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This Day in Pop Culture for December 3

On this day in pop culture history, the very first Sony PlayStation went up for sale and “Jersey Shore” made a mess for Italian Americans.

December 3, 2020

2–3 minutes

1994: The Sony PlayStation Comes to Play

Perhaps Ken Kutaragi’s greatest business achievement was the creation of Sony’s PlayStation, but for a device that has brought so much joy to so many, it has a somewhat dark history. In 1988, the game console was a joint project between Nintendo and Sony with Sony creating a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom, the original version of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which was released in Japan and Europe in 1990.

The new game system was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, but the after the announcement, Nintendo decided to drop Sony and go with Philips instead. The story goes that Sony wanted to keep the money from CD license and then decide what royalties should be sent to Nintendo, so Nintendo broke up with Sony rather publicly.

Upset with this decision, Sony appointed Kutaragi to come up with a new device to rival Nintendo. While only about 200 prototypes of the “Nintendo PlayStation” were created, the product never materialized. Meanwhile in June 1992, the “father of PlayStation” showed off his new Sony PlayStation game system that used 3D graphics. The original PlayStation first became available for sale in Japan on this day in 1994. (Image: Wikimedia)

2009: TV Trainwreck, ‘Jersey Shore’ Debuts

UNICO National were none too pleased when Jersey Shore began airing on MTV. Pleading with the network to drop the show, they stated that the show was a “direct, deliberate and disgraceful attack on Italian Americans”. The reality series followed the antics of eight roommates at a vacation home located in Seaside Heights, New Jersey and sharing the “guido” lifestyle as they put it. (The term “guido” is often used as an ethnic slur.)

The vacation home was fitted with 35 remote-controlled cameras in addition to 18 others. And when this group drank or fought or did both, those cameras captured it all. Airing on the network from 2009 to 2012, Jersey Shore starred Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio), JWoww (Jennifer Farley), Sammi Sweetheart (Samantha Giancola), Snooki (Nicole Polizzi), The Situation (Michael Sorrentino), Deena Nicole Cortese, Vinny Guadagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Angelina Pivarnick.

This show was huge. In 2010, Barbara Walters placed the entire cast on her “10 Most Fascinating People” list for her annual TV special. Even after the show ended, you couldn’t get away from this group as spin-off series like Snooki & Jwoww and The Pauly D. Project followed. The most recent spin-off, All Star Shore, ran for two seasons from 2022-2023 (Paramount+ for the first season, MTV for the second).