takes the exact format Bankzitters is spoofing in live action — friends, challenges, elimination, wilderness — and renders it as cartoon parody, proving the joke works in any medium.
An animated teen parody of reality survival shows, right down to the confessional booth and the smug host, that somehow gets funnier the more shamelessly it mocks the genre it's copying.
But It's aimed at kids and young teens, so the humour is broader and the stakes are cartoon-safe.
Alive1993
The same core setup — ordinary people with none of their comforts, forced to cooperate or collapse in the wild — played with total sincerity, showing what the comedy version is quietly making bearable.
Based on the true story of the 1972 Andes plane crash survivors, this strips away every joke Bankzitters relies on and asks what actually happens when a group with no training has to survive on nothing, for real.
But It's harrowing rather than funny — starvation, death and desperate choices, not banter over a campfire.
