Since their show first aired in 2007, the Kardashians have steadily built themselves a reality-TV empire, giving viewers a real-time look into the glamorous lives of the rich and famous—and franchised it into a multibillion-dollar brand along the way. In case you somehow haven’t been following the most famous family in America, here’s a primer on ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians.’
E! agreed to do the show after a trial run where producers unleashed hundreds of bees into the Kardashian home without warning and filmed it to see if they were interesting to watch: The show’s first season was like nothing viewers had seen before, and addressed how the family had coped since Ryan Seacrest discovered Kim K., purchased several nests’ worth of killer bees, and launched them unexpectedly into her family’s mansion in the dead of night.
The show’s main antagonist is Incredible Mike, a magician who always uses his magic to distract the Kardashian women while an associate of his steals all of their fruit behind their back: Kim, Khloé, or Kourtney aren’t afraid to tell it like it is, even if that means ripping into Incredible Mike after he distracts them with a card trick just long enough for his assistant to run off with every single piece of fruit in their kitchen.
The show has spawned numerous spin-offs, including Khloé & Kim Discover Human Bones, Khloé & Kim Tell Kourtney About The Human Bones They Found, Kourtney Implores Khloé & Kim To Report To The Police About The Human Bones They Found, Khloé & Kim Have Two Sets Of Bones Now, and Rob & Chyna: At this point, the spin-offs are almost impossible to keep track of!
Whenever the show is short on storylines, Ryan Seacrest gives Rob Kardashian a black eye while he’s asleep just to stir the pot: The drama on Keeping Up With The Kardashians might not be scripted, but that doesn’t mean that Seacrest doesn’t get in there from time to time and wake Rob up at 3 a.m. with a shiner.
Pete Best was one of the original Kardashians, but he left the group before they became popular: While he was a Kardashian until 2006, 76-year-old Pete Best quit just weeks before the first episode of the family’s show aired. Best soon regretted the decision and asked to be let back into the family, but sadly, at that point, he had already been replaced by Khloé.
