Jersey Shore Heads to Italy

How does a show that's centered around drunken sex and fistfights keep going, and even gain popularity in later seasons? Why don't the hot tub hookups get old, and the bar room brawls get tired?

Here's a theory: Fans of Jersey Shore -- and, heaven help us, there are a lot of them -- have come to know and love its core cast of characters. And boy, are they characters. If they weren't, there would be nothing new to come back for.

And now the cast of Jersey Shore (MTV, Thursdays, 9 p.m. ET) is headed for Italy -- "the birthplace of the culture they love" -- to shoot Season 4. Anyone who complains about them leaving their titular setting is missing the point. Granted, their season two stint in Miami wasn't as well-received as their time spent on their home turf. But Snooki, The Situation and company are now bigger than their digs. It's their outrageous personalities that people tune in for.

The season in Italy will naturally have one big comedic theme: You can take the characters out of the Jersey Shore, but you can't take the Jersey Shore out of the characters. Imagine Snooki, drink in hand, touring the Sistine Chapel in her pink, fluffy slippers. Imagine Sammi and Ron on a Venetian gondola, screaming drunken profanities at each other. Imagine JWOWW making out with a gelato salesman.

The jokes and ironies will pile up, of course. Like the fact that most of them aren't even Italian.

Even that doesn't matter -- has never mattered. Why should it, when it's just so entertaining to watch the hilariously deluded Snooki strut her stellar (in her mind) stuff and throw public fits when she doesn't get her way? Like them or not, this cast has star power. No doubt their drunken escapades in Italy will entice their fans back to the show once again.

Do you think Italy can handle the Jersey Shore crew? Chime in below!

Christina Applegate Christina DaRe Christina Milian