Created by Darren Star, the show was originally titled Class of Beverly Hills. At one point, Star, who loosely based the show on his own high school experience in Potomac, Md., used the working title Potomac 20854 before settling on its now-iconic name.

While Beverly Hills, 90210 would become one of the most popular TV shows of the ’90s and largely responsible for launching the teen soap genre, the Fox show initially struggled, ranking No. 118 in the ratings when it debuted in 1990 (competing against NBC’s Cheers did not help).

However, after the season one finale featuring Brenda and Dylan’s first time gained buzz, Fox wisely ordered new episodes for the summer, injecting much-needed teen angst and drama into what was previously the TV off-season.

“We filmed all of our risqué summer episodes at the beach and aired those when other shows were in reruns,” Jennie Garth told the New York Times. “So we caught a huge teen audience, kids that were home from school. And then it just went crazy.”

From there, 90210 transformed from a low-rated guilty pleasure into a cultural phenomenon, and its mostly unknown stars became some of the most famous people in the world.

“In just a matter of weeks, we went from being just another generic ensemble cast of any old prime-time drama to being…superstars,” Garth wrote in her memoir. “I don’t think any of us were prepared for the stardom that was thrust upon us in this way.”