“My only rule: never fall in love at the Jersey Shore.” – Ronnie
It’s wild to realize that as of this writing, Jersey Shore premiered on MTV on December 3rd, 2009, more than 14 years ago.
These days, as Jersey Shore: Family Vacation is still going strong, the Jersey Shore cast has experienced multiple marriages (and divorces), a bunch of kids have been born, more than a few arrests have taken place, and countless parties, fist pumps, hookups, fights, shots, and pranks have gone down.
But let’s head back to 2009, to the very first episode of Jersey Shore, to a time before Pauly D, Snooki, The Situation, and JWoww were household names.
My first visceral reaction to seeing the cast introduce themselves for the first time – “After I meet a guy, I will rip their heads off,” and so on – is how young they all look. But then again, didn’t we all back in the day?
After the opening credits, the first thing looks like it comes from Pauly D’s original audition tape. He rolls up on a motorcycle and says, “Guidos, when we stop, our chrome keeps spinning.”
Pauly then lays down a concise thesis about the guido lifestyle: it’s a full time thing, no room for part timers or poseurs. I”t’s about representing being Italian, it’s about family and friends,” and… it’s about “tanning, gel, everything.”
It’s all there right from the very beginning. Well, there’s also the all important gym and laundry components to the GTL lifestyle, but there’s time to get to that.
We then meet Snooki, who lets us know that she wants to marry a guido and “move to Jersey…. Find a nice, juiced, hot tan guy, and live my life.”
It occurs to me that for the uninitiated, these people are throwing the word “guido” and “juiced” around like they’re the most commonly understood terms in the world… and within this very particular world, they are.
Reality TV is all about the casting, and Jersey Shore knocked it out of the park from Jump Street.
And that’s before we even encounter The Situation. After showing off his abs, Mike helps us out by explaining, “A guido is a good looking, smooth, well dressed Italian.” We then understand that Sitch feels that he meets this description (and then some) when he says, “I check out the mirror, and woo… it’s gonna be a good day.”
I’m reminded of how flat-out hilarious Jersey Shore is from the very beginning. Example: Mike says, “We like to workout five days a week.” The punchline: he’s smoking a cigarette while driving as he says this.
Sammi “Sweetheart” then checks in for the first time, and she too expresses her desire to “get with a lot of good, hot, sexy guidos.” What’s super funny here is that we see her dancing with a guy who looks a lot like Ronnie Magro. Our girl has a type!
We also get a “guidette” definition from Sammi: “A guidette is somebody who knows how to club it up, takes really good care of themselves, cakes on makeup, has tan skin, wears the hottest heels. Pretty much they know how to own it and rock it.”
Over in Staten Island, we meet Vinny, among his enormous Italian family, including his fantastic mom. Vinny graduated college, so we learn that guidos appreciate education, and then we get Jersey Shore’s first introduction to the fist pumping lifestyle. “Pounding your fist like a maniac,” Vin emphasizes.
On Long Island, JWoww delivers her iconic, “I am like a praying mantis. After I have sex with a guy, I will rip their heads off.” Jenni also notes that “no other girls can compare to me.” The egos stepping into the Shore House are not limited to the fellas here, people.
More iconic lines fly at us from The Bronx, this one from Ronnie. The first words we hear him say: “My only rule: never fall in love at the Jersey Shore.” As we will soon find out, this rule holds for around, eh… let’s say a solid 72 hours or so. Ronnie also lets us know that when he takes his shirt off, “They come to you,” which is “like a fly to s—.” Why didn’t this guy get called Ronnie Romantical?
More from Ronnie on the guido lifestyle: one always has to look fresh, have a new haircut, generally look good (which requires essential products like gel, cologne, and protein shakes), no matter the status of one’s wallet.
And all you need to know about the Jersey Shore, via Ronnie: “beers, bitches, beach.”
To round things out for the initial cast, there’s Angelina, the self-described “Kim Kardashian of Staten Island.” To emphasize her opinion of herself, she notes: “Come on, I’m hot.” We also briefly see Angelina saying goodbye to her boyfriend of the time, which I had no recollection of.
Now that we’ve met the cast, it’s time to get our first look at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Situation and Pauly D arrive first, and room hunting is the first thing on the agenda. Then Sammi arrives, and Sitch notes in a confessional, “I figured I’d hook up with her.”
The three decide to “bunk together” in the same room, which seems like (and is) an ill-advised idea.
“Let’s get filthy, creepy, and weird,” Ronnie says as he rolls up to the Shore House. Fact check: he ends up not being wrong.
Young Vinny arrives next and delivers his summary judgments via confessional. Pauly and Mike rate as “perfect” guidos whereas with Sammi, he “expected hotter.” And when JWoww pulls up: “You can tell she’s a little bit high maintenance.”
It’s comments such as these that are a little stunning, knowing how close the roommates eventually get… though with many, many fights involved over the years as well, of course.
And then, it happens: Nicole a.k.a. Snooki enters and says, “Hello, party’s here!”
If there’s a thesis statement for Jersey Shore, this is it.
Mike’s initial reaction: “She was like a little Chihuahua painted with some spray paint black.”
Snooki then goes two-for-two with classic lines: “You guys drinking or what?”
And that’s when the shots start getting poured.
Ronnie then arrives, and Vinny instantly laments that “I’m the smallest guy here.”
For his part, Ronnie is impressed with the Shore House, and thinks only a stripper pole would add to the ambiance. He then muses that when he brings a girl back to the house, “she might melt in her pants.”
Finally, Angelia joins the group, and we nearly have a full house at the Jersey Shore – or down the shore as they say ‘round those parts. Oh, and lest we forget: Angelina arrives with her infamous luggage in tow. And by luggage of course I mean black garbage bags filled with her stuff. “I thought that was kind of like ghetto and weird,” Pauly D quickly notes.
And if that’s not enough, Danny, the good-natured landlord and new boss to the roomies, shows up. The gang learns about what they’ll be expected to do in working at his boardwalk t-shirt shop that summer, the Shore Store, which bums out everyone’s party vibe for a minute.
When Danny leaves, the shots really get flowing… and our gal Snooki goes harder and faster than everyone else. Which is to say, she gets super drunk, what my friends and I would call k’tankered back in the day. The rest of the gang has their first initial bond over Snooki getting incoherent-ish.
“And then Snickers joined us in the hot tub, and that’s when the party got started,” Vinny notes. Which is to say, Snooki looks for… her first hook up of the season with one of the boys, but is unsuccessful in her efforts. She passes out in a hammock – which, by the way, rooftop hammocks at the Shore House, very cool! – and the rest of the gang ditches her to check out the boardwalk scene.
Snooki eventually gets up, and it seems like she’s rallied some (ah, to be young!). I mostly mention this because we hear the now iconic duck phone “ringing” for the first time. “What the f— is that quacking?” she asks. No one – not even the duck phone – responds.
Back on the boardwalk, Mike cozies up with Sammi, which is one of those truly bizarre early days Jersey Shore moments to revisit. The gang gets back to the house, and Vinny wonders how Snooki is “still alive.”
It comes out that JWoww had “never mentioned” that she had a boyfriend back home in the hours that the group had known each other, which the guys equate with being shady.
The next morning, Snooki announces that she “feels like ass.” In fact, she heads off to the bathroom to be sick, and the rest of the roommates leave her there as they head off to the Shore Store for their first day of work. The first topic at work, of course, is the Case of the Missing Nicole. When she does shot up, Danny pulls her aside immediately to give her a talking to. “After this, it counts,” he tells her.
Back at the house, Nicole calls out the group not for leaving her behind, but for acting weird towards her. Sammi tells her, “I just don’t want your pukey breath on me,” and it’s right there where you can’t help sympathizing with Snooki while not liking Sammi very much. “I don’t have time for stupid bimbos,” Sammi says in a confessional, forgetting the “sweetheart” part of her nickname.
The crew sits down for their first family meal, cooked up by head Chef Situation, replete with sausage and peppers, and salad. “Yo, get those broads upstairs, we’re eating,” he announces. “Situation sits at the head of the house,” he also announces, ramping up his early seasons megalomania immediately.
Nicole announces to the table that she apologizes for her behavior the previous night, that she’s “the sweetest girl,” and just wants to have fun. Everyone claps, and even Sammi seems ready to let go of her misgivings.
After dinner, the boys go fishing. And by fishing, that’s their term for hanging out on the Shore House balcony and whistling down to girls walking on the boardwalk. They quickly “reel in” (so to speak) three young ladies, who are invited to join the gentlemen inside.
The fellas and their guests hop in the hot tub, which immediately causes tension with the women of the house. “Whore bags,” Angelina says, summing up her position on the matter. “Trashy skanks,” Sammi agrees.
“I didn’t think they were gonna be those typical Jersey whore guys,” Angelina says of her new housemates.
Then Sammi says of Mike: “Maybe this guy isn’t who I think he is.” And thus the Situation + Sammi Sweetheart Era doesn’t even make it through Jersey Shore’s inaugural episode!
However, The Situation is here to reassure us about the situation. “The Situation is under control now,” he says.
Meanwhile, Vinny is baffled that Jenni tells the guys to “not disrespect” the ladies of the house by “bringing girls back.” “This is the Jersey shore,” Vinny says. “What do you expect us to do, play with each other?”
Angelina gets set off as the female guests are waiting outside for the gents. I mention this because she yells at them and drops her iconic, “Hello?” on them. And if this all isn’t enough, Snooki takes an ongoing argument between Angelina and Ronnie as being directed to her, which prompts her to want to bail out on living at the Shore House all together.
And with that going on, Mike gets put on full blast for “putting lips” on one of the female guests after holding hands and acting couple-y – canoodling as they say in the celebrity magazines – with Sammi earlier that very day.
As things calm down a bit, the girls rally together to try to convince Snooki to stay.
And that’s a wrap on the wall-to-wall, action packed, very first ever episode of Jersey Shore, people!
Jersey Shore re-watch Duck Phone QUACK Rating for “A New Family”
With each episode for the Jersey Shore re-watch, I’m going to rate it on a scale of one to five duck phone quacks, with one meaning kind of boring and forgettable, and five meaning super insane or otherwise crazy memorable.
I had a blast revisiting Jersey Shore’s Season 1 pilot episode, “A New Family,” and I feel compelled to give it the full five duck phone quacks. We met the crew, got a ton of all-time classic lines, and as I note above, there was just a manic and fun pace to everything going on throughout.
About the Jersey Shore re-watch
I’m a massive Jersey Shore fan, as can be seen by its inclusion on Pop Thruster’s Best 100 TV Shows Ever list. Therefore, I thought it would be fun to revisit the entire series, one episode at a time, and report my findings along route (maybe when I’m done, I’ll attempt to do the Jersey Turnpike? Might be bad for my back, but I’ll give it a shot!).
Important note: As a Long Island, New York native (homeland of JWoww!), I’ve long believed that Long Island and Jersey have a cultural kinship. I knew people in high school who were perhaps not as charismatic as the Jersey Shore cast, but certainly shared some of the same traits and overall vibe. I mention this because I truly believe that Jersey Shore is a show that can often be laughed *at* and *with* at the same time, and it’s one of the reasons that makes it a special reality TV show.
Some stats and info about Jersey Shore, “A New Family”
TV SHOW – Jersey Shore
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
AIRED ON – December 3rd, 2009
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – MTV
IMDB DESCRIPTION – Summer at the Jersey Shore kicks off when eight housemates move into their summer share. Romance heats up between Sammy and Mike, but all might be lost when the guys invite three random girls to join them in the hot tub.
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Trashtastic TV, Comedy
CREATED BY – Anthony Beltempo, SallyAnn Salsano
CAST – Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio,Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Jenni “JWoww” Farley, Ronnie Magro, Vinny Guadagnino, Deena Nicole Cortese, Angelina Pivarnick