How often in your life have you seen a mother of four flip a table over during a fancy dinner party? Or had one of your mother’s friends throw herself a burlesque party while on the verge of bankruptcy?

Surprisingly, out of the all the series' franchises, the ladies from The Real Housewives of Atlanta seem the most mentally and emotionally stable. None of these ladies have been engaged 19 times or had reason to be called a "prostitution whore." It was just the speed at which Southern belles screamed at each other that makes them seem the most "ridiculous."

Compared to the brawls among New Joisey's Housewives, the ladies of Atlanta seem like, well, ladies. And despite all the screaming and name-calling and music-making, the Atlanta Housewives have not been subject to nearly as many late-night talk show jokes or Internet parodies as the ladies of New Jersey or New York. Nor does Kim’s song Tardy for the Party come close to Countess LuAnn’s hilarious Chic, C’est la Vie. Aside from Kim’s ordeal with Big Poppa, or Sheree’s plan to someday win an Oscar, the antics of these women make the season three opener of the New Jersey installment look like a Flavor of Love reunion.

No one fights like the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Specifically Teresa -- and whoever she happens to get physical with. Although Jacqueline, Caroline, Kathy, and Melissa look like they’ve never thrown a punch in their entire lives, Teresa Giudice certainly makes up for it. From flipping a table at the Brownstone-- to having to be restrained at multiple family events to (accidentally) throwing Andy Cohen down in his chair during the reunion special, Teresa seems like the last person anyone would want to get into it with. Even though she is the loudest and the most violent, her charm has really won over audiences and made her a fan favorite.

During seasons one and two, Teresa had a justified reason to get violent with another woman, and that woman was Danielle Staub. Thanks to her constant state of delusion, Danielle, the alleged former stripper, prostitute, aspiring musician, criminal, model, etc., was practically asking to Teresa to throw punches, and viewers ate it up. I may be wrong, but “Prostitution whore!” may have been the 2009 phrase of the year.

Though Danielle's now missing from the Housewives franchise, we can still count on New York's ladies who lunch to raise eyebrows.

Countess LuAnn de Lesseps delivers the "high-class" crazy with her own etiquette book, titled Class with the Countess: How to Live with Elegance and Flair (released in paperback!), and two “hit” singles.

And her “royal” name? She was once the fourth wife to a count named Alexandre de Lesseps who cheated on her. Despite all the pain he put her through, she retained her married name. Money can’t buy you class, but it can buy you denial. At least LuAnn has her music to fall back on, with her music videos the subject of much water cooler chatter and the butt of talk show monologues. Last season, when Danielle said goodbye to New Jersey for “personal reasons”, it could've have really been because her music "career" didn’t quite take off the same way the Countess's did. Maybe with Melissa Gorga's sure-to-be “hit” song On Display dropping soon, New Jersey will finally have a pop superstar they can call their own. We can only hope.

What The Real Housewives of Orange County lacks in musicians it more than makes up in golddigging and bad parenting. On no other installment would you ever catch one of the housewives letting their toddler, strapped to their stroller, fall into a nearby pool, like Alexis Bellino did. This is the baby equivalent to being trapped inside a drowning car, or that scary scene in Angels & Demons.

Say what you want about the Housewives, from their fighting to their alleged gold-digging to their questionable forays into music; but their place in pop culture history is no laughing matter. With everyone from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to Chelsea Lately reenacting some of the show’s pivotal moments, it's no wonder Bravo has expanded the franchise to Beverly Hills and Miami. There there's no shortage of rich women in the reality television world, and more signing up every day, the Real Housewives are unabashedly the most shamefully entertaining of them all.



Karen Malmquist is a junior at La Salle University, and the head writer and star of In Other News, a comedy series airing in Philadelphia.