Though reprises often exist in music, they’re not often found on a show like The Amazing Race. Luckily for singing cops Michael Norwood and Armonde “Moe” Badger, they now have experience with both. The two had a night to remember on the very first leg of the race, getting eliminated. They were granted a second chance, though, returning in lieu of several teams not being able to do so in the post-pandemic race restart. Unfortunately for Michael and Moe, the second verse was the same as the first, though they went out on a higher note than last time. Michael and Moe hit the ground running in London, hoping to make their community of Buffalo proud. They were able to stay with the pack until they hit the Detour, which proved to be their undoing. When they failed to notice the details of their puzzle, the writing was literally on the wall, eliminating them first. Little did they (or we) know how much the race and the world would take a turn over the course of the next few weeks. With the coronavirus ramping up around the world by the end of February 2020, production shut down, and the race was put on pause for over a year and a half. When four teams were unable to return in the fall of 2021, the eliminated teams were given a chance to come back, including Michael and Moe. They hoped going to the mountains of Switzerland would give them high prospects for surviving elimination. But it was not meant to be. After making yet another crucial Detour mistake, they finished in last once more, becoming the first Amazing Race team to be eliminated twice in one season. Now out of the race, Michael and Moe talk with Parade.com about their reaction to coming back, an unseen task that was the true reason they got eliminated, and how they were able to digest getting eliminated twice. What led you to go onto The Amazing Race?Armonde “Moe” Badger: So we got a call from a number that we had no idea where it was. And it was about The Amazing Race. There was no doubt who we would be going with. We are a package deal, for sure. And we were just looking forward to sharing these experiences together. Anything that we’ve done since 2019 has been the “singing cops.” So for us to get another opportunity to be the difference in our community and show what community policing should look like was an incredible opportunity. Michael, I know you did a lot of prep before coming onto the race. What did that entail?Michael Norwood: One of the hardest things that I had to do was just physically get ready for the show. To lose 50 pounds in a short time was definitely a task for sure. They said, “There may be some obstacles on this race, where you may reach the weight cap.” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t think I want to play with fire like that. Let me get down as low as I possibly can, just from a safety standpoint.” You don’t want to possibly go bungee jumping or something, and the weight limit is 250. So that physical aspect was tough for me the first time. It seemed that you were eliminated the first time in London because of a lack of attention to detail during the wallpapering Detour. What happened there?Michael: We were running around in London for what felt like a long period of time, you know. We were asking people for directions, and it started to get to a point where you don’t want to get frustrated, but you just hope that you’re going to get to the location on time. If you notice, by the time we got to the point where we had to put the stuff on the wall, as soon as we hit the door, we were out of breath. Instead of gathering our bearings, we got into a rushing point. We didn’t want to fall behind. We knew there were other teams in there, but we became like a deer in the headlights. And we rushed. I wish one of the things that we would have done from the get-go was just take the papers and lay them out on the floor. We did it eventually. But by that time we did that, we wasted so much time putting stuff up. And then, once we realized it was a flag, we had to start over because the papers tore up. It was not good. Being eliminated is always a low feeling, and being eliminated first must be even worse. What was going through your heads after your time on the race amounted to one night in London?Moe: It was disappointing. We’re better than what we showed. We’re both intelligent; we just rushed things instead of taking our time. We pride ourselves on being able to figure out problems because we’re in life-and-death situations daily. That was a shock to our pride. We really felt like we had our community and city on our backs. We feel like we let them down. We were still being gracious and thankful for the opportunity. But we felt we let ourselves down. So what was your reaction when you found out you would be coming back? Did you even think it was a possibility?Michael: We had absolutely no clue that there was even a chance that we would come back. Once we were eliminated, we said, “Well, it was fun.” A year and a half went by, and nobody even really knew when things were going to go back to normal. But during that process, we get a call. And they say, “Hey, there’s a possibility that you may get to go back on the show.” And we were like, “Are you serious?” Because it had never been done before on the U.S. Amazing Race. So we were shocked to get that call and find out there’s another opportunity for you to come back on a race. It definitely didn’t seem real. In last night’s elimination, we heard you say you had a game plan, and you didn’t stick to it. So what was that game plan coming in this time, especially knowing what went wrong before?Moe: Our game plan was to stay with the pack. It’s an exhilarating feeling when you’re in first place. But we thought, “Okay, we’ll leave with the pack. If the pack wasn’t with us, we turn around.” We talked extensively about what we were going to do on the show. And I think, for the most part, we did it, besides stay with the pack. We talked things out; we slowed down at times, we looked things over. We actually had a Speed Bump that was not shown, which I was super proud of. Interesting! So I saw photos of you and Arun and Natalia doing some sort of task with a giant cabbage. What did that involve?Moe: That was our Speed Bump! So we had to pick who would do it. And Mike said, “Mo, you did the last one; I’ll do this one.” We’re in this muddy, muddy grass. Mike’s running around in this giant cabbage with no shoes on. We had to go from haystack to haystack, and I had to lead him there with my voice so he could knock it over. But Mike did a phenomenal job. He rolled around and put his body on the line. We did it so fast. But the only problem was just getting to that place. We got lost getting there. But I mean, once we got there, it was a breeze, and we did a great job. We did what we said; we communicated and took our time.Michael: We have to rewind a bit here. First of all, I am a big guy. I’m 6'5", probably in my 240s then. I always pride myself on being athletic. I compete in bodybuilding and fitness and stuff like that. There has never been a time in my life where I was manhandled as much as that cabbage. (Laughs.) This cabbage was flipping me around. You can’t see anything, and you don’t really have any grip with your socks. I thought, “Okay, I’m going to stand up and do it.” That was the worst thing I ever could have done. I think I got flipped at least ten times in there. Then I tried to get on my knees, and it still tossed me around. It was hilarious. It was probably one of the most intense workouts I’ve ever had in my life. But as Moe said, this is a situation where you trust your partner, and you listen to his voice. And he was able to guide me to the finish. But man, that was one of the hardest challenges I ever had to do from a fitness standpoint. This is all so interesting, because the edit makes us believe that you lost from getting the belt wrong at the Detour. Was that not the case?Moe: If we just did the belts and got the opportunity to drive to the next place to the next place without stopping, I think ourselves and Arun and Natalia would have still been in the race. But just finding that extra task was really tough. We don’t use maps anymore in the day and age we’re in. We have to kind of go back in time and figure out streets again. It was tough, especially with streets that weren’t posted. But I wouldn’t change anything for the world. You make Amazing Race U.S. history as the first team to be eliminated twice in one season. How does it feel to be in the record books, even with a less-than-desirable outcome?Michael: The first elimination stung a lot harder than the second one. The first one, we thought we would do so much better than what we did. But coming back for the second go-round, we were just happy to have another opportunity. I really was satisfied with the relationships that we built with the cast. Friends now turned into family, and we talk to on an everyday basis in our group chat. It was a victory and a loss. The victory may not have been the money, but it’s deeper than that. We built relationships with people. We got an opportunity to go to places around the world that we probably would never, ever get a chance to go, and just see some beautiful things. We were pleased and happy and thankful to everyone for putting us in this wonderful opportunity. Next, read host Phil Keoghan’s takes on Michael and Moe and the other teams of The Amazing Race season 33.
