They're such international hotshots these days that it's almost hard to remember a time when the "Jersey Shore" cast members weren't household names--like, before 10-year-olds debated during recess whether or not SamRon should stay together, or before MTV dropped Snooki instead of a ball on New Year's Eve. That's why each week we're featuring old-school pics and video of one lucky guido/guidette from the series and asking you to share your first impressions of them. Today's victim: Pauly D.
At the end of high school, friends and mere acquaintances tend to write cheesy phrases in each other's yearbooks such as "Don't eva change." Thankfully, most of us do change, or else we'd still be huffing Lysol in public bathrooms and going on 15-person group dates to Houlihan's every Saturday night. But there's one person we absolutely admire for staying the same solid guy that he was when we first met him, and probably since he was born.
Pauly D is one loyal mutha-effer. While Snooki pretty much ditched her pouf once she started experimenting with headbands, bangs and different shades of hair dye, Pauly has remained completely faithful to his corpse-stiff trademark 'do, respectfully referred to by its guido proprietors as 'The Blowout.'
We love a man who sticks to his guns, no matter how many times his look has been compared to Bart Simpson or caused injury to a taller companion. We love Pauly D because he didn't eva change, and because he never needed to.
Normally for our weekly "Remember When..." feature we post pics and video from the cast's first season and ask you to comment on how much they've evolved/devolved since then. But today we're forced to do things a little differently because aside for him becoming really rich and getting some new tats, we truly can't think of any ways in which Pauly has done a 180, or even a 30. So for this time only, how's about y'all just take a look back at these pics from his first-ever MTV photo shoot, as well as video of his best one-liners from Season 1, then tell us in the comments what you dig most about our darling "Jersey Shore" stud.
Photos: Scott Gries/PictureGroup