Creator Josh Schwartz with 5 Quotes Welcoming Us Back 10 Years Later to The O.C., Bitch

1) “I'm very inspired by '80s movies, and there's a Karate Kid element to that sequence. And I always thought it was funny when you'd ask kids where they were from and they'd say, “I'm from The O.C.,” as if it was the LBC or something. So, to have this Abercrombie model drop that line on him as if he was entering some really gritty neighborhood felt funny. And I also wanted to get the words “The O.C.” into the pilot somewhere.”
–Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C. nighttime soap that premiered on Fox on Aug. 5, 2003, on how the infamous line “Welcome to the O.C., bitch” came about.

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For the 10th anniversary of the show's premiere, five more Schwartz nuggets from his recent interview at The Daily Beast:

2) “I was a huge fan of Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. I didn't watch a lot of–ironically–teen dramas, and when we sold the show to Fox, they hadn't done a show like this since 90210, and so very early on it was always, “If Ryan is our Luke Perry, who's our Jason Priestley? It couldn't possibly be the comic book-loving nerd?” Once we cast Adam [Brody], they felt like he was cute for the girls, and we could make it work. Adam wasn't even on the original poster for the show.”
-Schwartz on his inspiration for the show.
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3) “I think the show can take credit for it. It really did take off in a way that none of us expected. We failed to capitalize commercially on it as much as we should have. We really blew it.”
-on who invented “Chrismukkah”

4) “You know, for what it was trying to do, I thought it did it very well. I tuned in. And anything that gave birth to Heidi Montag … how bad could it be?”
-on whether Schwartz was a fan of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County

5) “For me, the fact that people still want to talk about the show or tweet about the show is great. People still remember the show fondly all around the world. One of the great things about making a show for a younger audience is that the things you love in your teens or early 20s you'll always love.”
-on his show's legacy

If you've never seen it, here's a quick overview of one shining season:

14 episodes of The O.C. in 1,260 words

Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

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