For a disturbingly long time now, I've been bothered by the Pussycat Dolls. Every time I pass a poster of the girls, a marquee boasting their name, or their extremely well-supported racks on the CD racks (sorry, I had to), I feel a sting of recognition in singer Nicole Scherzinger. Had I seen her in an ad for a late-night hotline or Olive Garden once upon a time? Or passed her in the street years ago? These moments of confusion were brief and fleeting, because I have bigger things to worry about and, well, I have a short attention span. It wasn't until I recently stumbled across Scherzinger's Wikipedia page that I remembered the WB and its reality show, Popstars.

Back when boy bands ruled the top 40, reality television as we know it today was just getting its start. Until American Idol came along and started to perfect the music reality show formula in 2002, we had shows like Making the Band, with O-Town of "It's called 'Liquid Dreams', not 'Wet Dreams'" fame, and Popstars, which created the all-girl Eden's Crush. I had seen, like, two episodes of Popstars and the resulting buzz and video love on MTV, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I had first seen Scherzinger. She's come a long way from wearing leather pants in a mildly successful girl group to wearing leather short-shorts and leading a chart-topping outfit.

I dug up some YouTube clips of these early music reality shows and amused myself. It's hard to believe this cheesiness was hot a mere six years ago. Check out these videos...

Scherzinger's Popstars audition:



Hot crappy-CGI action! Eden's Crush's first music video:



Anyway, I thought this was interesting... Although it's not as weird as when I found out that Fergie was in KIDS Incorporated.

UPDATE: Okay, so maybe this news doesn't come as that big of a surprise to many of you. Sorry that I'm not as big of a Pussycat Dolls or Popstars fan.