Hot Tubs, Hook-Ups, Reality TV: 'Real World' Legacies

April 28, 2008 — -- What hath "The Real World" wrought?

The MTV series that started out as a crazy social experiment in 1992 is still going strong -- its 20th season debuted earlier this month. And its effects are everywhere. From villains on reality TV to college coeds in hot tubs, ABCNEWS.com took a look at some of the ways in which "The Real World" has had an effect on pop culture.

It's hard to imagine TV without reality TV, but when "The Real World" debuted 16 years ago, it launched a whole new television landscape and signaled a cultural shift.

"Ten minutes into shooting, we realized we were capturing something that hadn't been captured before on commercial TV," said Jonathan Murray, who created the show with Mary-Ellis Bunim. "There was this energy, this idea of people coming together from different worlds, having to get together and figure life out. There was something about it that was almost magical."

Murray and Bunim originally pitched MTV a scripted series about young people starting out in New York, but when the network didn't have the money for it, they said, "Let's move seven people into a loft and shoot it and see what happens," Murray said.

What happened was the birth of the modern reality show.

"It's the grandfather of reality television," said Kimberly Speight Nordyke, a television writer for "The Hollywood Reporter."

Looking back at that first season, it bears scant resemblance to the current one or any of its reality show descendents. "It was really sincere," Nordyke said.

Today, there are dozens of reality shows and entire cable networks that would not have existed without the MTV show.

"Survivor," "Big Brother," "The Bachelor" and "America's Next Top Model" are all shows about what happens when a group of strangers live together. They each took their cues from "Real World" and put their own twist on it. And the genre continues to evolve with shows like "The Hills," which looks more like a slickly produced soap opera.

They all owe their start to "The Real World."