Big Brother has evolved a lot since first season on CBS

When Big Brother first appeared on CBS, the show was voted on entirely by the viewers. The BB1 cast really didn’t know what they were getting into in 2000.

Big Brother in the United States began with the summer 2000 season, which was based on the successful Dutch version of the show. The format was an experiment for the CBS audience, with five episodes a week, evolving into six episodes a week a bit later. The BB1 cast had a total of 70 episodes in just 88 days, making it the most-shown of the U.S. seasons.

Big Brother had a co-host in Season 1

In addition to Julie Chen, Ian O’Malley served as a co-host for the show. That wasn’t all, though, as Drew Pinsky also popped up once a week to discuss what had been going on in the house.  Online advisor Regina Lewis was there to provide even more coverage to the internet audience. There were a lot of people there to help the 10 houseguests move things along.

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A lot has remained the same over the years, including the cameras recording every moment of the season. During BB1, there were no nominations or evictions done by the houseguests. Instead, it was America deciding who would go home each week. This was done all the way until just three houseguests were left in the game. It was then time for America to choose the Big Brother 1 winner.

Who won first U.S. season?

Eddie McGee was the first winner for the U.S. version of the show. The other two houseguests to make the final three were Curtis Kin and Josh Souza. Though they were popular at the time, none of the final three houseguests got invited back for BB7 (All-Stars). One cast member did, as George Boswell (Chicken George) got the call from producers.

While it’s always cool to look back to how a show began, the current version of Big Brother in the United States is almost nothing like the original installment. It’s a really good thing that CBS changed things up for Season 2, which is a big reason the show has now survived 20 years on television. WIth the online interest for the BB21 cast, maybe it could last 20 more.