With six little words, one of the most popular television networks was launched in 1981. “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll,” shouted John Lack, the first Chief Operating Officer of MTV, according to Billboard.

This was nearly 40 years ago, and the once music-video-based network has become nearly unrecognizable. These days, television shows, mainly reality TV, has become MTV’s biggest money-maker. The domino-effect of junk TV began with an experiment to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real, also known as The Real World.

The quick success of that popular show inspired the music network to launch several other reality-based shows, some arguably better than others, and some clearly more real than others. From the obviously fake shows to the surprisingly real ones, every MTV show had something special to offer the world. But which ones were fake and which ones were actually real?

20 FAKE: Pimp My Ride Was All For Entertainment

Pimp My Ride was one of the coolest MTV shows of the 2000s. We got to see totally boring and sometimes run-down vehicles get the ultimate upgrade.

Unfortunately, the show was pretty much all fake. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a lot of the “pimped out” upgrades were removed after the show because they didn’t really work and/or were not safe or legal.

19 REAL: Rob & Big Was A True Story Of Friendship

Rob & Big was that show that none of us knew how much we needed in our lives. It was warm, funny, and actually real.

The show followed around professional skater, Rob Dyrdek and his best friend/bodyguard, Christopher “Big Black” Boykin. Rob & Big showed the duo engaging in some seriously unordinary antics and just having a really good time together.

18 FAKE: Teen Mom Isn’t All Reality

Teen Mom has easily become one of MTV’s most popular shows, and that didn’t happen by coincidence. MTV producers quickly learned what worked with the Teen Mom audience.

Drama sells and drama is what the network puts out, but more often than not, what we see on TV isn’t what actually happened in real life. A lot of it is edited and staged.

17 REAL: The Stunts On Jackass Were Unscripted

Jackass was the show for the wild child in all of us. It was totally insane and unbelievable, at times. But it was always real. The stunts the cast filmed were not staged in the slightest.

According to ScreenRant, over the years, the ridiculous stunts left behind real injuries of broken bones and brutal scars.

16 FAKE: Catfish Basically Catfished Us All

MTV and host, Nev Schulman made the term “catfish” what it is today. We hate to be the ones to lift the veil on this one, but Catfish isn’t what it seems.

According to Vulture, the catfisher is the person who gets cast on the show first, not the person being catfished. So basically, the whole mystery and search for the lying person is all pretend.

15 REAL: True Life Really Showed Real Stories

True Life was a really great documentary-styled show that provided the world with an honest look into people struggling with different life problems.

The show prided itself on documenting the various lifestyles and habits without interfering or falsely creating them. Some of the topics were totally ridiculous, but they weren’t meant to be normal. That would be boring.

14 FAKE: The Hills Was About As Real As Heidi’s Face

After the success of Laguna Beach, the network desperately wanted to keep up the pace. The Hills set out to follow Laguna Beach’s main star, Lauren Conrad during the next stage of her life.

However, after the first season, natural drama was lacking, so the show’s creators started constructing and pushing fake storylines to keep the show running, according to ABC News.

13 REAL: The Real World Stands True To Its Name

MTV’s first reality baby, The Real World is the longest-running program in MTV history, according to the network. It was a social experiment that couldn’t have gone any better.

Putting a group of strangers into a house and letting them live while we watched was simple and genius, and it happens to be one of MTV’s most real shows, too.

12 FAKE: The Osbournes Was Totally Wild And Totally Fake

Putting a camera in front of Ozzy Osbourne is the easiest way to find some entertainment. Adding in the rest of his family only makes things better. The Osbournes featured everyone’s favorite dysfunctional family for four seasons.

According to Independent, while the family is really that whacky, some of the crazier scenes were very much staged by MTV producers, though.

11 REAL: Laguna Beach Followed The Lives Of Real High Schoolers

Laguna Beach was one of MTV’s more popular reality television shows. It followed the lives of a group of elite high schoolers in Orange County.

According to a few of the show’s main cast members, in an interview with E! News, most of the juiciest drama and storylines from the series were 100 percent real and not scripted at all.

10 FAKE: Jersey Shore Takes Exaggeration To The Next Level

Jersey Shore started out kind of like the “guido” version of The Real World. The initial success of that first group inspired MTV to keep them around for many more seasons.

While the show may not have been entirely scripted, the cast was often pressured and pushed into certain storylines, for entertainment purposes, that they wouldn’t have pursued on their own.

9 REAL: Wild ‘N Out Knows Less Is More

If you had to choose one show that was obviously fake on MTV, you might guess Wild ‘N Out. However, this one is actually real.

According to International Business Times, the show’s host, Nick Cannon explained the secret to their success is that it takes an hour to shoot, but we only see about 22 minutes of it. All the funniest parts of their show are packaged up perfectly.

8 FAKE: 16 & Pregnant Was Scripted Reality

16 & Pregnant is the predecessor to MTV’s Teen Mom and was equally as successful in its prime. Another detail the two reality shows share is that they are “staged reality.” Producers have the liberty to edit any storylines they want to drive the audience.

For example, the pregnancy reveals in the show are all staged – people knew about the pregnancy before the cameras showed up, according to The Stir.

7 REAL: The Challenge Really Is As Hard As It Looks

The Challenge is MTV’s greatest competition-based reality show. It takes the most popular cast members from other reality shows and places them in insane obstacles. With all the rivals, fights and crazy competitions, it’d be easy to assume it was scripted. However, this one is not.

"Reality is stranger than fiction. You couldn't write the stuff that goes down. You just couldn't,” shared fan-favorite, Johnny Bananas to PopSugar.

6 FAKE: Cribs Was A Little Deceiving

Cribs was social media before social media existed. Viewers were given a special look into celebrities' private homes, or so that’s what we were supposed to think.

This one wasn’t always real. According to BuzzFeed, the show often encouraged stars to rent out or use other, more elaborate homes and cars than their own.

5 REAL: Are You The One? Really Is An Emotional Roller Coaster

Are You The One? is one of MTV’s newer reality dating shows. Twenty strangers are placed in the same house and told their perfect match is right in front of them.

The show uses a very “scientifically-proven compatibility testing” for perfect matches and the emotions the cast experience are completely real, according to Insider.

4 FAKE: Room Raiders Wasn’t As Thrilling As It Appeared

Room Raiders was the ultimate invasion of privacy game show. Unsuspecting singles were taken with “no idea” that their rooms were about to be “raided” and judged by what is in their rooms.

According to In Touch Weekly, one former contestant, Yuffie Bunny, admitted they were given some notice before the actual kidnapping and had to remove personal photos from their room.

3 REAL: Viva La Bam’s Pranks Were All Real

Viva La Bam began as a spin-off to the popular stunt show, Jackass. It followed the wild life of professional skateboarder, Bam Margera, as he drove his parents crazy.

The emotions and unbelievable pranks were completely real in this show. In an interview with The Nine Club Highlights, Bam explained that they would literally try everything out until the golden moments were captured.

2 FAKE: Parental Control Played With Scripting And Staging

Parental Control was another one of MTV’s popular dating shows of the late 2000s. The premise of the show is based on parents who hate their kid’s romantic partner and try to find them a better match.

According to Medium, a former contestant admitted that the whole thing, including the date, is pre-planned by production and while there isn’t a script, they are often told what to say.

1 REAL: Ridiculousness Is Really That Ridiculous

Rob Dyrdek continued his MTV success after the end of Rob & Big and Fantasy Factory with Ridiculousness. It’s all about real reactions to hilarious viral videos.

According to Rob, in an interview with The Huffington Post, during the show he’s “just commenting on everything as it happens. The stars of this show are the videos.” It’s how it would happen if you were watching with your friends.

References: MTV, BuzzFeed, ScreenRant, IB Times, Independent, E! News