'Jersey Shore' to head to Italy

Does Italy know exactly what it's about to get itself into? (Does MTV?) The network Tuesday announced that the fourth season of "Jersey Shore" will be produced there this spring while a prominent opponent of the series lashed out at MTV, saying the move to export this crew would amount to a blot on U.S./Italian relations.

MTV said the cast will head to Italy - no specific location given - sometime this spring for a late summer/fall launch. In a statement, the network cheerily explained that "America's most talked about housemates are leaving the boardwalk behind for the piazzas of Italy," where they will be "poised to get their G.T.L. [gym tan laundry] on abroad, ready to drop in on Vinny's family for a famous Guadagnino dinner and excited to trade gorillas for Italian stallions."

UNICO National, a Fairfield, N.J., Italian-American services group that successfully led the charge against "Jersey Shore" to have the term "guido" expunged from the series, called the move to Italy "repugnant."

"It's just repugnant," said Andre DiMino, past national president of the group and its spokesman. "The first season they made it very blatantly about Italian-Americans and the second season it wasn't even connected. The audacity to think they're going to bring them to Italy is not only an insult just to Italian-Americans but to all Americans, and we have a bad enough image already around the world. This is just terrible."

MTV declined to comment. The second season of "Shore" was shot in Miami's South Beach, and returned to Seaside Heights, N.J., for the third.

Meanwhile, TMZ.com reported that MTV's planned Snooki/JWoww spinoff began filming scenes Monday at Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi's parents' house in Marlborough, N.Y.