Key Takeaways
- Jersey Shore was initially conceived as a competition show to find the biggest Guido on VH1.
- The casting process for the show focused on finding loud and bold personalities from the tri-state area.
- The original Jersey Shore cast was intended to be replaced after season one but stayed due to audience attachment.
It is hard to imagine Jersey Shore as anything other than the cast we know and love. However, the original concept of MTV reality was very different.
When Jersey Shore debuted on December 3, 2009, it quickly became a love-too-hate pop culture phenomenon. The reality TV show followed a group of self-described young guidos and guidettes enjoying a raucous, boozy summer in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
Jersey Shore started life as a VH1 project, conceived as an all-male competition show to find the biggest Guido. Producer SallyAnn Salsano, who previously worked on A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, was inspired by her own summers in a Jersey Shore summer house. Soon, the show moved from VH1 to MTV because of the series’ new “loud, young, bold” take on reality TV.
The casting team tried to find the loudest, funniest party people in the tri-state area but soon realized that the women could more than keep up with the men. From there, the show slowly evolved into Jersey Shore, making stars of Snooki, JWoww, Mike “The Situation,” and Pauly D.
Why Jersey Shore Stopped Being A Competition Show
Jersey Shore started life as a competition show called Number One Guido.
Deena Cortese explains that, “Back in the day, a ‘guido’ was an Italian guy that usually has spiky hair, tan, muscles. You could spot a ‘guidette’ from miles away — loud Italian girls, with tanned skin, [hair] poufs, animal prints, big sunglasses, and tight, skimpy dresses.”
Casting director Doron Ofir remembers going out to nightclubs in the hint of anyone “throwing fists in the dance circles.” Mike “The Situation” was the first to be cast on the show about guidos from the East Coat. When he signed up, the wannabe underwear model originally thought he was making a Challenge-type show.
Doron and her casting team spent 12 weeks combing bars and nightclubs in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey for the perfect reality show stars.
MTV Networks President Van Toffler described the casting process as looking for “candor, honesty, boldness and a very combustible, chaotic mess.”
“You could honestly say none of these people were traditionally beautiful.”
MTV programming executive Tony DiSanto felt that, “[After The Hills], it was time to go for a more authentic approach, like a documentary.” This is how Jersey Shore transformed from a competition series to a reality show.
Executive producer SallyAnn Salsano explained that Mike arrived at the interview and, “was like, ‘Okay, let me just take my shirt off first.’ I was like, ‘What?’ I have never in my life met someone who felt more comfortable upon not knowing you. He’s like, ‘Enough said, right?’ Having cast a million of these, we had never really seen anyone do that before.”
Maybe the most memorable of Jersey Shore casting was Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio’s “self-produced video,” Doron explained that, “it was so detailed that he had ‘Rocky’ playing in the background on the TV set. He had the Italian flag and a picture of a Ferrari and Tony Soprano on the wall. Once we saw that, it was like: ‘What do we do with this guy?’”
Pauly D nearly pulled out of
Jersey Shore
due to the intense filming schedule and his concern at losing DJ gigs.
However, not everyone was happy with being approached to appear on the Guido-themed show. Vinny did not believe he was a guido and took offense to the application looking for “the biggest, muscly, orange-skin, spiky-hair guidos in the area.”
While Vinny admitted he filled out the application as joke, Sally Ann shared that “Vinny’s casting tape was like, ‘I’m not a guido’— and I’m like, ‘You’re the biggest guido.’ There are different types.”
“[We were afraid the] show was going to get pulled,” SallyAnn told the New York Post, discussing the name change in the series.” Advertisers were pulling out. Domino’s [Pizza] pulled out. It wasn’t like we were out to ruin the guido. We’re celebrating it.”
How The Jersey Shore Girls Were Cast On The MTV Reality Show
It was casting director Doron Ofir who noticed that the women could more than hold their own in New Jersey. “I kept saying, ‘Look, the boys preen’ — you know, they’re peacocks — ‘but the girls fight.’”
Snooki explained how she was cast on reality TV during an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan in 2018, “I saw a thing on Facebook. I always wanted to go on Real World, I always wanted to be a reality star. Then I saw Guidos and Guidettes, and was like, ‘That’s me!’ I went to the audition wasted. I needed liquid courage, so I did it.”
“Before the show, no one really called me ‘Snooki.’ They were looking for nicknames on the application. One of my girlfriends used to call me that, just to be funny, so I wrote that down. Then I was like, ‘Oh, s***.'”
“Now that it’s stuck, I wish I’d put something else.”
Jenni “JWoww” Farley was working in a Long Island nightclub when she was inspired to audition after seeing the casting process for Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.
How JWoww Got Her Nickname
“One of my friends who was an emcee would always say ‘wow’ on the mic when I walked by, to embarrass me. When we were at work together, he was like, ‘You need a stage name to go by.’ And I was like, ‘Well, you always call me “Wow. You can say Jenni Wow.”‘” And then it shortened over time to JWoww.”
The Show Was Nearly Recast Between Season 1 and Season 2 Of Jersey Shore
The original Jersey Shore cast members were only supposed to appear in season one. When the roommates first entered the shore house in 2009, the cast was expecting one summer of partying. Yet, fans fell in love with the cast and their fun personalities, and they stayed on.
Jersey Shore’s production team originally planned to bring in an entirely new cast for the second season. A new group of wild New Jersey natives was set to stay in the same shore house and work in that shore shop. Yet, when viewers became attached to the season one cast of Jersey Shore, producers rethought their decision to recast.
According to Deena, producers were originally going to bring her in for season 2, but had decided to wait until they were back in New Jersey for the third season.