The Jersey Shore Season 4 premiere earned monster ratings  – a 19.6 rating among adults ages 18-49 and a projected 118 million viewers overall – shattering all TV records.

Last night’s season premiere of the MTV reality series, Jersey Shore, was the most-watched television show in history!

The premiere episode, set in Italy, was also Jersey Shore‘s third most-watched telecast to date, behind two Season 3 episodes. In the persons 12-34 demographic, the Jersey Shore premiere scored a 8.2 rating, or 6.5 million viewers.

The fourth season of Jersey Shore has the tanned-up gym freaks  leaving behind the humble decadence of Seaside Heights, N.J., to return to the ancestral home of the modern age of wonders: Florence, the Italian metropolis that was once home to Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and many of the other great thinkers and artists of the Renaissance. It’s a perfect mixture of the sacred and the profane, the rough equivalent of asking the Pope to consecrate a row of tequila shots. The famously problem-plagued shoot included delays, Visa problems, fights, neck braces, and presumably a few Bunga Bunga parties.

As the description on Comcast digital guide put it, “violence,” “intensely sexual situations” and “intensely suggestive dialogue” were prevalent.

Here’s J-Woww in FLorence:

Here’s a few highlights of the show:

Snooki shows off a pair of I Heart Vinny underwear as she packs.

“No granatos.” – Vinny, boning up on his Italian and simultaneously conveying what he will not be boning in Italia. Allegedly

“I’ll bring guys home, but I won’t do sex.” – Deena. Lie.

Snooki again with this gem: “Italy’s like that big country. No, Europe is that big country. They have Britain, England, and Italy.”

“Lock up your daughters. Handcuff your wives.” – Mike.

Ronnie and Sammi have an awkward first encounter.

The ladies (term used very loosely) have a nice discussion about breasts.

Here’s the most watched shows in the history of television:

1.  Jersey Shore – Season Premiere – 118 million viewers (2011)

2. Super Bowl XLV — 111 million viewers (2011)

3. Super Bowl XLIV — 106.5 million viewers (2010)

4. M*A*S*H* series finale — 106 million viewers (1983)

5. Super Bowl XLII — 97.5 million (2008)

6. Super Bowl XLIII — 95.4 million (2009)

7. Super Bowl XXX — 94.1 million (1996)

8. Super Bowl XLI — 93.2 million (2007)

9. Super Bowl XLII — 93.2 million (2008)

10. Cheers 100-minute finale special — 93.1 million (1993)