Everyone from Sammi Sweetheart to Rihanna has spoken out in favor of Nicole Snooki Polizzi's surprise pregnancy, but what does the impending bundle of "guido" joy actually mean for Snooks' castmates and the show that made her famous?
Season five of Jersey Shore concluded last night with several bangs and a whimper. It was a suitably anti-climactic send-off for the show's most drama-free season yet. Shore remains strong in the ratings, but fan enthusiasm has waned as we've watched our beloved pack of super-tan hook-up fiends morph into a group of bored millionaires who play increasingly pointless pranks on one another. This is the first time a season of Shore has concluded without a new season already in the works. But that's fine because 3 of the 8 cast members have spin-offs on the way, right?
Not necessarily. The most high-profile of these spin-offs focuses solely on Snooki and her BFF JWoww. It was originally intended to showcase their odd couple dynamic with Jenni playing concerned mom to Nicole's carefree party monster. But now that Snooki is soon to be an actual mom, will the show be able give fans what they came for? And if the spin-off tanks, does that prove once and for all that both Snooki and JWoww are incapable of maintaining fame post-Shore?
MTV will cash in on the strange popularity of this Garden State subculture at least once more before pulling the plug. We'll see a final season of Shore in which a pregnant Snooki makes sporadic, (hopefully) sober cameos. But let's face it – after the final "farewell season" the show will lose its main attraction. There's nothing to say Snooki can't work after she has a child, but she can't do the kind of work that made her famous. Seeing a young, single woman get drunk and sleep with a succession of "gorillas" is fun; seeing a young mother behave in such a fashion is, well…Teen Mom. So while the Snookster may be overjoyed with the thought of starting a family and we wish her all the best…her pregnancy sadly signals the end of the Age of the Guido. What a time we had.
(Photos: WENN, Fame/Flynet)
