Out of the “Real World: San Francisco,” the relationship of Dr. Pamela Ling and Judd Winick has endured https://t.co/0zHQ1UNiMs pic.twitter.com/hPjYMg9F5P

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 23, 2016

A heartwarming bit out of this past weekend's "State of the Unions" column in the New York Times' Weddings section: Dr. Pamela Ling and Judd Winick, members of the original third season cast of MTV's The Real World, shot in San Francisco between February and June of 1994, just celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. Their union was originally highlighted in the Times' "Vows" column on Sept. 9, 2001, and as they recount now, their bond deepened shortly after the show stopped filming, when they both flew to Miami to be by the side of their dying friend and fellow castmember, Pedro Zamora, who died from complications from HIV in November 1994, just five months after their season stopped filming and began airing.

It would be another seven years before they'd finally tie the knot, and Winick, now 46, compares their early relationship to "a 747 ready to take off that had been grounded on the runway." As he recalls to the Times, when they were filming and the audience noted clear sexual/romantic tension between the two, "We were in the friend zone because she had a boyfriend and we were on a television show."

[Sidebar: The Real World: SF house at 949 Lombard Street is still there, sort of, but is basically unrecognizable from the house featured on the show in 1994. Since then it suffered a serious fire in 2000, and then was completely renovated thereafter.]

Dr. Ling is now 48, and the two live in San Francisco have two children whose names and ages they haven't wanted to talk about publicly, saying they're waiting to let them decide when and how they might want to be in the public eye. She was a third-year medical student at UCSF when the show was filmed, and she's now now a professor of medicine there, focusing on how tobacco is marketed to kids.

The pair say the only tensions in their marriage have been about their work. Ling has been perhaps overly focused on her career, and Winick has had moments when his has taken him away from his family for extended periods.

Winick is now in his third decade as a professional graphic novelist and cartoonist, having worked for Marvel and DC Comics, and written several more personal graphic novels. In 2015, he published Hilo, an all-ages novel about a boy who crashes to earth and befriends a pair of children.

You can see both Ling and Winick below in a 1995 Real World reunion special, in a segment focusing on Zamora's death. Winick, who was Zamora's roommate and best friend on the show, continued lecturing on HIV and safe sex for three years after Zamora's death. He continued to incorporate LGBT issues into comics like Green Lantern and Green Arrow, and in 2000 he published a graphic novel titled Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss and What I Learned.

Below, a vintage promo for an episode of The Real World: San Francisco, featuring Judd and Pam, and a trip the cast took mid-season to Hawaii.

When did you stop watching The Real World?* I, like many people of my era, was fascinated by the early seasons of the then-groundbreaking reality show that brought a gaggle of diverse young people together to bicker and bond...but let's face it, it died a long time ago and doesn't seem to know it.

I remember Season 1 (New York) as appointment viewing in my roommate-filled house, yelling at that country guy who never left the house in Season 2 (LA), and San Francisco's Season 3 was truly iconic, history-making TV.

London (Season 4) was neither here nor there, but I think I started losing patience with Season 5 (Miami) when the show started having more drunk-in-the-hot-tub than not. At some point after that I think I aged out of MTV's demo for the show, and it (unrelated to losing me as a viewer) jumped the proverbial shark with more drunken brawls, waxed and tanned bros, and night-vision hookups than anyone should be able to count.

Though there was a rumor that the show's second San Francisco season would be the end of the "unscripted" (heh, sure) dinosaur, that proved unfounded and the show, now a long-undead version of its original self, has stumbled on. Since then, however, it stopped identifying itself by city: 2014's SF-set season was subtitled "Ex-Plosion," 2015's was called "Skeletons," and "Go Big or Go Home" will premiere this March. And so it goes.

All this to say that later this month The Real World, will be coming to San Francisco to cast for an upcoming season (theme as yet unidentified, but my money's on "Manscaping" or maybe just "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"). According to the spokesperson who wrote to me about the casting, "they're always coming to SF to find the next big reality stars!" which must be why, when he first lived in the Bay Area, local author Dave Eggers famously auditioned for the show. (He was not chosen.)

This time, they are seeking "seven lucky strangers" whose names you will likely never remember, but who the casting note describes as "characters from real life; people with strong personalities who are unafraid to speak their minds."

"Most of all, we are looking for surprising and unusual life stories that have yet to be told on television." As if such things exist!

The open casting call will be held on Friday March 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the all-too appropriate venue of Woodbury (685 3rd Street). Applicants must "bring a recent picture of themselves (which will not be returned)" and "must be 21 years or older by June 2016, and appear to be [hmmmmm interesting choice of words] between the ages of 20 and 24."

If you go, good luck and let us know how it goes.

* For those of you about to snootily comment "I never watched it," here you go.

Previously: MTV's Real World Premiered Twenty Years Ago Today, SF Installment Stands As Best Season

And now, an art video from Ari Fitz, cast member on the upcoming final season of The Real World (which, if you haven't heard, will be set in San Francisco). The PR person who sent SFist this video dared, "Try to watch this without vomiting or masturbating."

Oh dear.

Fitz herself describes the video thusly:

"It's rare that I'll explain my work, especially for something strange like the Gastronomy series. What I will say is Gastronomy is an experiment on your expectations. Your expectations of what love, what family, what film should be. Even more so, it's an experiment on your reaction to failed expectations."

But will Gastronomy rank up there with "Blue," Real World: Hawaii Kaia's flawed yet ultimately redemptive poetic masterpiece? You decide:

[FITZ]

When MTV announced The Real World would return to San Francisco for its 29th season, rumors swirled that it could be the last outing for the once-groundbreaking reality show. Dwindling ratings in the face of competitive reality TV spinoffs like "The Challenge" meant the show's producers would be looking for a new hook to draw viewers in. The show will be renamed "Real World: Ex-Plosion" and features former lovers of the cast members.

The show's co-creator Jonathan Murray points out to Entertainment Weekly that strangers-in-a-house format the show pioneered isn't so new anymore. After years of trying to rejuvenate the show by bringing in a diverse cast from various walks of life (or, failing that, just getting everyone really liquored up), the show is adding the unexpected twist midway through the season. EW explains:

The season begins like any other: Seven young, attractive and single diverse cast-mates from around the country move into a house. [...] They’ll start to form bonds, with each other and with San Francisco locals. Then, one month into the three-month shoot, they’ll go away for a day trip. When they return, they’re in for a huge shock: Their exes have moved in too.

Sounds like a nightmare. The idea came about, Murray says, when producers realized potential cast members would always claim they were single, but their exes always somehow turn up on day one. So this season, they just went for it and picked singles who had weird ex hangups to begin with:

When casting season 29, producers sought singles who had particularly interesting relationships with their exes — there’s the person who’s really close friends with the ex, the one that’s always getting texts from his ex, etc. After filming began, producers had to scramble to convince the exes to drop everything and join the cast too — five of the seven agreed.

As far as we can tell, filming wrapped sometime around the end of October. The unofficial @RealWorldSF Twitter account, which retweeted sightings of the cast around town, claimed there was a garage sale at the Polk Street Party pad last month and one happy passerby apparently snatched up the map of San Francisco we spotted for his own apartment:

In another twist, the producers say the cast members were also given smartphones for the first time ever. During filming, they were allowed to text and post messages to a private system that only their housemates, friends, family and former lovers could access. The messages will be made public when the show airs next year. One thing that won't be changing though? There's still a hot tub.

Previously: Is This Polk Street Pad The Next 'Real World' House?
'The Real World' Will Return To San Francisco For Possible Final Season
[Entertainment Weekly]

Juanita More shares with us this image of the new MTV Real World house in San Francisco. You like? While it's just a shot of the entrance, it's a colorful one with a San Francisco map, checkered linoleum, and a chandelier.

"I hope they let me in when I knock on the door," More says.

MTV announced earlier this month that the deteriorating reality show would return to San Francisco for its 29th (and possibly final) season. Vevmo, as you may recall, tipped off SFist regarding permits showing that the house will be at 1244 Sutter Street, a two-story pad near Polk Street in Nob Hill that was once the Avalon Ballroom.

The first SF Real World house caught fire in 2000 care of a vanilla-scented candle (what aren't they to blame for?). The four-story, 3,705 square foot abode, located at Lombard between Leavenworth and Jones, suffered approximately $2 million in damages. It has since been rebuilt, but barely resembles the house used in the '90s reality-TV staple.

Update: Look, we have ANOTHER SHOT of the Real World house!

After yesterday's announcement that MTV's The Real World would be returning to San Francisco for its 29th (and possibly final) season, our initial reaction was, "Where will they be living so we can gawk at the renovations?" Followed shortly by, "How can I avoid that neighborhood at all costs?" Today, after a little bit of digging, we learn the cast of the next Real World: San Francisco will most likely be proud residents of 1244 Sutter Street, a two-story party pad within stumbling distance of Polk Street in Nob Hill.

The space between Polk Street and the Regency Center on Van Ness, built in 1911, was once home to the Avalon Ballroom, a Bill Graham-affiliated venue frequented by a number of music legends in the late sixties. Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and the Doors all had headlining sets at the spot during its heyday.

Sometime over the next few months, however, the building's 21,900 square feet of space across two floors (plus a mezzanine and another 10,000 square feet of ground floor offices), will be done over with the sort of hip updates and product placement opportunities that MTV tends to throw into the renovated spaces for their eager young cast members.

Although the space was most recently used as an office, savvy internet folks first pointed to 1244 Sutter Street as the home of season 29. Public records show the owner of the building signed paperwork in late July allowing for renovations and one building permit hints at the construction of a new kitchen and showers, while another points to temporary partitions for a production office. A complaint lodged with the Department of Building Inspections also shows crews were running wires to install cameras.

As for the neighborhood: Polk Street is well-known for its nightlife. The ABC recently voted to limit the number of available liquor licenses on a stretch of Lower Polk near the Sutter Street house, but the neighborhood's plethora of theme bars still make great hangouts for bachelorette parties from Alameda, women who are into smoking outside of sports bars, guys who like hardcore 70s porn, reformed cub scouts and Steelers fans. Also: people who like dance parties at brunch.

Producers for The Real World have been searching for season 29 cast members since earlier this year, but there's no official cast announcement at this point. In some of the show's later yearss, however, the cast and crew have been heckled by local residents who didn't exactly appreciate fameseeking reality TV stars filming in their neighborhood bars. In season 11, the Chicago house was hit with protests and vandalism by local activists and anarchists who saw MTV and parent company Viacom contributing to the gentrification of the neighborhood. That, at least, is a good argument for not putting the cast members up in a swanky spot on Dolores Park.

View Larger Map

(As a footnote: Season 3's house on Lombard street burned down in 2000 and was later completely rebuilt.)

Previously: 'The Real World' Will Return To San Francisco For Possible Final Season
[H/T: Vevmo, Reddit]

Puck (nee David Rainey), MTV Real World: San Francisco's grubby bike messenger, is "hospitalized in San Diego following a terrifying car wreck that left the reality star and his 8-year-old son seriously injured," reports TMZ. While driving along Route 79 during a father-son trip on Friday, Puck swerved to avoid hitting a deer and ended up rolling down an embankment, landing upside down in a creek. TMZ goes on to say: "The two were transported to nearby hospitals where doctors discovered Puck had broken bones in both feet, his right hand, his neck ... and fractured his sternum and clavicle." Puck, if you recall, did not get along with his roommates, shoved his fingers in Pedro's peanut butter, and introduced the world to "snot rockets."

Update: It looks like the swerved-to-miss-a-deer story was a fib--at least according to cops at the scene. Puck, it seems, "was allegedly blasted when he wrecked his car last week." In addition to getting busted for driving under the influence, the former reality star "will also be booked for child endangerment."

Brace yourselves, Gen Xers. Ken Ober, host of MTV's beloved Remote Control, was found dead at his home in Los Angeles.

"No cause of death was immediately known," reports CNN.

In addition to hosting the popular pop culture-infused 1990s quiz show, according to his WIki page, Ober hosted a Los Angeles talk radio show with former Brady Bunch young sis Susan Olsen in 2005, served as a producer for the CBS comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine, and was known for a series of Jenga commercials.