Anyone who frequents this site by now knows there are several people who make posts on this site, not just Ryan Rayzer. Sure he makes most of them and well, he makes the most controversial, but he’s still not the only poster here at LukeFord.com and while we may not always agree with everything he says, I can tell you right here and now, I will die defending his right to say it.
In the adult industry we work hard to demand our freedoms, but funny how quick we are to want them taken away from people we may not agree with. I’m sorry, but that isn’t right. It’s very black and white, we either want freedoms or we want censorship …. and with freedom means we have to understand that gives others the right to say what they like or don’t like and even if we don’t agree with them, they still have every right to say it.
Last week I was on AVN.com and I found some photos for the Jersey Shore parody “Jersey Whores” from Zero Tolerance. The photos showed several blonds and a picture of a man who quite honestly looked like he belonged on the cast of That 70’s show. I had a good laugh about it and well Ryan was the person I was making fun of those photos too. He too checked out the photos and made a post about it here on this website. Truth is, based on the AVN photos alone, his post wasn’t far from the truth. Those photos were misleading and were bad PR for the movie as they were not an honest representation of the movie.
Now fast forward a few days. I spoke with a nice man from Zero Tolerance and together we agreed to take another look at the movie. But in all fairness, I want to recap what is going on.
One day a group of people from the POPPORN website decided they would make a parody for the popular MTV show Jersey Shore. They started working on a script and approached Zero Tolerance for help with production and distribution of this movie. They came to some sort of agreement and a press release was issued to all the typical sources. On December 31, 2010 XBIZ posted this press release. The very next day on January 1, 2010 XBIZ posted this press release which stated that Taryn Thomas was going to make a Jersey Shore parody. Now interestingly enough, even though someone from POPPORN said they issued their press release first and while this may be true, you’ll see in the Taryn Thomas press release “Thomas bought the JerseyShoreXXX.com domain and launched a Twitter account in November to kick off casting.”
That means she started production of her movie back in November. So if POPPORN started production or at least what they call “pre-production” of the movie in December, to shoot in January, technically Taryn Thomas was first.
But this is porn and let’s be real, it is totally common to have several versions of the same movie. Look how many versions of the Tiger Woods movie there is. Look at how many times they’ve made a version of Debbie Does Dallas. In fact I seen an ad the other day where Adam and Eve produced a movie with Bree Olson that was a take on Debbie. And there is what, like 2 or 3 versions of Charlie’s Angels in the works right now?
So really who cares if two different companies make two different versions of a parody? I totally don’t. So then that brings us to the movies. Now we already discovered that the Taryn was first but who is the best?
Well “best” has always been a subjective term. In terms of marketing I will tell you right now, from someone who has years of marketing experience, Taryn Thomas has been winning that battle. Let met share with you a little story. Taryn named her movie Jersey Shore XXX. Zero Tolerance named her movie Jersey Whores. Both movies were filmed in January. Taryn issued a public statement that her movie would come out at the end of February, just after Zero Tolerance said their movie would come out in April. So Zero Tolerance then upped their release date to 1 week before Taryn’s.
You can already tell the pissing match between the two companies are heating up. So next move goes to Zero Tolerance when they renamed their version of the movie to the official Jersey Shore parody and changed the box cover to say OfficialJerseyShoreParody.com. But guess what? They forgot to actually buy that domain name and Taryn Thomas got it. So now the box covers are printed and they are stuck promoting the domain name that now points to JerseyShoreXXX.com. For that reason alone we give Taryn’s version of the movie the winner in marketing.
Now the bad side. For some reason Adam and Eve isn’t being really aggressive in distribution and some retailers aren’t aware of the fact that there are two Jersey Shore movies both coming out at the end of February. So while retailers are stocking the Zero Tolerance version “Jersey Whores”, they aren’t stocking the other one. I spoke with a retailer today about it. The purchasing agent told me she didn’t realize there were two different versions of this movie. The odd thing is, Adam and Eve is distributing that version of the movie and they are a big company, so why are they not making more of an effort with retailers to carry the movie? Very strange and in the end will hurt the sales of the Taryn Thomas version of the movie as a result.
Today I went ahead and called two adult stores in Texas, one in Houston and one in Dallas to see if they were carrying both movies. The first one in Houston told me that the Official Jersey Shore Parody should be in stock by March 1st but they haven’t heard of that other movie, which was Jersey Shore XXX. The second store told me they didn’t know there were two of them but they aren’t sure which one they are going to carry. Curious, I asked him why he would only carry one and not just both of him. He wasn’t sure the answer but knew for sure they had only ordered one version of the movie. At first he didn’t know which movie he had on order which they were expecting to be in stock in a few weeks but he thought the name was something like Jersey Whores. Which of course we know is the Zero Tolerance version of the movie. So whoever does wholesale distribution for Adam and Eve, they are slipping!!
Now on to casting for both movies …..
The Real “Jersey Shore” Cast
Taryn Thomas’s “Jersey Shore XXX”
The Real “Jersey Shore” Cast
Zero Tolerance’s “Jersey Whores”
Okay Zero Tolerance gets the grade here with an A+ whereas Taryn Thomas gets a D-. The only likeness her picture has to the original is that it has a Ferris Wheel in the back ground and it’s a group shot. However, ZT does one hell of a good job mimicking the real cast. They have the same background, same pose, and the same color clothes. It really looks just like the original.
The real “Snookie”
Zero Tolerance version as played by Kristina Rose called “Snookums”
and here is the Taryn Thomas version of “Snookie” as played by herself
ZT gets a A- for Snookie, but again I give Taryn a D-. I understand that this is a parody and what are the odds of finding a pornstar who looks exactly like someone on TV, but at least ZT tried. All Taryn did was put on a really bad wig. I like Taryn, don’t get me wrong. It’s just in this case, they had a better looking Snookie.
The real Sammi “Sweetheart”
Taryn Thomas version as played by Dylan Ryder
Zero Tolerance version as played by Lexi Love
Taryn gets an F- for her version of Sammie. I mean really? She couldn’t do any better than that? I give ZT a A++. Spot on! I really do like Dylan Ryder but if you watch the trailer for this movie you will see what I mean about her. She just doesn’t fit in with the rest of them. She’s just to sweet and soft.
The Real Jenni “J-Woww”
Taryn Thomas version as played by Veronica Rayne called “Wow-J”
Zero Tolerance version as played by Sara Sloane
Taryn put a brunette in a blue bikini and called her J-Woww. Her girl has bangs and the real Jenni doesn’t, makes Taryn receive another D. (Come on, how hard is it to put on a headband or clip the bangs back?) I’m only giving ZT a B+ on this one because it does look like a bad wig! But good job none the less!
The real “Angelina”
Taryn Thomas version as played by Angela Aspen
Zero Tolerance version as played by Ann Marie Rios
I’m afraid they both get bad grade for Angelina. I give Taryn an F and ZT a D- (only because Ann Marie looks more like her on the box cover).
The real Mike “The Situation”
Taryn Thomas version as played by John Espizedo call “The Predicament”
Zero Tolerance version as played by Rocco Reed
ZT actually gets an F for Mike “the situation” of looks, but at least they got the name right, so I will bump up the grade to a D. Taryn actually did a good job on her Mike which scores her an A, until they called him “the predicament” (HaHa) so I am bumping her grade down to a B for just really bad taste in name selection alone.
The real “DJ Pauly D”
Taryn Thomas version as played by Johnny Castle
Zero Tolerance version as played by James Dean
The real “Ronnie”
Taryn Thomas version as played by Memphis Blake
Zero Tolerance version as played by Mikey Butders
The real “Vinny”
Taryn Thomas version as played by TJ Cummings
Zero Tolerance version as played by Anthony Rosano
As far as casting goes I am going to have to give the leg up to Zero Tolerance. So although we give marketing genius to Taryn Thomas, with a big negative in marketing to Zero Tolerance for their very bad selection of promotional pictures they posted in the AVN galleries. In the future they might want to better select photos that are more, well photos that show off the movie more, not just to show off that you got Kagney Linn Karter in your movie.
As far as the cast of the movie we have to give it up for the other version, Zero Tolerance – they by far had a cast that looked more like the real cast. I will say this though, I want to give extra credit to Taryn for going out of her way to cast porn stars who were actually from Jersey in her version of the movie.
As far as distribution goes, this one goes to POPporn / Zero Tolerance with a huge negative to Taryn Thomas / Adam and Eve. When you have a movie situation like this, you need to make sure retailers are carrying your movie. Taryn Thomas is so busy promoting her movie on Twitter and via the Adam and Eve store she forgot that millions of people show at other adult retailers around the world and as the person who made the movie she needed to make sure that those people are aware of her version of the movie so they will get it in stock.
In the end it looks like these are two great movies, each with their own good and bad points. Zero Tolerance had a larger budget to make the movie but it looks like Taryn Thomas has the whole grass roots thing going for her.
Here is a link to the very long (about 6 minutes) tailer for the Zero Tolerance movie Jersey Whores. Here is a link to the trailer for the Taryn Thomas version called Jersey Shore XXX.
