remember the real world?

i'm not really sure why, but i've been thinking about mtv's the real world a fair bit lately. is it still airing? as far as i'm concerned, the "back to new york" season was the last watchable one. below are my five favorite seasons of the show, ranked. what are yours?

1. hawaii

can we all agree on this? it might be partially due to nostalgia for the era, but they hit casting gold with these seven strangers. we had alcoholic ruthie, adorable matt and colin, annoying amaya, charismatic teck, evil justin, and evil/naked kaia. from the moment they started skinny-dipping on the first episode, i was ALL IN.

2. boston

there was the fact that everyone had super-weird names: elka! montana! genesis! syrus! kameelah! there was also montana and her boyfriend vaaaaaj's tumultuous relationship: one minute, they're hanging a "gone sexin'" sign on the bedroom door. the next, he's screaming "WHORE!" at her on the phone. this clip is absolute gold.



and how can we forget elka and her rocker hottie boyfriend, walter? i wonder whatever happened to those two crazy kids. finally, i definitely credit the dreamy jason (along with brandon boyd in incubus' "drive" video) for making me feel all of the feelings at age 14 or whenever i happened upon my first marathon of RW boston:

I'M LIKE HEY, WHAT'S UP, HELLO.

i still wander by the house, which is now a community center, when i'm in beacon hill. if walls could talk, amiright?

3. new orleans

if there were a list of best real world musical moments, david broome's awesomely, awesomely bad "come on be my baby tonight" (a total rip-off of "luck be a lady tonight") would be my #1 forever and ever. the original clip is on youtube, but this parody is sooo much better and makes me cry with laughter:



seriously, words can't describe the joy this song has brought to myself and my friends over the past 15 years. like, when i was in new orleans about a year and a half ago, i actually made a sign that said "come on be my baby tonight" and stood in front of the RW mansion for a photo-op that didn't quite pan out. anybody else? no? cool. anyways, the cast was rounded out by mormon julie, orange-haired matt, rugged jamie, sassy melissa, hot danny, and ho-hum kelley (who's now married to scott wolf...um, wut).

SQUEE-DA-BU-DWEE-DA-BU-DWEE.

4. seattle 

who could forget the slap heard 'round the world??



the nathan/david bromance was cool, too. oh, and lindsay! i totally wanted to be lindsay when i grew up.

5. miami

so spicy! to be honest, all i really remember about this season was the scandalous "shower scene," and the "WAS IT F-IN' YOURS TO OPEN UP, YOU STUPID BITCH?!" scene:



but that's totally enough to lock this season down at a solid #5.