Page 7 - Pop History: Jersey Shore

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

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Get rid of it. Get it loud. Get it out. If you want to have fun to do some. Down to the theme song of the Jersey Shore, what a ruckus nightmare this show is. Welcome to the Jersey Shore today, bitches. We're going to the Jersey Shore, bitch. And you better not get too fucking close to me because I'll slap you in the face.

After I have sex with a man, I tear his head off. I tear with his head off. I'm the sweetest bitch, 11th. bitch you'll ever meet. Never fall in love on the Jersey Shore. Episode three, he's in a relationship. He broke his only rule, Ronnie Bear. You broke the only rule.

Immediately. Immediately, immediately fell in love with Sammy. Immediately just keeps going out and hooking up with other girls and then climbing into bed with her. There's so much that happens in the jerseys who are welcome to pop history, guys. There's so much that happens that now watching it, we were just talking about this before the show, which is why we had to immediately start recording, is that, that this is only 11 years ago.

And this is, it's 20 lifetimes ago. That blew my mind, by the way. If you would have told me this show came out in 98, I would have been like, yeah, that seems about how long ago. The intro definitely looks like it's from 1990s. Just the look at the grainy, chaoticness of it is just so weird. Everything about this show, I feel like signals in the first season that they had no idea

how popular this thing was going to be. They had no money. They had no money. I mean, MTV notoriously throws darts at a board with people they don't have to pay very much money to. They're just throwing shows at people that will do it for free. Right, right. Pretty much. And it has brought us so much lingo.

Now, so, of course, we got to start it off. I loved the Jersey Shore. I watched it every week. I was absolutely obsessed with it. I know that many people from around the world are obsessed with it, but it was just something about being from Queens and watching and knowing those girls and only always wanting to be those girls but never being accepted by those girls. And essentially, for part of what the controversy about the show is that technically, I'm not Italian enough. Yeah. And it's very interesting that

half of the cast is an Italian. I saw that. I looked that up. They're all faking. Vinny's the only one that is actually full on Italian. All Italian, like first generation Italian. One of them's Polish Italian. Sammy, maybe, one of them. One of the girls Polish Italian. Just like you, Jackie. Get me in there. I always wanted to be one of,

I wanted to be a Gwiette so badly. In fact, it still kind of blows my mind that I'm not with a Guido. I always, like, I assumed I would just someday marry a Guido. My mother assumed I would marry a Guido. I look at them and just like, this could have easily been my life. Slap some bronze or on Jeff.

Oh, get you back. Jeff just starts showing up in bronzer, just like jelling up his hair like Polly. He's got good hair for it. He does have good hair for. All right. Well, now does this will be our new fantasy role of playing. Maybe for VH1 or something, you should pitch mature jersey short. Mature sure.

I think that's a great idea. You brought up a word that I have a question about. Are we even allowed to say Guido in 2020? I think that you can. I mean, even at the time I saw, I read some articles. I read some articles about Italians saying that it was a slur, and they did not care for it. Oh, I apologize, but that is something that is fully, that is fully a part of my vernacular, especially growing up in Queens. It's hard not to.

You're Italian, I think you're allowed to. But I also say it with the utmost happiness. I love Guidoes. I would never consider that, like, from the outside, it doesn't feel like a slur to me, but it's not for me to say. I understand, but they are nightmares. And we will get into the controversy around that for sure. It's a very back and forth. But the fact that they unabashedly did use that word in the marketing,

the fact that we were talking about it just before the show started, the fact that rewatching it today, it's like, I think back when it was hugely popular, I didn't want to like it because of how popular it was, but I secretly did enjoy it. So you watched it too, Holden? Yeah, not like Jackie, not like religiously, but I definitely like gave it some time for sure

because it became this cultural phenomenon that I felt like I had to be tapped into it to a certain degree. But rewatching it now, I think a big part of me falling in love with it, it has to do with just how out of place and time it is compared to today. I'm like living a summer through them that we were robbed of this year. And also, and I'm not here to, I'm not trying to say, I think it should be this way anymore. I'm glad that we've evolved.

But there is something a little fun about how problematic, aggressive. All of them are. They're aggressive. They have so many emotions. It is purely like 100,000 or nothing at all. And also looking at this show, which is so smart, it is what they learned from the real world of taking a bunch of like ridiculous characters, putting them in a house,

not allowing them any phone calls, any, tell, like no cell phones. They couldn't talk to anybody. They didn't have a television. They couldn't watch movies. All they had to do was party. And that's it. Randomly work in a shop. And it seemed like that was such like a afterthought of the,

they're just like, we'll throw this in here in the mix to make the show interesting. And then immediately the most boring part of the show is them trying to work. And they just kind of like take it out of the, a lot of the storylines completely. It's weird because I think this started with the real world where every reality show on MTV, they had to have a day job.

It was given to them by the production. And that is so bizarre. Honestly, it couldn't have worked out better for the shore and for honestly their whole situation because every time I say situation too, it's gonna, I'm just going to be about the situation. But it did help their situation with the situation because they had all these catchphrases

and all this stuff and the whole point of the t-shirt shop was they printed catchphrases on clothing. So good, but then making money. By the time they get to Florence, that's all a setup. The pizza place they work in in Florence is actually, they are background actors put in there. It is a fake pizza place that they are working at just for the storyline.

I think just to get the footage of them hungover having to pretend like they're working. Well, yeah, I mean, I think at that point, they couldn't just have them working in a shop because people would know who they were. Right. And it would just be like a big tourist attraction. Right.

And then they would be swamped at all times. They wouldn't be able to get any footage taken of them because they honestly made this show not thinking it was going to be as huge as it is. And as someone that, so I used to watch the show with Holden's roommate at this time because I was their age. I was Snooki's age watching this show.

And I would watch it and just be like, that's me. That's going to be fucking me. I got the spirit of J-WW with the looks of Snooky. I'm getting out of the street. But all it did was to make me even more aggressive. Hang on, Jackie.

I'm going to say, Snooki is a very cute little doll person. She's a meatball. You've got, you're a beautiful woman. Thank you. Are you saying you wouldn't refer to me as a meatball because I almost am upset about that. I'm taking umbrage with your reference of yourself to Snoky's looks. Yeah, but then she says stuff like, I feel like a pilgrim from the fucking 1920s washing the clothes in the fucking sink after they spilled the haterade all over Sammy's white shirt.

I have so many quotes that I write You stalked my whole fucking life Oh my God With the Israelite that was following him The stalker Yeah I just saw the season three I just was watching the season three episode That Stucket gets arrested on

And she shows back up at the club And splashes a drink in Vinnie's face For no reason It was very fun Well you guys have taken me down this journey because I had never seen but one second of this show ever. How do you feel about being introduced in such a short time? Because I've been watching Jersey Shore for four days straight.

It is all my life has been. How do you feel being inundated with these beautiful specimens of humanity? I actually really grew to enjoy them. I like them as people. I was getting, like basically I was getting cold sweats from watching the first seasons. Just having flashbacks and anxiety attacks about how this was how I felt most of the time in my early 20s. Just that waking up like where your body's just vibrating and you don't know what to do and you just have to exist and get drunk again. And you're in the sun and you just find a bar that has a Long Island iced tea and you just start drinking again.

You got to just keep going. And that is what we watch Sammy Sweetheart. We watch Angelina. We watch Jay Wow. We watch the situation. We got Vinny, we got Snooky, we got Polly D, we got Ronnie. And eventually we have Dino who is actually, controversially, one of my favorite characters that comes in later on in Jersey Shore.

And I do need to tell you guys right now, all of the Jersey Shore is on Hulu. Yes, all of us. So you want to sit. Make yourself a margarita. Watch all of the Jersey Shore. Yeah. It was fun to also put on, well, I was just like folding laundry and stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, but doing anything. Breathing, eating, sleeping, it's on. I've been watching it like a psychopath. And I think it's been my escape because last week we went on a little vacation. We actually did go to the beach. We didn't go to the Jersey Shore. We went to Rockaway Beach. It was very nice.

And when I got back to the Jersey Shore, why didn't you go? I know. We should have. We should have. It's not dedicated. Yeah, I was not dedicated enough to the property. But I will say we, I get back and I'm like, oh, no, I have to do research all day. Lightweed, light weed, light weed.

Watch Jersey short. It's like helped me like ease back into the work week so well because I just was like stoned on the couch just loving life watching these shenanigans. It's fantastic. And I think another great thing about it and I think you're right now. Or I agree with you and that you end up growing to like these fucking animals. Yeah. And I think a lot of it has to do.

They're very entertaining. There's like a heart at the core of it, you know. It's the family. When you hear your family. They're a family. It's what I love about the idea. of a stereotypical Italian household. It's something I cherish.

It's something I love. I love the fact that they include that they bring in their families for different episodes where they're just like, the family's used to the fact that these kids party all the time. But they are going to come

and they're going to cook you a big meal and then they're going to bounce right back out, which is what a good Italian family does. Yeah, I'm not usually, usually I'm pretty like deterred from bro-siffs like that. I judge them. I do immediately by looking.

at them. As you should, as one probably should. And, you know, while they do say some interesting things on the show, they're all actually very sweet and likable. Unless you've got grenades in the hot tub

I mean, I ain't going around their dicks, that's for them sure. See, the problem is though, I mean, I've got to a confession alert, I have slept with these guys before. They weirdly do, even though maybe I guess I would be a grenade to them, but I, they love a girl that, I know this is stereotyping right now, but at least the guidos that I have slept with love a girl that loves to party, that loves to eat, that will

make them a breakfast in the morning, and that you never have to have an intelligent conversation with. You never have to get deep. It's great. It's only bad sex, which is, you know, delightful. I get it. I get it. Counting all the rosary tattoos on them. Then you're just like, well, Yeah, all right. Well, it's a choice. Before we get into the history, I wanted to say one more thing about why I think this show is so popular. We talked a little bit about how wonderful the show can be to watch right now, specifically in this timeline where we're at.

But also, I think this show is almost more fun to describe to people than it is to even watch. I was trying to describe to Jeff when the gorilla juice heads came out. And I was like, well, Jay Wow and Snooki call them gorilla juice heads. But when J. Wows is like, the gorillas are coming now. And she's just like shaking her no shirt tits around. It's like, good for them. And Jeff's like, that's horrible. If you saw someone like that now, you would stay far away from that person.

I was like, yeah, but when I was 21, I'd be like, that's the one I want to be friends with. Right, right. Did Jeff ever seen it? Jeff's never seen it before. Okay, cool. I assumed. Lexi was like immediately enraptured. She would just walk in and I would, I'd be.

like, oh, this is what's happening, and she'd just be, like, staring at it, like, laughing her ass off. I think all just being like, okay, so, it's a show about these people who get hammered on the beach, and there's this one guy who calls himself the situation, and he's always talking about how there's this situation. Like, that's just, it changed, like, a water cooler show. Like, Natalie just did a Wizard, two-parter on Twin Peaks, and we talked about that. Which is the opposite of this show.

The opposite of what this is. But kind of the same? That is a water cooler show in its own right, right? Because it's all about the mystery. It's like in the lost category of water cooler shows. Then there's like Seinfeld like, oh, this comedy that we can all relate to, water cooler show. Jersey Shore was like this, the first, and it paved the way for so many great reality shows,

like 90-day fiancee and the like, it is that water cooler show that's all about, like, did you see the circus last night? The circus was in town. There was a fire breather and like, you know what I mean? And it was, it's, it defined a whole genre of reality in my opinion. I'm telling you, Mike, I'm telling you, Mike, you come back to the hotel room, I'm going to slap you in the face, Mike. I'm going to slap you in the face.

Walks into the hotel room, bam, right in the face. She told him. She said she was going to do it. You would call it a water cooler show because they are all dehydrated all the time. They need water so badly. Watching them drink their haterade and making it, I was just like, please drink some water. Guys, you need. I can hear, but also something, which I don't feel it too often in watching a lot of stuff now,

but watching them get hammered and chaser. Sane smoke was given me like the Willys. I wanted a cigarette so badly. Oh, really? Not at all. I was triggered hardcore. I was getting the opposite where like or maybe like I was telling you guys in text. It was either I needed to run away from this or I just was going to fall in.

I want to forget about the world. I want to be in this. And I'll do this. I'll do this. I'll become this person. All right. Let's do a LPN reality show summer where we do the Jersey Shore but when we are in our early 40s. We're just all.

That's just, that's literally us getting way too drunk the first night, being hung over for three straight days and then deciding not to drink for the rest of the trip. That's what that is. That's what happened. Oh, now we're tripped above spring. Yeah. Hey, there were some mushrooms and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

We still get wild. We did play out. We did. By the way, that song, just to jump into, let's get into the nitty-gritty. That song is LMF-A-O. I did not know that. It gives me anxiety. It makes me crazy.

that song. Amazing. Let's get into it because this show started as a very different show before they settled on the idea of this beautiful perfect. It's a perfect art piece. It starts out as a competition show. By the way, just to paint the picture of where the landscape was, MTV's reality got really overproduced, got really like, it was about, you know, it was almost more

of a Kardashian thing with the hills, stuff like that. Right, because they had stopped really doing the real world. properly. Yeah, it was very scripted. Weird no man's land. And it's around that time when I had stopped watching reality shows, because it was like, well, this is just boring. It's just a bunch of, like, teeny boppers with fucking long, straight blonde hair.

I don't get to fuck. And it's written. It's like obviously written. Like, they didn't even try to make it seem not written at that point. It's just not reality anymore. And this is how they ended up bringing it back almost accidentally. Because originally it was for VH1, and there was a producer named Anthony Beltempo. who wanted to do a show focusing on the, quote,

Guido Lifestyle in the form of a competition series, which was initially all male. Doran Ofer, who is the casting director, said, I was casting my Antonio, the Antonio Sabato Jr. dating show on VH1. Who is Antonio Sabato Jr., by the way? Absolutely no idea. I think that's an 80s celebrity, I believe. Let's let's find out.

This is back when they were doing those weird celebrity-driven dating shows were super popular in VH1. It was a bizarre time in reality TV. Oh, he's been on the Bold and the Beautiful since 1987. Cool. Oh, so he's like a soap guy and an underwear model. He's hot as shit.

Oh, it's a panty model. Yeah, he does panties. So Doran Ofer said, while I was on set in Hawaii, Shelley Tatro, who was at the time the executive in charge over there, said to me, I have something really interesting. She shows me a stock footage tape called America's Biggest Guido. the origins of which I can't remember, it was hilarious. By the way, so many of these quotes come from this incredible oral history on Vulture,

and I have to give it a shout out. Many, many of these quotes. It was, I was so entertained by this oral history, and so I pulled a lot of stuff from that. Dina Cortez, the cast member, Dina. Meatball number two is what you're saying, yes. Back at the day, Aguido was an Italian guy that usually has spiky hair, tan, muscles. You could spot a Guidette from miles away. loud Italian girls with tan skin, hair poofs, animal prints, big sunglasses, and tight, skimpy dresses.

Honestly, that is mostly me except for the tan skin. I will say that. No, because so this is the whole point. So originally it was supposed to be only dudes, and they realized they wanted to change it up. They realized that they needed women if they wanted any drama. In fact, the casting director had said, girls entered the mix because I kept saying, look, the boys preen, you know, their peake. but the girls fight and that they do. I also love everything.

I kind of fell in a little deep, getting into the backstory of Sally Ann Salasano. Sally Ann Salasano, she worked on Howard Stern, she was an executive producer of the real world, she worked on a bunch of other reality shows. A shot of love or a shot at love with Tila Tequila, need us forget, the Tila tequila era of reality. Yikes.

That was a rock bottom, I'd say. So Tatra, who's the VH1 executive, right? She starts working with Sally Ann Solano because she has described herself. She says, I'm an Italian girl from Long Island. My dad worked in sanitation. Both of my parents drive Cadillacs. My dad wears a diamond-encrusted New York Yankee symbol around his neck. Doesn't get more Guido in my house.

She said that she spent several summers at the New Jersey Shore growing up saying, I was Snookie. woke up and was like, oh, that was a crazy night. That's just what you do. So she is a self-described guidette, who also happens to be a producer for reality shows. She is the one that is brought in, and she is the reason why the Jersey Shore became what it became. Because these producers were very hands-on. In fact, Sally Ann Salasano lived in the house for most of the seasons so that she herself could watch all of the cameras to,

to like keep an eye and all of them. She was kind of the mom and they trusted her because she's a part of the family. I think she just wanted to hang out on the show all summer. Which is like the best. Yeah.

It's like the Adam Sandler model where you just make a show where you want to hang out. That's why she realized from America's Biggest Guido, she's like, no, no. She's like, I've rented houses at the shore before.

She said, if you put a camera on one of those summer shares, now that's a show. She said that she even had the giant hair. She said she had the car with the pinstripe and my name inscribed in the door. Oh, my God.

The Italian horn that hung from the rearview mirror. And so she used to go to the Jersey Shore for the summer. So she knew these people. And she was so excited to give the opportunity to them. And I feel like, honestly, even though, and we will get into how Jersey feels about the Jersey Shore, about how Italian Americans feel about, the people on the Jersey Shore, spoiler alert, not happy about it.

Everybody's upset. But this is a woman that lived this life and wanted to show that also, I'm going, I apologize, but I'm going to keep using the word guido's. The guido culture and guidette culture is actually rife with heart and family, and at the end of the day, it's loyalty.

And how is that any different from, like, what you see in the godfather? How is that any different? I mean, it is that that is a part of Italian culture. And you're forgetting one key ingredient that was making me salivate while watching all this, those Sunday dinners and that delicious, The sausage and the peppers in the oven.

And it's something that I love. I love cooking for people. I love watching a manja. In fact, when Vinny's mother comes, and then Snooki was like, she was just like my mother. I see her, she's walking around. Everybody's eating.

She's staying in the whole time. And a good Italian woman, she eats after everybody else. You got to make sure everybody's full, and then she eats. Alone in the kitchen while she cleans it up. And I was like, you know what? Yes.

Unfortunately. I am not. I'll tell you. Unfortunately, it is what I thrive on. I love watching people eat the food I make fun. Oh, yeah, I get it. But now we've got to find these in the context of the show. I don't actually say this word normally, Guidos.

Yes, I think that we just give a blanket that we are going to continue saying the words Guidoes and Guides. In reference to the show, because they liberally use that. And also out of respect, because I really enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy, I'm saying this not in a mean way. So, Doran Ofer said, My job was to go and find them. Whoever was throwing fists in the dance circles at nightclubs were the people we were approaching.

Mike, the situation was the first cast. He was also featured in the original tape, so we already had an iconic archetype to build from. Mike Sorrentino, aka the situation, was at the time a failed fitness and underwear model. Sally Ann Salasano said, at the interview, situation walked in and was like,

okay, let me just take my shirt off first. I was like, what? I have never in my life met someone that felt more comfortable upon not knowing you. He's like, enough said, right? Just taking off his shirt and said, enough said, right? Having cast a million of these, we had never really seen anyone do that before. I love the line when he says, everybody loves me. Babies, dogs, you know, hot girls, cobras.

I just have unbelievable mass appeal. He also calls himself like the president of the house. He's such an asshole. Yeah, he's the worst. He's such an asshole. Nobody ever gave me a show when I took my top off. He's the iconic lovable asshole, though. There's something about him that is charming.

He's just, he's so funny. You know, all right, now we have a situation. It's like. I know, but it's also, it's the same dude that will say, like when Snooky says, oh, can I have another role? And he says, oh, what, yeah, I think you got enough already. And then all of them turn on him immediately. And then afterwards, when she says, oh,

She's crying about something. He goes up to her and just puts his arm around her and tells her how beautiful she is. That is a cycle of abuse. It is. However, for this show, she was in a relationship with, I don't even think anyone should be friends with him. And in fact, in the beginning of the show,

you can see how his cockiness changes over time. Yes, as somebody who normally I would be repulsed by that kind of character, I did like him. Yeah, it's weird, right? He's an appealing person in certain ways, yeah. It's hard to even understand why, because I feel the same way. I would never like a guy like that.

No. He's got a charm. And it's also, I think at the end of the day, as ridiculous or stupid or terrible as any of these people are, I think we love them at the end of day because we're watching real-ass people on a TV screen. And it's not, most of it is not scripted. It is just, they are being truly them.

They are definitely being vulnerable the whole time, which I think maybe is one of the appealing factors of it. It's not, they're not overly concerned about looking, a certain way in front of the cameras. They're just acting. They would be the same way if there wasn't cameras there. Right. And a lot of that came from.

I think people also want to live through them. I think I even have a quote later, so we'll get to it. But people want to live through them because they would just go out, make a bunch of mistakes, wake up the next day, laugh about it, and move on. And keep going. Massive shame and like, you know, there were tears and things like that and drama. Well, except with Angelina. They laughed it off and they laughed at each other's flaws and goof.

I kind of missed that though because we definitely had those times in our 20s when I just remember waking up on somebody's bed just being like oh fuck and I'm never going to think about that ever again just dripping with multiple people just come oh god there's a couple times where you just wake up in like the upper west side and you're in like I'm in my party dress from the night before and now people are go business people are going to work in the morning and I'm in the train heels and a mini dress just going oh I know those I know those I do Feel the shame, everybody. Don't worry. Next comes Nicole Polizzi, aka Snooki, who said, I saw an audition. Or Snickers or Snookums or whatever. I love how the whole first season they call her either Snookers or Snickers. No one calls her Snooky in the first season, and it's so funny. She said, I saw an audition posting on Facebook for a show called Guidos and Guidettes. I went there drunk because it was at a bar, and the rest is history.

She showed up drunk. And then she's doing cartwheels and flying. Man, she does full back hand spraying, man. Yeah, too a door no for said, Nicole showed up in a miniskirt and she literally did cartwheels and flips. She was extraordinary. Her application was smudged with fingerprints from her bronzer. To the point when I was like, what happened to her application?

What spilled on it? She just had bronzer all of it. She also did, by the way, all of these nicknames were fabricated for the most part. They just, they really wanted to push the nickname thing, which was very smart on their part at the end of the day. But she didn't really go by Snooki. There was, they just had, you know, they asked for nicknames on the application. And that was the one that one of her girlfriends used to call her.

So she ended up doing that. She actually kind of almost regretted it after. Yeah. And she did say that it was lightly based on, yeah, because it was based on the character and saved the last dance. Because she said that she was at a dance in high school and she was the first one to kiss a boy out of all of her friends. So that's why they chose Snooky as her character name. Now let's talk about DJ. Polly D.

A.k.a. Polly Del Vecchio. Polly D. Polly D. is the best. I love Polly D. And I unabashedly had started watching Double Shot at Love. I will, I watch almost anything with the minute. This is what MTV has created. This beautiful

world for us that I don't think I've ever actually talked to you guys about how much I enjoy the Jersey Shore. No, this is a shock to me. I had no idea. It's a bit of... I don't like saying the phrase guilty pleasure anymore, it is one of my pleasures. But for the long time it was a guilty pleasure for me

because I just love these characters so much. So this really dates this whole thing. He gets a message on MySpace from the production saying they liked his look which led to a call requesting to film a day in his life so he took them to the gym, the tanning session, and

the club. Dornover said what put Polly D. at the instant top of the list was that he owned his own tanning booth at his own house. A tanning A tanning booth is like $10,000. Who's saving up coins and then buying a tanning booth? Even Solzano said when I met Pauly Dee, I was like, this guy cannot be real.

I sent someone back to his house for a second time because I was like, there's no way he has a tanning bed in that house. And he did. And he even had an Italian flag on his ceiling and he had the tattoos and hair gel. He said, I've always lived the Guido lifestyle and looked at it as a positive. I was like, why are these people ragging on us? What did we do wrong? I never said I was representing anyone other than myself.

So I was mad. Now I want to send all the offended group champagne. This is him talking about the people that are upset about what they're saying about Italian Americans. And he said, I want to send all of them champagne because people started watching just to see what the controversy was. Now I thank them for the ratings. Totally. He's also, he has such a baby face, but he was the oldest one in the house. He was almost 30 in the first season. Oh, especially, oh, I didn't read this part of the applications where they said, they needed you to be over 21 and look like you're under the age of 30, which is,

yeah, he was, I think he was potentially the funniest one in the house, too. He just had really good timing, really just, I just, like, somebody was making fun of somebody for asking about, like, the girl asked him about, like, their shirt. He was like, what should I wear? What should I wear? It's like, I don't know, I'm a DJ. I don't know what I'm a teacher And also just, oh my God, when Angelina shows up at the house He's like, yeah, you know, I made out with her, we were in Vegas And he just openly, and then he's like, well, I'm not, no, I don't want anything to do with her

Just kind of immediately dropped. They, no, nobody wanted Angelina there. I do want to talk about quick in the middle of all of this, the Guido that could have been Because I love his name, there was a dude that was up for the show that originally was cast named Joey Fist Pumps. And apparently he was the one of those. Given name? He was one of those people that would fist pump on a dance floor and throw down in a dance circle of six dudes.

He had arms that were tremendous. But he was a union contractor, so he couldn't do the show. Now you've got Angelina Pivernik, the one that nobody wanted. She was just going through a breakup and was forced out to the club by her friends. Pevernick said, we're in this club and I feel some girl tapping me on the shoulder. She goes, listen, I've been watching you for. for half an hour, and I think you're amazing. I want to interview you for something, and that's how it went from there.

This makes so much sense, and it made, like, so a producer was asked, an unnamed producer, was asked, who was the worst to work with in the show? And they were like, everybody was amazing. Honestly, everyone was so good, except for Angelina. The producer said Angelina would routinely alienate herself from the others when they were issues, when there were no issues. It really came across as condescending. Many times the roommates would reach out to her and try to give her helpful advice, and she wouldn't take it.

In fact, she would do the opposite of it to get a reaction and basically tell everyone to go fuck yourself, including the cast, including the crew and all of the producers. So when this unnamed producer was asked, so why were her edits just made to look like she was the biggest bitch ever? and the producer said, Angelina didn't get the best edit. Not that there was a lot of good to show, but most of her edit was negative and dramatic. For anyone who wants to be on a reality television show, always be kind to the production.

I can't tell you how many shows will give a person a raw edit only because there were a pain in the ass to work with. Because it's like, yeah, be nice. Or also going to paint you in the worst life possible. By the way, that's true with films. That's true with... Yeah, be nice.

To the production. company, they're the ones who are doing all of this so you can be drunk strut around in front of a camera like an asshole. Yes. Ginny Farley, aka Jowell, was working at a nightclub in Long Island at the time, and VH1 was casting a show called Paris Hilton's My New BFF that that her friend wanted to be on. So she tried out for it with the friend at her own club, and they called her a couple of weeks after that and offered her a spot on the number one Guido show. So many different names with the word Guido in it. Guido. I forgot about that.

I forgot about that Ferris Hilden reality show. That must have been right after the simple life. Yeah, yeah. But also the VH1 split, right? Like, we're about to get into them moving it over to MTV

because it was definitely more of an MTV thing at the end of the day. And she got her nickname because an MC friend of hers would always say, wow, into the mic when she walked by to mess with her. So she went with that on the application.

Jay, wow. She also is a graphic designer. she has two college degrees. And her big dream was to work for Disney as an animator. But eventually, thanks to this, she got enough money that she was able to open up her own graphic design business. I felt a little bit more like she had, even though she's a little nut,

she was grounded in a different way than some of the other girls. So it doesn't really surprise me she has some school. Yeah, she was like, she has a bit of a physical violence problem, but I think in terms of like stability, in terms of that sense you were correct. The first night they go out in the second season and Angelina is just bop, pop, pop, in the back and she just turns around.

She's like, you want to go outside of the cab? You want to go outside of the cab? Is that what you want to do right now? Because I'll go outside of the cat. She's scary. She scares me. But then later on, she's nice to her again, which, you know, is part of the, I guess, appeal of the show.

She's like, what? Now you're friends again? I don't understand. Ronnie Ortiz Magro said, I had a shorehouse with my friends already in Belmar. I was out one night doing whatever I do, I guess being a creep, if you want to say. And a lady approached me.

She was like, listen, you fit the criteria of somebody that were casting for a show. Would you like to try out? Then I did a video audition. Of course, I acted like a complete crazy person, took my shirt off, fist pumped, you know, what we do best, acting like maniacs. Throwing this out there, Ronnie is by far my least favorite on the show.

Especially with everything that happens afterwards. The Miami stuff. I don't know about afterwards. He's bad news. He's a bad news. He was in a violent relationship. I know that it went both ways, but still, she's much smaller than you.

It is just a whole, he's not a good dude, and I hate how we acts to Sammy, sweetheart. Obviously, yes. Well, yeah. Does he, is he roided out? Must be.

Must be. He seems like he might be roided. Oh, yeah. Roided up. Roided up. I mean, they do GTL every day, baby, they detail. every day.

Vinnie Guadagnino. I actually had, this is him saying speaking, I actually had a friend as a joke, send me the application for him. They were looking for big muscular guidos with spiky hair. I wasn't like that. I filled it out like,

listen, I like to go to the Jersey Shore, but I don't look like your typical guido. Then I got a call back a year later. They were like, hey, remember you filled that thing out? I'm like, what thing? Next thing you know, I was in the house with those crazy people. Because they all found out the night

before they started shooting. that they got the show and they had to show up. So that's like with Angelina, you mean trash bags. When she shows up with the trash bags, because she just, they found out literally the night before that they had to leave the next morning to become a part of the show. And she shows up with all her clothes in garbage bags

and the first trash bags. If I found that out, I would still have luggage to put my clothes in, but still. Yes, for sure. And maybe she just assumed that they wouldn't show that part. I love Vinnie the most. He says, I don't give a fuck of you fat. you ugly, you're 45 years old, I'll dance with you.

It's hilarious. You know what I mean? But after that episode, he got pink eye. Yeah, he got the big guy. He got the pink guy. He believes her pussy. But it's also very, it's hard because he says that and they're showing footage of him dancing with an older woman.

And they're like saying, I don't care if you're fat and you're ugly and you're gross. And it's like showing this woman just dancing with him. Not even blurring her face out or anything. But then there's like the moment. It was just what in season two when Snooki comes out she's got this hot little dress on her hair's all done up She looks great and Vinny's just like looking at her and he's like wow and she's like what you want to smush and He's just like no I ain't saying that I'm just saying like girl you look really good right now and she's like You're hot too and then just like walked away and that was the same night that she just goes and sleeps in his bed again

This is another thing that even just 11 years ago. It's like Snoopy you're so crazy but now is seemed as very, it should have been seen as inappropriate then. I mean, he keeps going, no, no, no, I don't want to drag her out of the roof. And then he went to sleep and she just goes in his bed. It's basically like, give me a dick. Give me a dick. I want to just give it over here. I want.

And he's just like, no, stop it. Stop it. But then, you know, at the time, he's just kind of going, what am I going? And like the talking head, what am I going to do? You got to go for it if it's there. But then she's so drunk and then my thing went soft, you know. I just, I, it is hard as someone that, like, at this point in time, I had never seen, I didn't go that far because honestly, I'll throw it out there. It was never really exactly that desperate.

Or if I was, it was never shown. I do, I'd never seen someone be an aggressor, a woman aggressing sexually like that. And, like, because they do it lightly. of course there's, you know, I felt that way about sex in the city, and I'd never seen it then, but then to see it in a reality show where it actually made me reevaluate my life and just be like, oh, that looks bad, girl. Don't do that. Yeah, see, they're doing a service to the community by saying, these are the things you should never do. It helped me. Being female who's sexually aggressive is not a bad thing, but remember everyone, no matter your sex or your identity, if the other person,

person says no, it means no. It means no. It must leave. It means no. Now I do want to throw it out there that we must talk about Dina blast in a glass Cortezzi, who is the opposite of Angelina, according to the producers. Apparently Dina was the most fun to work with. They said my favorite was Dina because she was low maintenance and just so grateful to be there. So she refers to herself as a blast in a glass, which I definitely tried to get caught on for me, but it never actually did because that just means you're the life of the party. This show coined so many terms that lasted for such a long time. And I'm kind of sad, maybe, I mean, I know Urban Dictionary still has blast in a glass because of Dina. But I do, I think that all of these, you know, GTL, I never heard that before. That's something that they made up that is still a big part of the vernacular. You got to bring it back for everyone, Jackie. I'm here. I'm blasting a glass. Gtel T-shirt time. Who likes T-shirt time. I think 2021. Let's get into them actually getting to the jersey.

Should I do meatball 2021? You should. Or do mature shore. Oh, yeah. So it was the president of programming at MTV and VH1, Brian Graydon, who gave the show the Greenlight, but he also ends up moving it to MTV. He wants to make the show a bit younger.

And up until that time, as we mentioned before, the reality, it was the hills, it was Laguna Beach, it was way over-produced, it was the beautiful and the rich. This was going to bring it to something completely different. I love this quote. This is like one of the... the more memorable quotes from oral history people describing the show. Sely Ann said

look, it was like zebras in the Serengeti. We wanted to see this in action. So that's why they decide to take it to the Jersey Shore for the summer. And they really were that apparently in the move from VH1 to MTV, that MTV was really looking for something that was going to

make a little bit of noise. So at this point in time they changed the name from Guidos to Jersey Shore about a month before it aired. That's probably good. That was going to hit the scene and explode and become also controversial, which it was. They showed a full-grown man punching a woman in the face. And that episode, again, he sure did.

Punch her around the world. That episode changed everything and when watching all of them jump. That is, I know that I shouldn't ever condone violence, but part of me as someone that always wanted to either marry someone in the mob or. marry Aguito. I love that part of it. I love it. I mean, I think you're allowed.

He punched a woman in the face. It's okay to watch him. You should have the shit beaten out of him. I know for an eye makes the whole world blind. But that's fine sometimes. And a tiny woman, I should say. I should also say if, you know, it's maybe different if the sides are equal and they're both thrown punches.

But she's like four foot nine. She's just so small and he was just so big. He was massive. No one should hit anybody. Yeah. Yeah. So more on the snooky punch coming, but going back to just kind of laying out the land, Seaside Heights is in Ocean City, New Jersey.

It has a population of roughly 3,000. This expands to 60,000 people in the summer. That is ridiculous. And that's before Jersey Shore, the show took the whole town by storm, which again changes things for them. The production sets out to find a six-bedroom home via Michael Loundy of Seaside Realty, through whom they get in touch with Danny Merck, the owner of the Shore store and the Jersey Shore House, which they end up using after two months of interviews and inspections.

Sally and Salasano said, our art director went out and goes, I saw this duck phone. So it's so ridiculous. I said, we cannot leave that in the house. It doesn't make sense. Then the show started it. I'm like, oh my God,

we left the duck phone in there. Now the duck phone is the national symbol of Jersey Shore. I love the duck. Quack, when they're all trying to hung over. It's like the first episode when Snooki gets too drunk and everyone leaves her at the house and one of her lines is, the hell is this duck phone or who gets a duck phone? And it just, it just immediately cemented it as this mainstay thing that was so funny. That's funny. It was an accident because it seems like that would be a purposeful thing just to watch these people

try to figure out this like outdated technology. Dog phone. They weren't even allowed papers and Pends. Isn't that insane? What are they going to do? Write a memoir? Is that insane? They couldn't write notes to each other because they wanted everything to be caught on camera. Yeah, it was so totally bizarre to the way that they just like, they met up, they went to a hotel in Jersey.

They hand over their cell phone, their credit card, their ID, their wallet, and keys to their car. Two days later, they're given directions to the house as well as a five-month time commitment. Boom. That's it. The show starts. That sounds nuts to me. Unless they weren't chosen, by the way. If they weren't chosen, two days later they were sent home.

There was one guy who was deemed a little too old once it switched to MTV. I know that was the situation. Vinny said, I felt... But not the situation. But not the situation. Vinny said, I felt like an alien landing in Guido land. I'm from Staten Island. I grew up around those people.

But at the same time, I was like, wait, do they still exist? That whole fad was a couple years before that. Lo and behold, I walk in and I see Polly D with his giant blowout. And I'm like, they found the last Guiard. know the remains in this century. This is going to be a long summer. He ended up being my best friend, ironically. I love their little love.

Their friendship's great. Their friendship's awesome. Now we get into the shooting. Sallian Salasano said the sheer amount of footage we shot for this show is unprecedented. There were 42 cameras inside the house. Inside the shore store. On the boardwalk, in seaside. We had them up and down the boardwalk, down to the Ferris wheel.

We literally wired the entire town. Later, in both Miami and Italy, I was able to live in the house, like Jackie mentioned before. We would treat the cameras like baby monitors. If it was quiet, you ran upstairs and went to sleep. The minute you heard them chirping, you ran back downstairs. And they almost essentially, which is nuts, because the show hit off so quickly that the shooting of every season was almost back to back.

And so this is like four years of their life that was just like, you know, we're. where they just had to party, party, party, be on camera, be on camera, be on camera. That no wonder their life is going to immediately change, but also they're in a weird bubble of time where, like, I guess we'll just keep partying? I mean, being a reality star is never good for anybody's life. It's meant to, you're giving your life over, you're feeding yourself to the lions to be fodder for people. But, you know, sometimes you get out of it and you get a book deal or something. Yeah.

Which I think a lot of them were able to turn it into something lucrative. Oh, totally. And yeah, I guess that's because the first season is that summer. And then the second season is the winter. In the winter when they go to Miami. So they go to Miami. Yeah. I love Jersey, but it's freezing here.

So we're going to get down the way. Oh, it's so cold here. So at first the production was worried because they didn't have that they didn't have a show because these four guys, they were doing the same thing every day. Eventually, this became GtL on the whiteboard that they used for production purposes. and that of course stands for Jim Tan Laundry. Lori Vogel, owner of Simply Son Tanning, said, we would have somebody in, I would say, almost every day.

Typically, they tan like 10 to 12 minutes. Luckily, when they were filming, it was summer, and summer is always a bit slower for a tanning salon. Because you'd think that they would go outside, they're living on the shore, but if you also notice, they usually sleep through most of the day. Wake up, tan, you know, they go to the gym,

they do their laundry and then at that point the sun's going down. It's time to pregame. And they gotta start pregame. Yeah, yeah. They gotta get the pregame. I've also had this life before mine is the gym part of it and the tanning part of it. Yeah, mine's the tanning part of it. So one of the most eye-opening facts to me is that they made

absolutely no money from the first season. Literally no money from MTV. MTV doesn't pay people ever. All they got money for was working at the store, the Shore store. Vinnie said, me and Ronnie the first week we told production, listen, I think we have to leave. We don't have any money. I just

graduated college. I didn't have a job. Ronnie was doing real estate at the time, so he was making real estate calls on the duck phone. They would say, hey, do you consent to being recorded? I'm on a TV show. And then we'd go into a spiel about some deal he's doing. One night they paid us to promote at Club Karma. I think they gave us like

$500. At the time, if you handed me $500, that was like handing me a million dollars. I was good for the rest of the summer. Oh, I feel that. I also feel that because this is also a time where even Snooki said it felt like they were in jail because they couldn't even leave the house without telling the crew an hour before so that the crew could get together and follow them. They weren't allowed to leave. I mean, they took all their personal property.

And it's also why it makes a lot more sense like when they're in the AC and J.WOW was puking in the bathroom and she comes out and she's like, I got to go, situation, come on. And he was in the middle of making out with somebody. and it's because they weren't allowed to also leave by themselves. They had to leave with at least one other person or else it was a waste of the crew's time to go and follow. They didn't have enough people to follow them individually so they had to move as a unit or at least in small groups. That makes a lot more.

So it makes me dislike her less in that moment. I was like, why do you need to her walking into the room? No, she wasn't allowed to leave. And so that's why she gets so upset. Because honestly, if I'm puking in a bathroom and I can't go because you're making out with someone. You better stop making out with that person. Time to go back to the room.

You can see each other tomorrow. And I feel like if I was that drunk, I probably would be a bitch about it. Oh, yeah. Danny Merck did really enjoy Jay Wow at the Shore store, by the way. She was a fantastic upseller. He said she'd bully people to buying things. Jay Wow said, I'm a daughter of a used car salesman.

I honestly would not let customers check out unless they bought a shot glass for $5. I gave no options. I love her. I know that she's very severe, but I really do. I love her. Oh, my God.

I just a wish, oh, my God, right after the Vinny and the Snooki interaction that I brought up earlier, that's exactly when J-Wow comes out and he goes, Jenny, I think you forgot your shirt, because it was just a strip of fabric over her nipples.

Right, right. And then they all high-five each other. It's just such a fun. As someone that hangs out with boys a lot, it's very funny, that they didn't see them as fuckable objects. Well, except for you wrong.

One of my favorite moments that I think defines like why people love the show so much was situations outside with this girl after they were like hanging out at the house. And he's like telling her goodbye. He's trying to be kind of sweet with her, you know, saying he's going to call this. She's like, I know about you.

Okay. I've heard about you. He's like, what do you mean? What do you mean? He looks all concerned. And then he walks into Polly D's like, hey, they've been talking about us. They're saying we're hooking up with everybody on the shore.

And they're like, high five. They're so happy about their terrible reputation. And it may just, it's like, God, if only I could live life that way. Like, I'm not worried. I'm like happy people are talking shit about me. Like, it's so good. So, they bring four stranger girls to the house and they're all nude immediately. The first 20 minutes of the show.

Hello. All right. So let's walk through an evening of partying, shall we? They had it. They had an approach. they had a situation. Snunky said we would start pre-gaming at 930, 10, so we'd all have a good buzz on for the club.

Polly said, T-shirt time was probably around 10.30. That means everybody put your T-shirts on because we're about to go out. I'm so glad he explained to us because how else? What does T-shirt time mean? The situation said it's the whole outfit. Hopefully brand-new jeans or press jeans, brand-new shoes, brand-new socks,

brand-new underwear, and a matching belt. and the shirt has to be cool looking. Whether it's a cool color or a cool phrase, everything has to work together. Oh my God, and all the like Ed Hardy stuff that they would wear. Everything's bedazzled. But that's why I'm kind of into it though.

And that's why I had such a weakness for someone that wore way too much cologne that had way too much product in their hair. Because you know what? Most of them were built like they were etched out of stone, which is also not really my type. But there's just something intoxicating about them. Jowell said,

I'm pretty sure we destroyed the ozone layer with the amount of hairspray and aerosol cans we used on a daily basis. Actually, I'm surprised I didn't get bronchitis because we never opened a window. We all had to have spray tans, layers of hairspray, thin eyebrows. It was at least two or three hours

because of the rotation of the bathroom. It was insane. And there would even be bronzer handprints all over the house. They used so much of it. You would just see it. it everywhere. It's just so good. It's so foreign to me as a lifestyle. I don't, I don't understand it. I'm sorry, Daggie. I don't. I wish that I could live nestled in that world, but I think

it's for the best that I don't. I think maybe it's just because my Irish blood is rejected by the Italians. I get it. I mean, you'll even look, it's like, you know, Snooki is actually Chilean. And I think that's part of the reason why the fake tan looks so weird on her. It's like, girl, you already naturally have beautiful olive skin. Just lean into that. You don't need the tan on top.

I don't know why she doesn't. It looks so faint. It looks so faint. I get it to look and everything. For sure. But the fact that you are just like getting bronzer on everything you touch, isn't that a little bit of annoying? Did you not see I guess in living in Florida

I also used bronzer fairly often Oh really? Oh yeah But the problem is that you It's you sweat it off Especially if you're getting it I would just get it at like a Walgreens or a Walmart And you have to put it on so your hands are always orange And then your legs are streaky orange

Because you're gonna sweat And so then you just see the line of my pale leg You can't get Walgreens Bronzer You can't you got to to get it done professionally, but I was too nervous about going in and taking my clothes off. And in my brain, I thought that I couldn't fit in a tanning fair. You already have such a nice complexion, though. See, this is what you think, but then you look out and you see everybody else is so tan.

I'm like, I want to be tan. I'm not bronze enough. I'm not bronze enough. Polly Dee said the blowout process is kind of wild. It has to be straight from the shower. Your hair has to be clean. I blow dry it and I use a pick and I pick it up, almost like an afro. My hair's really thick.

And then I put in the product. The product's so strong. It's like Elmer's glue. I put it all through my hair. Spray it, blow dry it again. And then I use the pick to get those spikes perfecting. It takes forever. It's like 25 minutes.

It's not like a fro. It's like a mushroom cap. Yeah, it's hard to the touch, usually. I don't know how to explain that shape. It's a geography shape. Yeah. It's a geography. I feel like it's a mouth.

Oh, my God. I just say a geography shape. It's a geography shape. Oh, my God. You watch too much Jersey Shore. Oh, no. So they would always give the club about a 20 minute heads up before they got there, and they were always hammered.

J.O.L. said, back in the day, I would drink like four Long Island iced teas and be cross-eyed, and then five or six shots on top, lemon drops. I'd just be completely nauseous and hugging the toilet for eight hours. The shots. We drank a ton. I don't even know how we're alive. I will say that I've said that about my own experience in my 19-20s. In my 20s, I also look back and I don't know how I survived.

Oh, same. Same Zies. And even they said, you know, back again to the fact that they weren't allowed to do anything else, the only thing that they could do was party. But the pre-partying always started at 9.30, even if they partied all day long. And that is impressive. Yeah. And it's a thing that in your early 20s, you just never understand.

You don't have to do shots if you're drinking all night. You'll get drunk over the course of the night. There's absolutely no reason to do for shots. Yeah, but you want to get immediately there. Yeah. For sure. You want to black out as early as possible. You take the party as far as it can go.

You also had, of course, the catchphrases that I think became again, going back to like how much fun it was just to explain to other people. I remember the first time someone explained what a grenade was to me and I definitely laughed about it. Grenade, of course, being the friend that the girl brings, that your buddy has to be a wingman on, has to jump on their grenade. Pauli D. said, the reason we call her a grenade is because she always blows up at the end of the night. They're always like, I don't have anybody to meet, so I want to go home. I don't know how much it could fly anymore.

You better be careful nowadays on television because people are more sensitive. Yes, they're more sensitive. Growing up, I do, I love the, there was an episode when they're all, they were having their MVP night, their Mike Vinnie Pauli night. They had an MVP night and they're all in the hot tub. And then, and then Mike was just like, and the situation was like, like I put water on my face and all of a sudden you realize, oh my God, we're in the hot tub with all grenades. And then you hear this like sound effect.

I got, like, I got to let him know because they were all so drunk. They didn't realize they were with grenades. And you can't even see these girls are sloppy. Sloppy. Because I, and I will say on behalf of MTV, which I was fairly surprised about, was that they did ID every person that came into that house. They made sure that everyone knew that they were being on, that they were being filmed, no matter how drunk they were. They would still take it. And they had like the official like swipe to make sure that the license was real.

And they would not allow them in if they were under the age of 21. And I do appreciate that. Well, yeah, they better. Especially because the situation was always trying to go after fucking 16. Oh my God. Oh, what was it? Snooker, J. I was like, that girl, no, uh-uh.

You're going to jail. No. And he's like, yeah, but she's got the ass of an 18-year-old. I was like, oh. Also, if they were too drunk, they would ask people to leave. Yes, and I do, I do, I will say I appreciate that, but I do also imagine that that's probably why they kept kind of like fucking each other as well as someone that has definitely done that in the past with a roommate of like, well, I got nobody else, you want to fuck?

I never said the word smush though, and I tried to use the word smush in a sexy way to jab the other night. It's so gross. No, no, no, you're not going to say that. The term grenade is really weird for me because in my high school there was a unique girl who would fart really loud and then scream grenade. So it has a very different meaning for me. I imagine those grenades might do that. That's true.

That's true. That's very true. Some of my other favorite lingo from Jersey Shore, I love Bush Queen, which is one who spends all of her time in shrubbery. The line from Snooki is, honestly, who hides in a bush? Only me. I'll pee in a bush. I'll poop in a bush.

And I will hide in a bush. There's also the Jersey turnpike, which is a dance move in which one jams his slash her rear end against a man's crotch and then bends over. For example, Dina's crazy in the club. She jersey turnpikes all night long. She'll bend down real gut low and she sticks her ass right in between my legs, is what Polly D said. We've got meatballs. We've got meatball power, which is the power of Dina and Snooky together.

I think another one of my favorite terms that I did say for a while, and the thing I want to bring back is slopopotamus. Matches. A mixture of a slop tart who is a woman who is drunk and sloppy and down to fuck. And a combination and a hippopotamus. And because the situation referred to Dina as a slopopotomous, and actually she enjoyed it. Dina's interesting.

Dina's fun. I love how he tried to get a threesome with Snooki and Dina. And he was like... It was like... And then Stokey, like, snuck out because he was just trying to get her friend laid. And he was like, it went from a threesome to a D-sum. No, he said it's terrible. He said, oh, I was trying to have a threesome with them.

And then when Snokey left, it was like having chicken with salt and pepper. And then the chicken leaves and you just got salt pepper in bed. That's the same episode. Oh, that's kind of sweet. No, it's mean. With the grenade lingo, too, one of my favorites was this chick brought two girls over what was like unattractive and the other was like very unattractive who was like

yeah she brought a grenade and a grenade launch up it's like so my god and I know it's problematic it's so horrible but so funny I mean the girls and the guys are both saying all this shit it's just also so funny when they bring home the grenades and then they go and they're like we gotta get rid

of some of these grenades Snucky we need you to come out and she comes out she's like you bitch has got got to go she doesn't say you gotta go she just doesn't even try to find an easy way to get them out of the house, just comes out, says, you bitch is got to go, screams at them all the way to the curb. They get into a fight. She gets punched again.

She gets punched again. Vinny's like she got to take some boxing lessons of something. She just keeps taking it to the face. So funny. Going back to getting late and going back to Vinny, Vinny said the first season I didn't get late at all. I kissed one or two girls. That was the extent of it.

Then obviously it went anywhere from 20 to 30, 20 to 40. Apparently there was a smush room and it was, quote, absolutely disgusting, according to Polly D. Yeah. Yeah, and then of course there's the epic romance of Sammy and Ronnie. I love Dorn Ofer, her description of it. They became the most organic, volatile duo, I think, in the history of reality television. Yeah, pretty much.

They were a horrible, they should not have been together. They were a horrible to each other. And I don't love Sam. I'm going to continue to watch the show. after this episode because I'm in it to win it. Oh yeah, no, I want to go through all of it. Because I didn't even get to all the spinoffs. Does Sammy become more likable?

Because she's like a villain in season three. I mean, yeah, she does. But she's also just kind of a, I think part of what they enjoy about each other is that they are openly. She's just openly a bitch. And it kind of, I definitely respect someone. I wish that they wouldn't be, but I understand if someone's like, I am a bitch. And that is who I am. I'm not going to play around with you.

I'm just going to be openly a bitch. Now, after season one, they did have to give, like the production crew had to give some help in bringing girls in because they kind of had to vet people before they could, even before they got too hammered to come in the house. So someone on the production crew said, when I worked in the field, we had to go out to malls, restaurants, cafes, we'd find girls, then invite them back to the nightclubs that evening with a VIP pass. because then they could get them to sign film release documents before they got to drunk. Weirdly enough, I also kind of respect that. Also, it sounds like the beginning of a hostile movie. Yes, but they were very open with what they were doing, at least. You know, they, and then these girls were to arrive at the club.

They direct them to interact with the cast, and then everything would happen from there. And a lot of the production even said that they felt like they were glorified club promoters. because the girls in the show were quicker to rebuff people. He said, hell, they would even shoe away girls that just wanted to talk to them. So the girls were the ones keeping away of their girls, but they're trying desperate. They're like, no, no, no, we brought, we imported these women

to be on this episode. You need, stop getting rid of them. So let's talk a bit about the controversy. The show, of course, proves to be quite controversial, especially in the very first season. And Italian American organizations took, I'm going to use that word again, Natalie Umbrance, with the way the show was marketed, particularly with the liberal use of the word guido to describe the cast, which is generally regarded as an ethnic slur for Italian or Italian

Americans. One advertisement stated that, quote, this is an ad for the show. The show exposes one of the tri-state area's most misunderstood species, the Guido. Yes, they really do. That's a little. That's a bit dehumanizing. That's a little far. The Italian American org Unico National even formally requested that MTV canceled a show

with MTV responding in a press release that, quote, the Italian American cast takes pride in their ethnicity. We understand that this show is not intended for every audience and depicts just one aspect of youth culture. And then, of course, you've got Snooki being Chilean, but she was adopted by Italian-American parents. J-Wao is of Irish and Spanish descent. Ronnie, Sammy, and Angelina are only partially Italian descent.

Vinny said, I was getting a little irritated because I was pretty much the only one who was first generation Italian in the house. My family is straight off the boat from Sicily. They're not offended. If we went to Italy right now, real Italian people wouldn't be like, oh, they're giving Italians a bad name. They'd be like, look at these stupid Americans. Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, yeah. And that's why, but that's also why New Jersey had a problem because they felt like they were giving, that they were being very disrespectful to just people that lived in New Jersey. And I You know what Jersey Shore is a different world The shore is different than Jersey The shore sales too went up 20%

Everybody was killing it on the shore Because of this show Their business was banging I mean of course Especially in the third season When they returned It was like a tour It was like a theme park for the show

There were just tons of people Showing up in droves To watch the cast To go to the shirt shop You know I mean Also I mean Look I'm not trying to trash Jersey

But there, it's not like they had this sparkling reputation before the show. Like, get off your high horse. And even down to the, up to the New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said Jersey Shore gave the state a bad name. How about Chris Christie gives the state a bad name? Right. We're not going to get into that. He said noted that many of the cast members were actually from New York. He told Governor Cuomo to take them back.

What was, Snooky's response? Snooky's response was, dude, you're a politician. You should be doing something else. besides fighting with a reality star, he hated us, which mind boggles us because we made millions of dollars for seaside. Seriously. Yep, that's what I'm saying. They did. They did.

And after the first episode aired, several sponsors requested to not have ads run during the run of the show. And then Domino's was the first, also Dell, an American family insurance, among others. Oh my God, we have to talk about the fituation, though, because I think that that is the funniest way to describe this, that the situation was paid $10,000 by Abercrombie and Fitch to not wear their clothing on the show. Amazing.

Evercrombie and Fitch is very picky about their brand image and the CEO Mike Jeffries has gone as far, which also I'm against Abercrombie Fitch, so I'm fine with this, has gone as far as to say that fat or ugly people shouldn't wear Abercrombian Fitch clothing and that it's supposed to be for the cool kids. Have you seen a picture of that guy? Also, the kids who wore Abercrombie and Fish at my high school were the most horrible, mean-spirited, like, evil people. But then that's why I think it's so funny because the situation was like, they even made shirts called The Fituation and they made GTL shirts. And the situation was like, I'm going to wear these shirts.

And then they were like, okay, we will pay you $10,000 to not wear the shirts. And it's like, all right. Which is great. Oh, man, I'd love to be paid not to use a product. Right, sure. especially a shitty fucking company Great. So then of course the other big controversy, Snooky getting punched by the

dude at the bar one night. Snuggie said, even though this is attributed with the whole house coming together, this is actually the unifying moment. This is like that big bang of them becoming a family. Snuggie said, I remember ordering shots for the roomies. The guy was so drunk he kept taking the drinks we were ordering.

I just yelled at him and right when I did, he punched me. I was like, oh, that's cool. I think I just died. I think I just died. And also I find it interesting on the holos, and it does make a lot more sense. They have edited out the actual punch because I remember watching it, and they showed the punch. They showed it only once. They showed it in the teaser at the end of episode two. And it was actually Snooki's parents who stepped in and said, hey, we don't want you showing the fucking actual punch.

And so they edited around that for the rest of it. I don't think I've ever actually seen it. He was a teacher. You can see it. You can see it. It's out. I watched it several times. Yes. And he was a teacher.

and he got fired. Why would, not only, why would you ever start a fight with anybody, but there are clearly cameras around, you drunk fuck,

and you are a teacher. Sounds like he's a... You idiot. He has a drinking solution. He had something. So now, after season one, the whole cast is blindsided by this newfound fan.

For just, just one example of, of how they took over the zeitgeist of American culture after season one. Barbara Walters puts them on her most,

fascinating people list of 2010, Snuggie said, we went to LA for press during season one. None of us went to the West Coast before. And then going out that night, we were hanging out with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lindsay Lohan. All the celebrities were coming up to us. I love your show. Saying GTL, having shots with us, that's when we knew our show was a big deal. Because even celebrities knew who we were.

Yeah, even Snooky had said at the MTV Video Music Awards, Beyonce came up to them and kissed us on the cheeks and said, I love your show. like, I can retire now. Oh my god, that would be amazing. That's, and that, that Leonardo DiCaprio was like quoting their lines to them when they were hanging out. And, and even Vinnie said, he raised his glass and tipped it to me like he does with the great cats. Oh, shit. We're just regular dumb kids from the East Coast in the blink of an eye. We're hanging out with Leo. It was awesome. I laughed out loud typing this out. I'd read this before, but actually typing it to my notes, maybe actually scream at laughter during the

working on this show. It became the number one show in Asia where it was called Macaroni Rascals. I will also, Ellen is what, the dancing lady in China, I think,

something like that. Oh, so funny. Macaroni Rascals. So when they returned to the Jersey Shore for season three, they had anywhere from

1,000 to 3,000 people following them around everywhere. J.Wal said, we never felt like we were celebrities. We were just being us. I know J.

well. That's why we like the show so much. That's why we love you so much. And this is also, they started this, I believe, in the second season, which was the STD Clause. That according to the Daily Mail, the producers encouraged cast members to sleep with each other and other people, but they had to keep themselves safe. So the cast all had to sign contracts that made it clear that the network was not responsible for anything that happened after hooking up, specifically things like contracting STDs. Apparently, the contract reportedly signed. stated that any CD that might be contracted was not their responsibility,

and the network could not be blamed or sued for anything to do with them. And Solano had referred to the show as a herpes nest. And during a roundtable discussion about the production reality show, Salasano revealed that she handed out herpes medication Valtrex like M&M's.

Wow, that is a lot of personal information. A herpes nest. The T-shirt store at this point is making a mint on shirts, by the way, that read, yeah, buddy, come at me, bro. T-shirt time and don't fall in love at the Jersey Shore. Don't fall in love at the Jersey Shore. The whole shore just doing gangbusters.

The cast was actually not allowed to go to the balcony and the front of the house during the day because the fans were just camped out out front. Snuckie said, obviously we're grateful, but it got to be too much. It was just a huge production. We'd have security guards all around us, paparazzi, getting us.

Then the fans everywhere. It was a lot to take in, especially if you're not used to it. Vinny said when drunk people saw the cameras, it was a very hostile experience. We almost got into fights every single night we went out. It's amazing to think about. Wouldn't you not want to fight with a person in front of a camera?

Oh yeah, no. They just people wanted to be on camera so much. But then they would just take the bait. Like when Ronnie knocks that dude out cold. It's like, man, you can't do this stuff. What are you doing? But of course it's encouraged, but like, you can't do that. I mean, they want it.

They wanted it. They never crew wants it. They want them to fuck up. Are you guys going to talk about the Snokie arrest situation? Right now. Okay, because this was the first time. I knew of the show like vaguely in my peripheral. Like I knew it existed.

But this was the only footage I'd ever seen of the show was when this happened because it was on everything. This footage of her falling down in the sand. That's what I knew of Jersey Shores. Where's the beach? Snooki said I was a hot. mess. I knew I was going to eventually get arrested for being drunk and disorderly. I wasn't surprised. I blacked out, but I remember thinking, how do I get on the beach?

I was so drunk to the point, I couldn't even say, how do you get on the beach? So I just said, where's the beach? Oh, and that scene before that when she does the mouth shot with that 55-year-old man? She's a disaster. She's funneling beers in the bathroom of the shirt store. Like, she's, she, by the way, spoiler alert, she gets clean and sober by the end of all this. She's even pregnant in the final season, so she can't drink. She can't drink. She didn't even want to be in that season, but they're like, look, we'll give you a house next door to the house.

You'll have your own space. And she's like, all right, I guess. Because I will say, there's one thing that from the very beginning, Snooki was very open about the fact that she just wanted to get married and she wanted to have little guido and guied at babies. She wanted little tan babies to take care of that she could feed that she could take care of. And then, you know, eventually we get Johnny. We get Johnny in the situation. the situation but man now

see this is a problem right we think of the word situation situation it's a confusing nickname now we've got a situation but either way let's go on to season four in Florence Italy this is the giant culture shock for the cast Polly D said I was like where's breakfast they did that breakfast

it was just like cappuccinos and all this other stuff I'm like what is going on with these four hour lunches Jay Wail said I told my roommates dude you can stick us in Alaska and we're going to have freaking drama. At least let's appreciate the art while we're punching each other in the face. That's what I love of this. So Sal Sano

says about Florence. Florence is one of the few places that actually accepted us coming and we had a laundry list of things we had to adhere by in order to be there. We couldn't get into any legal trouble. We couldn't do this. We couldn't do that. I remember being on the phone with MTV and being like, guys, just so you know, we're going to do the best we can. But the thing about Jersey shore is, it's real. So they're just a nightmare.

They're like, we can't tell you that they're not going to get arrested because we don't know what they're going to do. Why would they welcome it? Because for the tourism, yeah. Especially for the situation, he did not feel it was his best season. He was fighting way too much. And this, of course, leads him to knocking himself out by banging his head against a concrete wall, which put him in a neck brace for a few weeks. Situation said, to be honest with you, I actually thought the wall was sheet rock.

It was a very big miscalculation. It was a very big miscalculation. It was a very big miscalation situation. Oh, so good. But also you do have a really sweet highlight for Vinny. His favorite moment in the whole show was getting to visit his family in Sicily, whom he never met and just getting to sit around the table and with them and eat dinner. He said, like, they didn't give a shit about the cameras being in the room.

They were just there for the food. They were just the real deal. And that was a very sweet, sweet moment in an otherwise show about. drinking and fucking. God, just drinking overseas, baby. And the, apparently, especially taking it across the ocean, Sal Salsana did say, we're not going to a restaurant and lighting it an hour and a half before we get there and they're sitting at a pre-lit table. We're telling them what to say. This is like, they walk out the door and we're figuring out where the fuck they're going to go. Because they just follow them with cameras through Italy. And that's, I think that, so things like

The accident Snooki gets in, people do say that was a little staged. And again, like I said, about the pizza place that they all worked in, that wasn't really a pizza place, but they did have to work there. They did have to wake up because they still wanted to get the footage of them having to be hung over and having to go somewhere. Right, of course. Yeah, I do love this Snooki said. I think we were the realest reality show.

I can watch every other reality show and tell you that's not real. Someone told them to say that. And for them they actually just were it being them through and through. Yeah, totally. We basically didn't have any boundaries. And I guess we weren't nervous to show our true selves. We don't care if you're judging us. We just say what we really think and how we feel.

That's why it worked. Yeah, they're not what I would call shy. No. So they end up back to the shore for the next two and the final two seasons. Snooki was totally preggers for the sixth season, like we said, with now husband Johnny LaValle. And LaValley, either way, they're still together, I believe. And she had two kids.

They are. They have multiple kids together. And when they were asked why it was canceled, MTV Network's executive VP of Programming, Chris Lynn, said that they wanted to do the show as long as it made sense. But when the relationships on the show changed and Snooki wanted to have babies, MTV thought it was time to cancel the show, rather than drag the show on longer than needed,

which I do think it's kind of fun because what did they do instead? make a hundred million spin-offs. Oh my God. I will say they didn't. I appreciate the fact that it's not the same setup, though. They knew what they were doing. Yeah, I think it was also time to get off the drunken merry go round for these people. For sure, especially like, Polly D's 40 years old.

And I'm not being ageless. I think that there's plenty of shit you can do at 40, but being drunk on the shore is kind of gross after a lot. Maybe not just like going for it completely every day. single day over the summer. And like, yeah, situation was bone sober for season six. He's now completely clean. Especially after going to prison because he got into a bit of a situation with the IRS. Because he certainly made over $9 million within two years from TV experience from TV appearances,

but he didn't pay taxes on any of it. Which, of course, dude, that's so dumb. It happens all the time with people who, come from reality because they are just shoved into this world. They have no preparation for and they don't know how to do anything. And they're just like, well, you know, what if I just don't pay my taxes? Well, and that's a thing, though, honestly, is some of it's like, I do get it where it's like when you make absolutely no money and you have nothing, you know, you should pay your taxes.

But if you don't, they're not even going to spend the time to go after you. But if you make $9 million, they're going to come after you, dude. And it's just, it's just a crazy, I remember around this time reading art. about like classes you could take to become a reality star things like that this show really created an ecosystem of reality TV personality as a thing you could pursue that was separate from and not just like this side. What goal was offering those classes? Yeah, I know it's like completely insane. I'm sure they they were not good but either way it they were really the the guinea pigs the the

the ones really like being the first to kind of be nobody's that became massive stars off of reality, you know, they weren't already a celebrity, right? And that's why a lot of the spinoffs, like the Snooky and J-WOW show, had four seasons. Yeah. It wasn't just like a fly-by-night, but this followed them as now that they are married as mothers. And I watched the hell out of that show. Did you see Jersey Shore Family Vacation? I watched the first season of it.

but again, the fourth season is supposed to be coming out this year, which I don't know what ended up happening with Corona and everything. They're already on the fourth season. Yeah, baby, that's what was supposed to come out this summer. What is, so what is it? What, describe the first season. Like, what is the deal with that? I mean, it's the Jersey Shore, except they're old now.

Yeah, it's just that they have families. And at that point, I believe that it was the first season, that either the situation showed up and then he was sent to prison in the middle of it. I believe, because I watch like episode, like here and there are episodes of the following seasons as well. So it's just later on. So there's kids there with them? No, not with them.

Oh, okay. Wait, so they just leave their children? No, I think they like show up. It's like how the families show up in the first season. But it's also only, if you think about it, that first season of Jersey Shore was only four weeks. Yeah, it's eight episodes. All of these seasons are done very,

They're very fast. They should, okay, hear me out. What if they do? Baby Shore. And they put all of their babies together in a house and they leave them there. Baby Shore. Yeah, just use them up in babies. Something I wanted to see, but I haven't actually seen yet.

And I don't know if you watched it. It was the show with Vinny, who he calls himself the Kido Guido. Because the show with Vinny is a hybrid talk reality show in which he interviewed celebrities at his home in Staten Island with his mother and Uncle Nino, participating in the interviews. I didn't see any of that, but I'm now, I didn't, I'd not heard of it at all. I'm very weirdly interested in it. And also, I did watch some of double shot at love

with DJ Polly D. and Vinnie, where they tried to match themselves among a group of 20 women. And then this year, there's supposed to be DJ Polly D. and Vinny's Vegas pool party that was supposed to come out this summer. That was just them taking over

Las Vegas and given that friend a shot at the Vegas life. That's a very general statement. And I'm very proud of the fact that they could just keep doing this. I was actually blown away and very intrigued by all the foreign entities that MTV owns. They've done this on multiple continents. And there are some in Spain. There's one called Warsaw Shore, which is Jersey Shores.

It's Poland's version of Jersey Shore. All right, I've got a few quotes to round this out that I think summarized why this show is just so special and why I'm in love with it currently. Selyan Salasano said, I think it's the first time you had a cast live their life unapologetically. Even when I was doing The Bachelor, a girl would get too drunk at the Rose ceremony. Then they'd cry about it for the whole next week. These guys would be like, well, that was a disaster. All right, today's a new day.

Polly D said, I have a theory, it's like music. The music that works is the music that's relatable. Like Taylor Swift songs. When you're having a breakup, you put those on. I agree, Polly. It's like Taylor Swift songs. When you're having a breakup, you put those on because they're relatable. You want a party, you put on a little John track.

With eight of us in the house, somebody out there is going to have something that's relatable with us. A lot of people are like, me and my friends used to get a shore house and do that every single summer. Or you used to have a girlfriend like Ronnie and Sam Where you always fight but still love each other And then there's always a party guy Vinnie said I don't think it's a bad thing for people to see us like that Going through our 20s being real

This is the way young kids back then would talk and make mistakes We would call girls names where we might be like Oh man I shouldn't have said that It's not this sugar-coded thing Where everyone is monitoring everything they're saying Just so they can appease everybody I'm done I mean that's it

I mean especially 11th years ago, 11 years ago was 20 lifetimes ago when it comes to how people act, unfortunately. I mean, I know that at that point in time, things were changing for the positive. But again, if there was, I think we've said this about other episodes that we've done, if there was someone following me around with cameras when I was in my 20s. Oh, my God. That's, I would want to watch it. I don't want to have that footage for the rest of it.

my life. It's hard enough that roundtable exists and that I can hear myself at that point. But I wouldn't want to watch what I was doing afterwards. But I'm happy that other people do get to hear me make mistakes in my 20s because I do think there's something of value to that. I think it's really silly for us to ignore the fact that there are just a bunch of insane juice head gorillas on a boat somewhere right now, even in this time, be a maniac. Howling at the moon, baby. Yeah. All right. Trying to smush. Thank you guys so much for joining us this week. I'm telling you, you're going to love it or you're going to hate it. Watch the Jersey Shore on Hulu.

It's all on there. I think you will at least, I just have been laughing so much. It's pure escapism if you need that right now. 100%. And I think we all definitely do escapism and also longing for the summer that we weren't able to have. My name is Jackie Zabrowski, Jackie Meatball Zabrowski, I guess. And you could follow me on Instagram at Jack that Worm. Hold a McNeely.

check me out. Twitch.tv. forward slash holdenators. So I'm on there. A lot of times with Jackie on Friday nights. Enjoy at your bewilderment. Natalie.

Natalie. Ravioli clowns. Gene. What were they called? Raviola. Oh, uh, macaroni rascals. Macaroni rascals. Natalie, Macrote rascal.

Gene. And I do love pasta. The Daddy Jean and Page 7 LPN. We love you guys, and we will, now we are, I just want to let you guys know, we will be keeping up our every other week schedule with pop history. It gives us more time to really get deep down into these topics so that we can get as much research done as possible. So we will see you in a couple of weeks. And I tell you, it's going to be a hot topic because we are getting into spooky season.

We love you guys so much and we will talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.