From Orange County to East Orange: A Riches to Rags Story.
May 20, 2010 • 5:23 pm • POSTED BY Kyle Arango
Jersey has clearly taken over the airwaves. Flip through the channels long enough and you’re bound to come across a sea of spray tan orange or a troop of juicehead gorillas. It almost reminds me of the Australia craze of the early ‘80s following the release of Crocodile Dundee, when outback jackets and leather vests were all the rage. (Maybe that was just me.) I do think it is fair to say that “Everybody loves The Situation.” was easily the “That’s not a knife. This is a knife.” of 2010.
But I digress, back to Jersey. After being forced by my wife to choose between Dancing With the Stars or Jerseylicious, I reluctantly chose Jerseylicious solely on the grounds that I don’t understand how you can be a man and a good dancer, and therefore, I am threatened by Maskim. Roughly 20 minutes in, I got to thinking about this whole Jersey fad. Where did it come from? Why does it fascinate America? What exactly is “battling” and how is it not cheating?
I think I’ve traced Jersey’s recent reign in the spotlight back to Southern California and a boy named Chino. Here are the series of events that led to our love of animal prints and table flipping:
The OC airs on August 5, 2003
MTV’s Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County airs September 28, 2004
(This, of course, also led to the eye-bleeders The Hills and The City — maybe The Meadowlands is next.)
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs March 21, 2006
The Real Housewives of New York airs January 22, 2008
The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs May 12, 2009
The Jersey Shore airs December 3, 2009
Jerseylicious airs March 11, 2010
Jersey Couture set to air on June 1, 2010
One has to wonder how far will the Jersey thing go? And, will it spread to South Jersey? Will we ever see shows like Mullica Hills, 08062 or Girls Gone Wildwood? One can only hope.
Couldn’t The OC be traced back to 90210, which was a 1990′s television show about sideburns and sexually transmitted diseases?
DONNA MARTIN GRADUATES!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iunYmHH0UNI
I offer one dissenting viewpoint to your well thought evolutionary timeline of Jersey Obsession. My studies have shown that the Real Housewives development (a crucial evolutionary jump) was a direct descendant of Desperate Housewives, which was set in Orange County. Now that’s not to say that Desperate Housewives was not an offshoot of the OC and Laguna Beach. It could have been simultaneous split similar to what happened between Australopithecus and Homo Robustus around 3.5 mya. I hope to have more conclusive evidence once I’ve been cleared to exhume Teri Hatcher.
I absolutely agree with Cory’s anthropological assessment of the importance of Desperate Housewives, but I think it would also be remiss to ignore the impact that late 80s-early 90s saturday morning series such as Saved by the Bell and California Dreams had on the eventual popularity of 90210, Melrose Place, Models Inc and finally, the OC.
My esteemed associates, you have missed perhaps the most significant early example of life emanating from the primordial ooze. May I present for your consideration, one Eric Nies, an Ocean Township, New Jersey native first discovered on The (original) Real World circa 1992, and later spotted on the seminal pop music dance review The Grind. Often shirtless, revealing his finely developed rectus abdonimis and linae transversae, Nies’ very existence clearly proves a patrilineal descent to the modern day “Situation”.
I fear we’ve entered a world that my colleagues sometimes refer to as “crazyballs.” It was all making sense just a short while a go.(is there a space between a and go? F-you, space.) I didn’t even have to say twitter. but now I just did. I think Kyle and I had this figured out. why are you trying to do to me? Who do you know?
cory’s drunk!