Jersey Shore's Snookie - the Archie Bunker and Al Bundy of This Decade!

What makes us fans of MTV's show Jersey Shore? For those of you who have never seen it, MTV filled a house at the beach along the Jersey Shore with young adults and filmed every move they made. Drinking and "hooking up" became the number one and two activities of the summer along with all the irresponsible behavior that you could possibly imagine.

First of all the cast of the Jersey Shore is, to put it delicately, not too bright, by anyone's standard. Watching them at times can be excruciatingly painful as you hang on their every word and watch as they try and figure things out. Snookie is the one who provides most of the entertainment value in that area.

I would like to say my background in psychology leads me to watch this show to observe the disintegration of a younger generation, and perhaps develop some theories about what happened to them from the womb - on that would create such a species, but who am I trying to kid? I am so entertained by their lack of common sense and logic that it keeps me glued to the television. MTV went with the shock entertainment value of ignorance and created a hit show.

This type of entertainment, the shock value of ignorance, has made legions out of TV stars in the past. I would say the grand daddy of them all was in the 70's when CBS brought us "All in the Family". The Bunkers were by far a family lacking intelligence, both Edith and Archie fed off each other for the ignorance that we could not wait to watch weekly. Their offspring, Gloria, had a few more brain cells than her parents, but not much. "Archie Bunker" became the king of ignorance and we loved watching him. The 80's brought us "Married with Children", a dysfunctional family to top them all. Al and Peg Bundy shocked us weekly with the things that came out of their mouths, their parenting, and they way they lived in this world. "Peg, squeeze this thing under my arm", was something Al would yell to his wife in the next room. He would sit on the couch with his hand down his pants spewing sayings that shocked the audience.

Archie Bunker started this shock value TV and Al and Peg Bundy knocked it up a few notches, mostly because in their decade of fame, you could demonstrate much more than in Archie's day on TV. The 90's tried with all types of TV shows depicting funny and not so bright people, but nothing to give us the shock value of the Archie and Al. Reality shows started to take place and they became a staple of TV watching, but we only got our voyeurism fix from them.

MTV has found a mix of fantastic entertainment with the use of the reality TV show giving us the voyeurism we have come to depend on and then they took it up a notch. They gave us a real Archie, Edith, Peg and Al in the cast of Jersey Shore. These people are not acting, this is who they are. MTV's show will make Snookie the Archie Bunker and Al Bundy of our time.

It has taken me months to figure out why I cannot wait to watch Snookie and her real life brain cell deficient pals romp around a beach house and say and do such inappropriate things. MTV gave us the modern day and real life Sitcom to end all sitcoms. Snookie is the new Archie and Al of our day, but when she and her cronies leave the stage of our TV sets, we can be sure nothing changes making us feeling special as the decade that gets to get to watch the real thing!

References: MTV, Jersey Shore, All In the Family, Married with Children