99 Fun Facts About Jersey Shore

The landline the Jersey Shore housemates used to call home was shaped like which animal?

A duck: the mallard-shaped novelty phone, a favourite of Snooki's for calls home, became one of the show's best-loved props and stayed in the house after the cameras left.

In which New Jersey borough was the Jersey Shore house?

Seaside Heights hosted four of the six seasons, and the cast repaid it: after Hurricane Sandy battered the town in 2012 they fronted an MTV telethon to help rebuild it.

Where did the cast work during their New Jersey seasons?

A boardwalk T-shirt shop called the Shore Store employed them, and boss Danny Merk doubled as their landlord: he owned the house they partied in.

What does the housemates' daily ritual 'GTL' stand for?

Gym, tan, laundry began as crew shorthand, the show's producer has said: staff wrote GTL on whiteboards to log the cast's identical days until a housemate asked what it meant.

Where was season two of Jersey Shore filmed?

In South Beach, Florida, the cast swapped their summer job up north for shifts scooping gelato at an Italian ice cream shop.

Which Italian city hosted season four of Jersey Shore?

Florence set ground rules first: its mayor barred the cast from filming in the Uffizi and other landmarks, so they spent their days working shifts at a pizzeria nearby.

Which Jersey Shore cast member joined the house in season three as Snooki's friend from home?

Deena Nicole Cortese had auditioned for the first season without joining it; later a phone call from her old friend Snooki brought her in as the house's one new face.

Which housemate left the shore house early in both of the first two seasons?

Angelina Pivarnick was sent packing three episodes into season one for refusing a work shift and walked out of season two after fights, yet she returned for the 2018 revival.

Which pizza chain pulled its adverts from Jersey Shore in 2009 after Italian-American groups protested?

Domino's walked away within weeks of the premiere, as did Dell and American Family Insurance, yet the show's ratings kept climbing.

Why did Governor Chris Christie veto Jersey Shore's $420,000 tax credit in 2011?

It perpetuated misconceptions of the state and its citizens, Christie said, so taxpayers should not foot the bill, though he added that he had no interest in policing content.

What happened to Snooki in a bar in season one that MTV ultimately declined to air in full?

The assailant was a schoolteacher; the network showed the build-up but cut the blow itself.

For what was Snooki arrested on the beach on July 30, 2010?

Disorderly conduct was dropped in a plea deal: she admitted disturbing beachgoers and drew a $500 fine, community service and a judge's jab that she was 'a Lindsay Lohan wannabe'.

In which country was Snooki born?

Chile: adopted from Santiago at six months by the Polizzis of New York, she grew up in an Italian-American home, which is how a Chilean-born star became the face of 'guidette' style.

Snooki's nickname comes from a character in which film?

Save the Last Dance, the 2001 dance film, features a wisecracking male character called Snookie; she says the name attached itself to her in middle school and never left.

At which WWE event in 2011 did Snooki compete in a six-person tag match and win?

WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta teamed her with Trish Stratus and John Morrison, and she stunned the crowd by landing a handspring onto Michelle McCool to take the win.

What was the title of Snooki's 2011 novel about looking for love on the boardwalk?

A Shore Thing reached the New York Times bestseller list, yet sales trackers counted fewer than 9,000 copies sold in its first weeks despite a blitz of talk-show promotion.

Mike Sorrentino's nickname, The Situation, was first the name for which part of his body?

His abs got the name first, he says: a woman walking past with her boyfriend at a club pointed at his bare stomach and gasped that it was 'a situation'.

Which retailer publicly offered Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino money in 2011 to stop wearing its clothes?

Abercrombie & Fitch called his fondness for its clothes 'contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand'; he sued over the stunt, and a judge threw the case out in 2013.

For what crime did Mike Sorrentino serve eight months in federal prison in 2019?

Tax evasion: he admitted hiding income from his early fame, and his castmates turned up in court to support him at sentencing, weeks before he married Lauren Pesce.

Jersey Shore's Vinny Guadagnino grew up not in New Jersey but in which New York City borough?

Staten Island raised him, and not him alone: he graduated from the same high school there as a future castmate, years before the two shared a house on television.

Jersey Shore's Vinny Guadagnino graduated with a degree in which subject?

Political science was his major, and he had worked for a state assemblyman and was studying for law school entrance exams when the casting call arrived.

Which Jersey Shore couple's relationship, begun in season one, became the show's central on-off romance?

Sammi and Ronnie's rows peaked when two housemates went to a cybercafe to type her an anonymous note about his nights out, then hid it in her drawer.

Which cast member was missing when Jersey Shore: Family Vacation premiered on MTV in April 2018?

Sammi Giancola stayed away to avoid 'toxic' situations, so a castmate brought a talking Sammi doll in her place; she did not rejoin her housemates until 2023.

Where did season two of Family Vacation open in 2018?

Las Vegas hosted the opening episodes of a second run that MTV had ordered before a single episode of the revival had aired.

Which Jersey Shore cast member stepped back from Family Vacation in May 2021 to seek mental health treatment?

Ronnie Ortiz-Magro said he and MTV had agreed he would step away to treat mental health issues he had 'ignored for too long', weeks after an arrest in California.

Which international spin-off, launched in 2011, was the first overseas version of Jersey Shore?

Geordie Shore moved the format to Newcastle because, an MTV executive joked, 'it is always summer in the North East' of England: 'No one wears a coat.'

Who created Jersey Shore through the company 495 Productions?

SallyAnn Salsano grew up on Long Island and named the firm, founded in 2006, after Interstate 495, the Long Island Expressway.

At the Jersey Shore, who gets called a 'benny' or a 'shoobie'?

A summer day-tripper: 'benny' is the northern shore's word and 'shoobie' the southern one's, said to recall visitors who arrived by train with lunch packed in a shoebox.

The world's first boardwalk opened in 1870 in which New Jersey resort?

Atlantic City laid it to keep beach sand out of hotel lobbies and railway cars; a conductor named Boardman helped push the idea, and the planks were taken up each winter.

Which Monopoly square misspells the name of the real New Jersey location it was taken from?

Marvin Gardens is really Marven Gardens, a neighbourhood whose name blends the towns of Margate and Ventnor, where it sits on the border between them.

Resorts International opened on the boardwalk on May 26, 1978, as what?

The East's first legal casino: until then only Nevada had them. New Jersey voters had rejected casinos statewide in 1974, then approved them for the faded resort alone in 1976.

Which pageant did the casino city on the boardwalk host from 1921 to 2004?

Miss America began as a bathing beauty revue, staged just after Labor Day to keep summer visitors in town once the season would otherwise have ended.

Despite its name, what does salt water taffy NOT contain?

It began in Atlantic City in the 1880s; Joseph Fralinger boxed it for the boardwalk and Enoch James refined the recipe.

Bruce Springsteen's 1973 debut album was titled 'Greetings from' which shore town?

Asbury Park, N.J. came off a boardwalk postcard: his label wanted a New York image, but Springsteen reasoned that nobody else was from New Jersey, so 'it's all mine!'

Which grinning face, painted on an amusement hall in the 1950s, became a symbol of the Jersey Shore?

Tillie is thought to be named for George Tilyou, whose Coney Island park had a similar grinning face; before the hall was demolished in 2004, fans had the mural cut from the wall and stored.

What are 'Cape May diamonds'?

Clear quartz pebbles wash up milky and dull at the cape's tip, but tumbled and polished they gleam like gems, and local shops set them in souvenir jewellery.

Bill Haley & His Comets first played 'Rock Around the Clock' live in which shore town?

Wildwood claims the title 'birthplace of rock and roll' on the strength of it; the band nearly missed recording the song in April 1954 when their ferry stuck on a sandbar.

What runs the length of a famous South Jersey boardwalk, warning walkers to 'watch' it, 'please'?

A tramcar: its recorded 'watch the tram car, please' has played for half a century, and in 2024 the woman who voiced it sued, saying she had only ever been paid in free tram tickets.

Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29, 2012, near which Jersey Shore town?

Brigantine, a barrier island, took the landfall that evening, by which time forecasters had reclassified Sandy as a post-tropical cyclone, so the 'hurricane' was technically no longer one when it struck.

Which Jersey Shore boardwalk ride became a grim attraction after Hurricane Sandy dumped it into the Atlantic in 2012?

The roller coaster stood almost intact in the surf for more than six months, an emblem of the storm, until a crane barge tore it down in May 2013, just after Prince Harry toured the boardwalk.

Cape May takes its name from a sea captain of which nationality?

Dutch: Cornelius Mey, a fur trader, surveyed Delaware Bay for his country's merchants, and the cape at the bay's mouth took his name.

Which act's song 'Get Crazy' played over Jersey Shore's opening credits?

LMFAO's party anthem returned unchanged when the cast reunited in 2018, but their opening boasts were rewritten: JWoww's new line was 'We're so classy now.'

Jersey Shore's cast rang which exchange's bell in 2010?

New York Stock Exchange traders called it one of their most crowded days in years, though one floor boss said it was like 'P.T. Barnum's freak show' had come to town.

Which veteran broadcaster had the Jersey Shore cast teach her their slang on a 2010 television special?

Barbara Walters had named them among her ten most fascinating people of the year, a list topped by the general commanding the war in Afghanistan.

Jersey Shore was first developed at which sister channel before MTV took it over?

VH1 was developing it as an elimination contest until the producer argued that following the right cast through a summer house share would be entertaining enough, and MTV then took it over.

The Jersey Shore cast's beach house has been offered to fans as what?

A nightly rental: the house was listed at up to $3,500 a night for fans keen to sleep where the cast did, while visitors who couldn't stretch to that could pay for a tour of the rooms instead.

Whose 2012 spin-off, following him to DJ gigs around the country, lasted just one season?

Snooki & Jwoww, launched at the same time, became the most successful of the cast spin-offs.

Why did Snooki live next door to the shore house for Jersey Shore's final season?

She was pregnant, with the baby due that September, so she moved into a quieter house right next door and kept filming with the housemates she had left behind.

Besides the original, the Jersey Shore franchise's two US versions were set in Buckhead and where?

Floribama Shore drew a lawsuit from the Flora-Bama, a beach bar on the Florida-Alabama line that said MTV had copied its name; an appeals court sided with the network in 2022.

Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino was jeered at Comedy Central's 2011 roast of which guest of honour?

Donald Trump was the target in March 2011, and Sorrentino's set went so badly that veteran roaster Jeff Ross stepped in to help him.

While filming Jersey Shore's Italian season, Snooki crashed the car she was driving into what?

A police car, parked at the roadside, took the hit and two officers suffered minor injuries. Snooki was briefly held, then cited and released.

Which animated series drew Snooki as a goblin in the 2010 episode 'It's a Jersey Thing'?

South Park imagined New Jersey taking over the country one state at a time, with the cast of MTV's hit among the invaders the town has to fight off.

The Jersey Shore cast played themselves in which 2012 slapstick film from the Farrelly brothers?

The Three Stooges has Moe cast as the reality show's newest housemate, where he slaps, eye-pokes and head-bops the regulars.

The Jersey Shore cast starred in an alternate video for 'I Like It', a 2010 hit by which singer?

Enrique Iglesias put out the cast's version in June 2010, and the track became the first single from the show's official soundtrack album.

Which New Jersey university paid Snooki $32,000 in 2011 to speak to an audience of students?

Rutgers said students had asked for her, and more than 1,000 people turned up, though some complained the money would have been better spent on other speakers.

Lucy the Elephant, a six-storey landmark in Margate since 1881, was built to help sell what?

Real estate was the goal: her builder took buyers up to the carriage on Lucy's back to look over the plots. She is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in the US.

At the Steel Pier on the Jersey Shore, which animal dived from a tower into a pool carrying a rider?

A horse and its rider plunging into the water was one of the Steel Pier's famous acts. A plan to bring it back was scrapped after animal-rights criticism.

Which US president died in the Jersey Shore resort of Long Branch in 1881, weeks after being shot?

James A. Garfield was brought to the coast in the hope that fresh air would aid his recovery. The railroad ties laid for his train were later built into a tea house.

In Jersey Shore's second season, away from New Jersey, the cast worked in what kind of business?

A gelato parlour, the Lecca Lecca Gelato Caffé, was chosen by producers for its Italian roots, and the cast worked four-hour shifts behind the counter.

During Jersey Shore's season in Italy, the housemates were put to work in what kind of business?

A pizzeria called O'Vesuvio employed the cast during the fourth season, the only one of the show's six to be made overseas.

Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino partnered Karina Smirnoff in 2010 on which television contest?

Dancing with the Stars sent him home in week four of its eleventh season. Snooki and Vinny Guadagnino both took a turn in the same ballroom years later.

Snooki and JWoww exposed a Jersey Shore housemate's cheating boyfriend by writing an anonymous what?

Letter gave the episode its title, and once the note was found it set off a full-blown fight among the women of the house.

In Jersey Shore's Italian season, Mike Sorrentino left on a stretcher after headbutting what?

A wall won that contest: Mike hit it head-first in the middle of a fight with a housemate who was fed up with his meddling.

Which HBO drama casts Steve Buscemi as a corrupt Jersey Shore politician during Prohibition?

Boardwalk Empire is set in the 1920s, and Buscemi's character, Nucky Thompson, is based on a real kingpin who ran a shore resort.

Cape May, a National Historic Landmark on the Jersey Shore, is famous for houses in which style?

Victorian houses went up almost uniformly after a five-day fire destroyed 30 blocks of the town centre in 1878.

What must sunbathers buy and wear in summer to use the sand in most Jersey Shore towns?

A beach tag pays for lifeguards, restrooms and trash removal. The idea goes back to the 1930s, when some resorts issued brass badges marked by gender.

Which Jersey Shore club, opened in 1974, is tied to the rise of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi?

The Stone Pony took over a building that had housed a restaurant called Mrs. Jay's, and it now runs an outdoor Summer Stage for crowds of 4,500.

Sandy Hook's lighthouse, the oldest still working in the US, was partly funded in the 1760s by what?

A lottery run by the New York Assembly helped pay for it, alongside a tax on ships entering the port. Built 500 feet from the tip, it is now a mile and a half inland.

Vinny Guadagnino and a Jersey Shore housemate sought partners on which MTV dating show from 2019?

Double Shot at Love was a reboot of a 2008 MTV series, itself spun off from a dating show built around Tila Tequila.

Vinny Guadagnino of Jersey Shore lost 50 pounds and wrote a 2019 cookbook built around which diet?

Keto worked so well for him that he took a nickname from it, gave advice on the diet in Men's Health and ran an Instagram account devoted to low-carb eating.

Before Jersey Shore made her famous, Snooki studied at community college to become what?

A veterinary technician was the plan when she enrolled at Brookdale Community College, the same New Jersey school Mike Sorrentino attended.

Before joining Jersey Shore, Jenni 'JWoww' Farley owned a small business in which field?

Graphic design was her trade: she ran a company called Jenni Farley Designs and also worked as a club promoter before the cameras arrived.

Which Saturday Night Live cast member played Snooki in the sketch show's Jersey Shore parodies?

Bobby Moynihan, also the show's rambling Drunk Uncle, sent her up so frequently that Snooki became one of his regular characters.

For the first season of their spin-off, Snooki and JWoww moved into what kind of old building?

A firehouse in Jersey City was their home for six weeks of filming, and the pair pitched the show as a modern take on a classic roommate sitcom.

Which man, the father of her children, did Snooki of Jersey Shore marry in November 2014?

Jionni LaValle became her fiancé in March 2012 and went on to appear beside her in the spin-off Snooki & Jwoww.

Which cable channel premiered Jersey Shore Shark Attack, a 2012 monster-movie spoof of the MTV hit?

Syfy premiered it in June 2012, with Paul Sorvino as the mayor, Tony Sirico as a sea captain and Joey Fatone playing himself.

Which Superbad actor received a Jersey Shore makeover from the cast in a 2010 DVD bonus feature?

Michael Cera's makeover sits among the first-season DVD extras, beside deleted scenes, the reunion special and a feature called Before the Shore.

Snooki won her place on Jersey Shore after answering a casting advert posted on which website?

Facebook carried the casting call, and Snooki said its description was definitely about her lifestyle. Vinny Guadagnino filled in his own application as a joke.

A ferry from Cape May on the Jersey Shore makes a 17-mile crossing to Lewes in which state?

Delaware and New Jersey have only two direct year-round crossings: this ferry and the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

Which abolitionist, honoured with a museum in Cape May, once worked odd jobs in the resort?

Harriet Tubman made some 13 missions to rescue about 70 enslaved people after her own escape, the story told by the museum in downtown Cape May.

Which Jersey Shore resort, founded by Methodist ministers in 1879, has never allowed alcohol sales?

Ocean City has been dry since its founding, yet illegal saloons flourished and prosecutors raided 27 speakeasies there in 1929.

Gandía Shore, MTV's 2012 remake of Jersey Shore set in a Mediterranean beach resort, was made in which country?

Spain's version broke its MTV channel's all-time ratings record, drawing more than twice the audience the American original had managed there.

Which feature of the Jersey Shore house needed a permit because the producers had brought it in?

The hot tub, like all the furniture seen on screen, was installed by the production company rather than the owner of the property.

Snooki and JWoww called their MTV spin-off a modern-day version of which 1970s roommate sitcom?

Laverne & Shirley was their model for a show about two friends sharing a home, and it ran for four seasons before ending in 2015.

Old Barney, a lighthouse lit in the 1850s, guards the north end of which part of the Jersey Shore?

Long Beach Island's red-and-white tower went dark in 1944 and was not relit until 2009. Visitors still climb its 217 steps.

In the Jersey Shore shark attacks of July 1916, two of the four deaths came in which unlikely place?

A tidal creek at Matawan, inland of the bay, was the scene: an 11-year-old boy was pulled under, and a man who dived in to find him was also killed.

Posters of which Al Pacino gangster film decorated the Jersey Shore house during filming?

Scarface posters hung beside Cadillac symbols and wheels during filming, in a house whose furniture was all brought in by the production company.

Which nickname do Spring Lake and nearby Jersey Shore towns carry because of who settled there?

The Irish Riviera label reflects the area's large Irish-American population: about four in ten Spring Lake residents claimed Irish ancestry in the 2000 census.

Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band is named after a street in which Jersey Shore town?

Belmar was where the mother of keyboardist David Sancious lived, on E Street, and she let the band rehearse in her garage.

The SS Atlantus, a wreck lying just off Sunset Beach in Cape May, was a ship built from what?

Concrete was tried for a First World War emergency fleet. Her hulk was towed to Cape May in 1926 to be sunk as a ferry pier, but the project was abandoned.

Which New Jersey city denied the spin-off Snooki & Jwoww a film permit before the show settled elsewhere?

Hoboken turned the production down, so filming moved to Jersey City, where crowds of fans gathered daily to catch a glimpse of the pair.

Which radio pioneer demonstrated wireless telegraphy at the Jersey Shore's Twin Lights in 1899?

Guglielmo Marconi picked a site with history of its own: the Twin Lights was the first American lighthouse to test a Fresnel lens.

Which Illinois school is among the colleges that have held classes or conferences on Jersey Shore?

The University of Chicago shares that distinction with the University of Oklahoma, one sign of how quickly the series became a pop-culture phenomenon.

Danny Merk, the Jersey Shore cast's employer at their summer job, also filled which other role?

Their landlord and their employer were one man, and he had opinions: he called Mike Sorrentino the laziest guy in the world, yet the most talented at sales.

Each summer by the Great Auditorium, a wooden hall on the Jersey Shore, families live in 114 what?

Tents have gone up there every season since 1869, each joined to a shed with a kitchen and bathroom. The waiting list for one runs to about ten years.

The 1962 storm that reshaped the Jersey Shore's coastline is named for which Christian holy day?

Ash Wednesday fell on March 7 that year, the day the storm peaked. It wrecked about half of the town of Harvey Cedars and washed two freighters ashore in New Jersey.

Which engineer, later a Union general at Gettysburg, designed the Jersey Shore's Barnegat Light?

George Meade finished the plans in 1855, fresh from designing another New Jersey lighthouse at Absecon. Eight years later he defeated Robert E. Lee.

The New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway's northern end is which Jersey Shore inlet?

Manasquan Inlet is the waterway's northern terminus. It silted shut after a canal was cut nearby in 1926 and was officially reopened in 1931.

Vinny Guadagnino of Jersey Shore began a residency in 2019 as guest host of which male revue?

Chippendales signed him for a month-long run at the Rio starting in April 2019, the same month his MTV dating show premiered.