| The Real World: New York | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Season Information | |
| Season No. | 1 |
| Location | New York City, New York |
| Season Run | May 21, 1992 – August 13, 1992 |
| No. of Episodes | 13 |
| Cast | |
| Starring | Norman Korpi Julie Gentry Becky Blasband Kevin Powell Andre Comeau Heather Gardner Eric Nies |
| Season Chronology | |
| Next | The Real World: Los Angeles |
| Gallery | |
The Real World (retrospectively referred to as The Real World: New York, to distinguish it from subsequent installments of the series) is the first season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships. It was created by producers Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray.
The cast consisted of seven people, ranging in age from 19 to 26, most of whom were already living in New York City when the series taped. The cast was filmed in a SoHo loft from February 16 to May 18, 1992. The series premiered May 21 of that year. This is the first of three seasons to be filmed in New York City. In 2001, the show returned to the city in its tenth season, and again in 2008 for its twenty-first season,set in the borough of Brooklyn.
As the first season of one of the first series in what is now considered the reality television genre, The Real World: New York is sometimes credited with pioneering some of the conventions of the genre, including bringing together a group of participants who had not previously met, and the use of "confessional" interviews with participants to double as the show's narration (though in the first season, the confessional interviews were sparse and were not taped in a separate, private room, as would become common later). Some, however, have credited an earlier series, the 1991 Dutch TV show Nummer 28, for these innovations.
Production history[]
Co-op at 565 Broadway, where the season was filmed. The loft built for filming was on the second and third floors.
The Real World was originally inspired by the popularity of youth-oriented shows of the 1990s like Beverly Hills 90210. Bunim and Murray initially considered developing a scripted series in a similar vein, but quickly decided that the cost of paying writers, actors, costume designers, and make-up artists was too high. Bunim and Murray decided against this idea, and at the last minute, pulled the concept (and the cast) before it became the first season of the show. Tracy Grandstaff, one of the original seven picked for what has come to be known as "Season 0", went on to minor fame as the voice of the animated Beavis and Butt-head character Daria Morgendorffer, who eventually got her own spinoff, Daria. Dutch TV producer Erik Latour claims that the ideas for The Real World were directly derived from his television show Nummer 28, which aired in 1991 on Dutch television. Bunim/Murray decided upon the cheaper idea of casting a bunch of "regular people" to live in an apartment and taping their day-to-day lives, believing seven diverse people would have enough of a basis upon which to interact without scripts. The production cast seven cast members from 500 applicants, paying them $2,600 for their time on the show.
The production discovered a nine-story, ten-unit residential co-op building at 565 Broadway, at the corner of Prince Street, in Manhattan's SoHo district, after much searching, and converted the massive, 4000-square-foot duplex to be the residence and filming location. Walls separating two adjacent apartments on the second and third floors were removed in order to form a single, four-bedroom residence, and were renovated for the filming of the series. Production personnel, which included up to 13 people at one time, utilized a workspace with a separate entrance. The cast lived in the loft from February 16 to May 18, 1992. The series premiered three days later, on May 21, 1992.
Cast[]
| Cast Member | Age* | Hometown |
|---|---|---|
| Rebecca "Becky" Blasband | 23 | New Hope, Pennsylvania |
| Andre Comeau | 23 | Detroit, Michigan |
| Heather B. Gardner | 20 | Jersey City, New Jersey |
| Julie Gentry | 19 | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Norman Korpi | 25 | Wakefield, Michigan |
| Eric Nies | 20 | Ocean Township, New Jersey |
| Kevin Powell | 26 | Jersey City, New Jersey |
*Age at the time of filming.
Episodes[]
| Episode | Title | Original Air Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "This is the True Story..." | May 21, 1992 |
| 2 | "Julie and Eric... Could it be Love?" | May 28, 1992 |
| 3 | "Leather Chaps and Sequins? What is Eric Getting Himself Into?" | June 4, 1992 |
| 4 | "Trouble Throughout the House" | June 11, 1992 |
| 5 | "Kevin and Eric Mend Their Relationship" | June 18, 1992 |
| 6 | "Kevin... Come Back!" | June 25, 1992 |
| 7 | "Heather Wants to Grab His Booty!" | July 2, 1992 |
| 8 | "Becky Falls into Troubled Love" | July 9, 1192 |
| 9 | "Julie in a Homeless Shelter?" | July 16, 1992 |
| 10 | "He So Ugly He's Cute!" | July 23, 1992 |
| 11 | "Julie Thinks Kevin is Psycho!" | July 29, 1992 |
| 12 | "WWF is in the House!" | August 6, 1992 |
| 13 | "Goodbye to the Big Apple!" | August 13, 1992 |