Something very interesting happened at the Summer Television Critics Association tour the other day: The cast of Jersey Shore took the stage for a Q&A with critics and reporters during the final half-hour of MTV's session – and a room full of tired critics and reporters who have been working day and night for almost two weeks was instantly energized.
Hands down, it was the most exciting panel not only of the cable days at TCA, but of the entire tour.
You may be wondering why it was so special. Quite simply, and somewhat surprisingly, it's rare that the full cast of a television series that is white hot at the time of a TCA tour actually appears at a tour. All casts appear before their shows debut, for obvious reasons, but nobody really knows what shows will become super-novas until after they premiere. And once that happens, most casts tend to stay away, until the glow around their show begins to dim, and then the smart ones return for a power boost.
I've been asking around, and the closest panel experience anyone can compare the Jersey Shore blast to is an appearance by the full cast of Desperate Housewives at the January 2005 tour, just four months after that show premiered and became a media sensation.
Jersey Shore is, at this moment, arguably the hottest unscripted show on television, even if it is competing with the launch of the already controversial The Real Housewives of D.C. and the season's final installments of So You Think You Can Dance. It's hardly a show that critics have embraced – not professionally, anyway – but I can tell you that many of them treasure it as a guilty pleasure and have been discretely watching it in the privacy of their rooms here at the Beverly Hilton. Tellingly, younger TCA members who work exclusively online don't hesitate to show their love for it.
Anticipation had been building since the advance panel schedule from CTAM indicated that "cast members" from Jersey Shore would appear at MTV's session. Most of the many interested parties assumed that only two or three of them would be dragged in. So when Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Paul "DJ Pauly D" DelVecchio, Jenni "JWoww" Farley, Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Vinny Guadagnino and new cast member Deena Nicole Cortese marched through the room and onto the stage the overall impact was impressive, to say the least.
The entire cast remained standing during their time on stage, adding an unusual physicality to a TCA event. Seated around tables at floor level, looking up at them as they towered over the room, it felt as if we were in the presence of powerful pop-culture gods and goddesses – which, of course, we were. They were happy to answer any and all questions with good humor and infectious enthusiasm – even Snooki, who sometimes speaks an endearing language of her own.
For example, when asked to explain the term "snookin'," which she had earlier used, Snooki replied, "Snookin' is when you're lookin,' so if I say I'm snookin' for love, I'm snookin' for a guy. If I snooked the night, then I took the night. Get it?"
Snooki then told us that a "Snooktionary">These shows could easily be game-changers for MTV. If they turn out to be breakout hits, the network should make plans to bring their casts back to TCA next January or July. As we saw this weekend with Snooki and her friends, that's the way for a network to maximize its time at TCA.