50 Fun Facts About The O.C.

What do the letters O.C. in the show's title stand for?

Locals complained nobody actually called it that, but creator Josh Schwartz said his USC classmates did.

Which town does Ryan Atwood come from before the Cohens take him in?

His mother Dawn throws him out and his public defender Sandy Cohen brings him home to Newport Beach, to Kirsten's initial dismay.

What is Sandy Cohen's job when he meets Ryan?

Peter Gallagher called him a 'leftie Jewish guy from the Bronx'. Schwartz based the Sandy-Seth dynamic on his own relationship with his father.

Which real-estate company did Kirsten Cohen serve as CFO of, the firm founded by her father?

Sandy later takes over Caleb's old job running it, pursuing a low-income housing project that tests his moral compass.

Which character delivers the pilot's most famous line, 'Welcome to the O.C., bitch'?

TV Land ranked it 83rd among the 100 greatest TV quotes. Luke starts as the villain and ends season one as the gang's comic punching bag before moving to Portland.

What holiday does Seth claim to have invented at age six to merge his parents' two religions?

He described it as 'eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents'. Every season had an episode devoted to it, and Grey's Anatomy later name-checked it.

Which university do Seth and Summer compete for a place at, with Summer getting in and Seth not?

Filming used the University of Southern California to stand in for the Rhode Island campus.

What does Summer name the lab rabbit she rescues while protesting animal testing?

Rachel Bilson was only meant to appear in a few episodes before viewers made Summer a fixture for four seasons.

How does Marissa Cooper die at the end of season three?

Ryan pulls her from the burning car and she dies in his arms on the way to the airport. Schwartz later said the network wanted a main character killed to lift ratings.

Whom does Marissa shoot in the season two finale?

Ryan's older brother had just got out of jail and tried to assault her. SNL's 'Dear Sister' digital short, set to Imogen Heap's 'Hide and Seek', parodied the scene.

How does Caleb Nichol, Kirsten's tycoon father, exit the show?

Alan Dale's character had married Julie Cooper, which meant, as Dale put it, 'everyone was related in the show'. IGN later called writing him out a mistake.

Where is the Cooper family forced to live in season three after losing their money?

Julie, once among the richest women in Newport, struggles to feed her daughters. Melinda Clarke has called Julie 'the original housewife' of Orange County.

What is The O.C.'s season-two concert venue where the Killers, Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie play?

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah turned down an invitation to play there, worried it would hurt their credibility.

Which band recorded 'California', the show's theme song?

Al Jolson's estate is co-credited because the chorus resembles 'California, Here I Come'. A mellower 2005 re-recording took over as the theme in season three.

Which band was the first to guest-appear on the show, and saw a 200 percent sales jump afterwards?

Music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas and Schwartz built indie rock into the show's identity, releasing six soundtrack albums.

What is the name of the fictional teen soap the characters watch, the show's meta-commentary on itself?

It even had its own fake reality spin-off, Sherman Oaks: The Real Valley. Seth used it to voice fan complaints about love triangles and twentysomethings playing teens.

What is the title of the comic book Seth creates in season two?

Like The Valley, it let the writers mock the show's own excesses. Excerpts were included in the complete-series DVD box.

Who created The O.C.?

He was in his mid-twenties and wrote the pilot, by his own account, in his boxer shorts. He and Stephanie Savage went on to make Gossip Girl.

How many episodes of The O.C. were made across its four seasons?

The final season was cut to 16 episodes, and Fox announced the cancellation in January 2007. A fan petition drew more than 740,000 signatures.

Which actor turned down the role of Ryan Atwood to play Lucas Scott on One Tree Hill?

Ben McKenzie was only called in after Fox flagged his failed audition for a UPN sitcom; the casting director said he 'inhabited the character unlike anyone we had seen'.

Which future film star played Marissa's little sister Kaitlin in season one, before Willa Holland?

She was eleven at the time and later joked she 'so obviously' was not right for the recast because she had not hit puberty yet.

Which producer's hometown of Newport Beach inspired the show's setting?

Charlie's Angels director Joseph McGinty Nichol wanted a show set where he grew up. Doug Liman directed the pilot when McG's schedule clashed with Full Throttle.

Who directed the pilot episode of The O.C.?

The Bourne Identity director stepped in at short notice. The pilot was shot on 35mm film; later episodes used cheaper 16mm.

Schwartz described the show as a glossy soap hiding smarter characters inside, comparing it to what?

He said the outside was 'Beverly Hills 90210 with bikinis and bonfires' while the characters inside owed more to Freaks and Geeks and My So-Called Life.

Where was most of The O.C. actually filmed, to stay inside the Los Angeles studio zone?

The Cohens' interior and pool house were rebuilt at Raleigh Studios there. The pool was only four feet deep, so the cast had to act on their knees.

The exterior of the Cohens' 'McMansion' was filmed at a real house in which coastal city?

The pilot used two neighbouring homes there, one for the driveway and one for the infinity pool. A mock pool house was built and torn down after filming.

The Harbor School attended by the teens is based on which real Newport campus, the one McG attended?

Filming took place at Mount St. Mary's College, a women's college in Brentwood. UCLA stood in for Berkeley.

The seafood restaurant the characters call the Shack is really which Newport landmark?

Julie slips and calls it by its real name in a season three episode.

Which neurotic perfectionist introduced in season three becomes Ryan's love interest in season four?

Autumn Reeser's performance was widely praised, and Entertainment Weekly called her 'a fine, funny love interest for Ryan'.

Which season-two physics lab partner, who assumed Ryan would be useless, becomes his girlfriend?

She turns out to be Caleb Nichol's secret daughter, tangling the 'Cooper-Nichol' family tree even further.

What was Julie Cooper wearing at the start of the show, which Melinda Clarke cites as her original look?

By the finale Julie has graduated from college; Clarke called her arc that of 'a survivor'.

Where does Jimmy Cooper's daughter Kaitlin spend most of the first two seasons?

She returns in season three as a pot-smoking troublemaker whose personality is closer to her mother's than her father's.

Where do the Cohens return to live in the series finale, 'The End's Not Near, It's Here'?

Their original home was actually filmed in South Pasadena. An earthquake had devastated Newport in the run-up to the finale.

In the fourth season, Ryan and Julie track Kevin Volchok down in which country?

They hand him over to federal officials, which starts Ryan's slow return from grief.

What was the most-watched O.C. episode, airing as the lead-out to American Idol in season one?

It was the seventeenth episode of season one. By the fourth season premiere the audience had fallen to 3.4 million.

How many viewers watched the series finale in February 2007?

That was 76 percent above the final season's average, though far below the first season's 9.7 million average that made it the top new drama among 18-to-34s.

Which comedy trio made a parody of The O.C. called The 'Bu?

Boston College students made their own version, The BC, which was covered by The New York Times and CBS Evening News.

Which TV critic wrote the book Stop Being a Hater and Learn to Love The O.C.?

He noted that Schwartz read fan message boards closely enough to write their complaints straight into the scripts.

Which other Fox comedy in the same county asked for O.C. actors to appear as themselves, which Schwartz declined?

Producer Allan Heinberg said a Sandy speech about the Golden Globes was also cut for being 'a little inside'.

Which Marvel series was described as 'The O.C. of the Marvel Universe' before Schwartz and Savage ran it?

The pair had already used the O.C. formula on Gossip Girl and Chuck.

How many signatures did Fox's own 'Save The O.C.' campaign gather after the cancellation was announced?

The CW discussed picking the show up but decided against it. Schwartz said it was better to go out 'creatively on top'.

Which country broadcast the show under the title Newport Beach?

Brazil's SBT called it O.C. – Um Estranho no Paraíso, 'A Stranger in Paradise'.

Why did McG hand the pilot to Doug Liman instead of directing it himself?

Schwartz had met McG and Stephanie Savage at their company Wonderland Sound and Vision in 2002 to develop the series.

Why did the cast have to act on their knees during the Cohens' backyard swimming scenes?

The Malibu house seen in the pilot was rebuilt on a soundstage at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach to save money.

Which music supervisor, previously on Roswell and Carnivàle, shaped the show's indie soundtrack?

Schwartz always intended music to be 'a character on the show', and six soundtracks were released during its run.

What building in Hawthorne stood in for the Newport Group offices in season two?

It was the FAA First Federal Credit Union; Julie once even called the Crab Shack restaurant by its real name, the Crab Cooker.

On which film stock was the pilot shot, before later episodes switched to cheaper 16 mm?

Subsequent episodes used digitally post-processed 16 mm to bring down production costs.

By roughly what percentage did viewing fall when the show moved to Thursdays for season two?

The slot pitted it against Survivor, Joey and Will & Grace, with the average dropping to 7 million viewers.

Which actor won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actor: Drama three years running for The O.C.?

The show itself took four Teen Choice Awards in each of its first three seasons.

What was the title of the 2013 Turkish adaptation of The O.C.?

The title means 'tide'; the series aired on Star TV.