The casting of "Survivor" usually takes months, with producers and casting executives rooting through thousands of applications and videotapes to find the 16 players.

That was not the case for the upcoming "Survivor: All-Stars." If the show's mastermind, Mark Burnett, is to be believed, the process of picking 18 castaways from the pool of previous contestants took all of a couple hours.

"The casting was really, really scientific," Burnett told reporters last week. "I got a yellow legal pad and wrote down 24 names, and [then] cut down to 18. It was that quick."

Meetings with CBS CEO Les Moonves, other network executives and "Survivor" host Jeff Probst helped settle the roster. The results will be on display on CBS starting Sunday, Feb. 1, after the Super Bowl.

The players are Jenna Lewis, Sue Hawk, Rudy Boesch and Richard Hatch (the inaugural "Survivor"); Colby Donaldson, Jerry Manthey, Tina Wesson, Alicia Calaway and Amber Brkich ("The Australian Outback"); Ethan Zohn, Lex van den Berghe and Tom Buchanan ("Africa"); Rob Mariano and Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien ("Marquesas"); Shii Ann Huang ("Thailand"); Jenna Morasca and Rob Cesternino ("The Amazon); and Rupert Boneham ("Pearl Islands").

Burnett says only two people who received invitations to be part of "All-Stars" declined. "Outback" contestant Elisabeth Filarski Hasselbeck was in the midst of her tryouts for ABC's daytime show "The View," a job she later won. "She made a good choice, huh?" Burnett says.

Colleen Haskell, the first show's resident cutie pie, also turned down the offer. "[She] had moved on with her life and just genuinely didn't want to go through that again," Burnett says.