Paramount Global
The Amazing Race
Season 35

Production
Notes

For The Amazing Race Season 35, First Frame once again service produced a German episode of one of America's most celebrated reality TV series — taking teams on a self-drive journey from Frankfurt through the Rhine Valley to Cologne.

Season 35 featured the largest ever team field in Amazing Race history with 13 competing teams, and marked the show's first broadcast in an extended 90-minute weekly format.

For this intensive production First Frame coordinated approximately 125 local crew members, 100 US crew, more than 120 talents and extras, and over 60 production vehicles.

The Germany leg led teams along the Rhine route through a dramatic landscape of river scenery and medieval castles — from Burg Rheinstein and a Rhine ferry crossing to Cologne, Germany's carnival capital and the heart of the "Fifth Season." In Cologne, locations included the Hohenzollernbrücke, the Chocolate Museum, the German Sport & Olympic Museum, the Hafenterrasse am Malakoffturm, and the Rheinpark.

The episode's centrepiece was a carnival challenge at the historic Gürzenich festival hall, supported by the Treue Husaren — one of Cologne's oldest carnival societies. Teams completed a course on the society's iconic custom-built three-wheeled horses, threw traditional Strüssje flower bouquets, and had to earn their carnival medal before advancing in the race.

The simultaneous operation of multiple challenge stations across two German federal states — Hessen and North Rhine-Westphalia — required precisely coordinated permits, traffic management, and close collaboration with local authorities. Country Producer Kelsey Hightower led the local coordination alongside First Frame's team.

Season 35 continued a partnership with World Race Productions that dates back to The Amazing Race Season 3 in 2002 — one of the longest-running service production relationships in German reality TV history.

Credits

Genre: Reality Competition
Production: The Amazing Race
Title: Season 35 Episode 7
Production Company: World Race Productions Inc.
Network: CBS / Paramount Global
Director: Bertram van Munster
Locations: Frankfurt / Cologne, Germany