50 Fun Facts About The O.C.

In the flash-forward that ends The O.C., which profession has Ryan Atwood taken up?

Architect. In the closing scene the grown-up Ryan notices a troubled boy and offers him help, much as Sandy once reached out to him.

Which town does Ryan Atwood come from before the Cohens take him in?

Ryan comes from Chino, a working-class town in San Bernardino County; after his mother Dawn throws him out, Sandy Cohen brings him home to Newport Beach, to Kirsten's initial dismay.

What is Sandy Cohen's job when he meets Ryan?

Sandy Cohen is a public defender who takes Ryan's case after his arrest for helping his brother steal a car; Peter Gallagher played the Bronx-born liberal lawyer for all four seasons.

What addiction sends Kirsten Cohen to a rehabilitation clinic at the end of season two of The O.C.?

Alcohol. Her drinking spirals through the season until the family stages an intervention, and it is Ryan and Seth who finally talk her into getting treatment.

Which character delivers the pilot's most famous line, 'Welcome to the O.C., bitch'?

Luke Ward snarls it after beating Ryan up on the beach. He starts out as the villain and ends the season as one of the gang, the show's favourite comic punching bag.

What holiday does Seth Cohen claim to have invented?

Chrismukkah bridges his Jewish father's Hanukkah and his Protestant mother's Christmas. Seth sells it as eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents.

Which university accepts Summer Roberts but turns down Seth Cohen in season three of The O.C.?

Brown was Seth's goal all along, yet Summer is the one who gets in. He ends up at the Rhode Island School of Design instead, in the same city.

What does Summer Roberts name the pet rabbit she adopts in season four of The O.C.?

Pancakes turns out to have been pregnant all along: in the finale Seth and Summer find her babies living under the bed, and Ryan takes one of them home.

How does Marissa Cooper die at the end of season three of The O.C.?

A car crash. Her drunken ex-boyfriend rams the car off the road as Ryan drives her to the airport; Ryan carries her clear before it explodes, and she dies in his arms.

Whom does Marissa Cooper shoot at the end of season two of The O.C.?

Marissa shoots Trey Atwood to stop him choking his brother Ryan. The scene, set to Imogen Heap's 'Hide and Seek', was later spoofed in a Saturday Night Live sketch.

How does Caleb Nichol, Kirsten's tycoon father, die late in season two of The O.C.?

A heart attack. Caleb collapses in the next-to-last episode of the season, so the finale, The Dearly Beloved, opens with old faces gathering for his funeral.

Where is Julie Cooper forced to live in season three of The O.C. after losing her money?

A trailer park is quite a fall for the woman who set out to be queen of Newport a season earlier. Kirsten finds out and sets about helping her.

What is the name of the club and concert venue introduced in season two of The O.C.?

The Bait Shop gave the show a stage for real bands, Death Cab for Cutie among them, playing as themselves. Seth takes a job there and asks his new boss for advice about Summer.

Which band recorded 'California', the theme song of The O.C.?

Phantom Planet share the writing credit with Al Jolson's estate, apparently because the chorus echoes his 'California, Here I Come'. The show turned the song into a top-ten hit in Britain.

Which band was the first to perform as themselves on The O.C.?

Rooney appeared in season one's 'The Third Wheel', when the gang goes to their concert. Their album had been selling slowly, and sales jumped 200 percent after the episode aired.

What is the name of the teen soap the characters of The O.C. watch, a running joke about their own show?

The Valley even has a reality spin-off, Sherman Oaks: The Real Valley. That prompts Seth to ask why anyone watches fictional characters when they could watch real people in contrived situations.

What is the title of the comic book Seth creates in season two?

Atomic County turns Seth's friends into superheroes, and he develops it with Zach Stevens. Their big meeting about it lands on the night of the junior prom, forcing a choice between the comic and the dance.

Who created The O.C.?

Josh Schwartz was 26. The producers had asked him for a cop or extreme-sports show set in Newport Beach, and he came back instead with characters drawn from the Newport Beach people he had known at college.

Which star of The O.C. had already appeared as a child in The Sixth Sense and Notting Hill?

Mischa Barton had been in films since childhood, starting with the lead in Lawn Dogs in 1997. She was also the first of the young leads to go, when Marissa was killed off in season three.

Which actor turned down the role of Ryan Atwood before Ben McKenzie was cast?

Chad Michael Murray was offered Ryan first and chose the lead in One Tree Hill instead. The two rival teen dramas then made their debuts in the same year, 2003.

Which future film star first played Marissa's little sister Kaitlin on The O.C., before Willa Holland?

Shailene Woodley was about eleven when she played Kaitlin in season one. When the writers brought the character back as a teenager in season three, the part went to the older Willa Holland.

Which producer's hometown of Newport Beach inspired the setting of The O.C.?

McG, born Joseph McGinty Nichol, grew up in Newport Beach and wanted a series set there. His mother gave him the nickname because his uncle and grandfather were both called Joe too.

Who directed the pilot episode of The O.C.?

Doug Liman was a late substitute: the producer who had planned to direct had to withdraw over a clash with a film shoot. Liman stayed on to direct the second episode as well.

The creator of The O.C. likened its glossy soap surface, with quirkier characters hidden inside, to what?

A Trojan horse, in his words: the horse was a glossy night-time soap with bikinis, bonfires and fistfights at galas, and the soldiers inside were characters closer to Freaks and Geeks.

The O.C. is set in Newport Beach, but which Los Angeles County city hosted much of its filming?

Manhattan Beach had the soundstages. Newport lies outside Hollywood's studio zone, and shooting beyond it brought financial penalties, so beaches at Hermosa and Redondo stood in for the real thing.

The exterior of the Cohens' house on The O.C. was filmed at a real home in which coastal city?

Malibu supplied the real house but not Ryan's pool house: that was a mock-up, put up for the pilot and taken down afterwards. The whole home was then rebuilt on a soundstage.

Which filmmaker plays himself in season two of The O.C., in an episode about Seth's comic book?

George Lucas plays himself in 'The O.Sea'. Seth and Zach's big meeting about their comic is fixed for the night of the junior prom, so the director of Star Wars ends up competing with a school dance.

On The O.C., the seafood restaurant known as the Shack is based on which real Newport Beach landmark?

The Crab Cooker once made national headlines when its owner told President Nixon's advance men that he would have to queue like everyone else. Julie calls it by its real name in one episode.

Which neurotic perfectionist, introduced in season three of The O.C., becomes Ryan's love interest in season four?

Taylor Townsend, played by Autumn Reeser, arrives as a recurring villain and finishes the series as its second female lead, standing as maid of honour at Seth and Summer's wedding.

Which physics lab partner, who assumes Ryan will be useless, becomes his girlfriend in season two of The O.C.?

Lindsay Gardner will not let Ryan near their assignment until he stands up to her. The romance turns awkward when she proves to be Caleb Nichol's secret daughter, and so Kirsten's half-sister.

Melinda Clarke summed up Julie Cooper's journey on The O.C. as starting out in what outfit?

A pink Juicy sweat suit was where the 'so superficial' Julie began, in Clarke's words, and by the end she has graduated from college. Her verdict on the character: she's a survivor.

Where does Marissa's younger sister Kaitlin spend most of the first two seasons of The O.C.?

Boarding school keeps Kaitlin off screen for most of two seasons. She returns in season three, played by a new and older actress, and is a regular by season four.

Where do the Cohens return to live in the final episode of The O.C.?

The Cohens move back to Berkeley, buying their old house there after an earthquake wrecks the Newport home; the finale's flash-forward shows Sandy teaching law at Berkeley.

In season four of The O.C., Ryan travels to which country to find Kevin Volchok?

Mexico is where the trail leads. In 'The Gringos', the second episode of the final season, Ryan and Seth head south to find the man responsible for Marissa's death.

The most-watched episode of The O.C., 'The Rivals', aired straight after which Fox hit in January 2004?

American Idol drew more than 29 million viewers that week, and The Rivals followed it with 12.7 million, the biggest audience the drama ever had.

Which future Guardians of the Galaxy star played the activist Che in the final season of The O.C.?

Chris Pratt appeared in nine episodes as Che, the campus activist who pulls Summer into his causes. His breakthrough as Andy Dwyer in Parks and Recreation came two years after the show ended.

Which comedy trio made a parody of The O.C. called The 'Bu?

The Lonely Island ran The 'Bu for eight episodes at a Los Angeles short-film festival, and it helped get them noticed by television executives. On Saturday Night Live in 2007 they spoofed The O.C. again.

Which TV critic wrote the book Stop Being a Hater and Learn to Love The O.C.?

Alan Sepinwall wrote the fan's defence in 2004, when the show was a year old. Nearly twenty years later he came back to it with Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History.

Which Fox comedy asked for cast members of The O.C. to appear as themselves, only to be turned down?

Arrested Development was Fox's other Orange County show, on air at the same time. The O.C.'s creator turned the cameo down, saying his own series was too busy being self-referential to share the joke.

Which Marvel series did The O.C.'s creator and Stephanie Savage go on to run?

Runaways was pitched by Marvel's television chief as 'The O.C. of the Marvel universe', meaning teenagers whose problems are taken as seriously as adults'. It ran on Hulu from 2017 to 2019.

After Fox cancelled The O.C. in 2007, which network discussed picking it up before deciding against the idea?

The CW's president confirmed in January 2007 that a rescue had been discussed and dropped. Fox's own Save The O.C. web petition drew more than half a million signatures.

Ben McKenzie, Ryan Atwood on The O.C., later starred in Gotham as which Batman character?

Jim Gordon. After playing the teenage tearaway, McKenzie spent the next decade on the other side of the law: a patrol officer in Southland, then the future commissioner in Gotham.

The O.C.'s Newport-raised producer withdrew from directing its pilot because of a clash with which 2003 film sequel?

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was his own film to direct, and Fox was moving the series up for a summer launch. He gave up the pilot but stayed on as an executive producer.

Which O.C. actress was booked for only a few episodes until a scene on the Tijuana road trip made her a regular?

Rachel Bilson's Summer was meant to be a passing character. Her diner scene with Seth on that trip changed the producers' minds, and the pair's romance ran to the finale, where they marry.

Which music supervisor, previously on Roswell and Carnivàle, shaped the indie soundtrack of The O.C.?

Alexandra Patsavas chose the songs with the show's creator, who wanted music to be 'a character on the show'. Acts as big as the Beastie Boys, U2 and Coldplay went on to premiere new singles on it.

Which actress played Alex Kelly, who dates both Seth and Marissa in season two of The O.C.?

Olivia Wilde played Alex for thirteen episodes. Her romance with Marissa made the network nervous, and by the creator's account it wanted the storyline wrapped up as fast as humanly possible.

Which father on The O.C. was played by Tate Donovan, the voice of Disney's Hercules?

Jimmy Cooper, Marissa's father, is a financial planner who cannot keep his own finances straight: the character is perpetually in debt, yet stays close to both of his daughters.

For season two, Fox moved The O.C. to which night, against Survivor, Joey and Will & Grace?

Thursday. Fox moved the show from Wednesdays onto a night its rivals already owned, and the average audience fell from 9.7 million to about 7 million.

Which star of The O.C. won the Teen Choice Award for best TV drama actor three years running?

Adam Brody won it in 2004, 2005 and 2006 as Seth, the sidekick. Twice the beaten nominees included Ben McKenzie, who played the show's actual hero.

Which country remade The O.C. in 2013 as Medcezir?

Turkey's Medcezir, meaning 'tide', moved the story to Istanbul, where a wealthy family takes in Yaman Koper, a boy from a poor suburb.