Sandy Cohen History Lesson: The Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship!

Very cool things were happening surrounding The O.C. phenomenon during the early 00's. Some of which have been rumored about throughout the years or were thought of as just O.C. legends. The following O.C. legend your about to read was very true.

In the fall of 2003 John Kim (class of 2004) of The Berkeley Law at the University of California started The Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship for Lawyers who Dare to Dream also known as "The Sandy". The O.C. premiered on Fox during the summer before John's final year of law school, he saw in “The O.C.” and thought it was everything missing from law school life in general: glamour, romance, and visionary lawyering. He decided that other law students might feel the same and organized the club as soon as school began again. It was one of the largest clubs at UC Berkeley with a total of 75 members!

The Fellowship was inspired by no other than the man himself Sandy Cohen of The O.C..Sandy Cohen graduated from Berkeley Law school and was seen as a public defender in the early season one episodes. Sandy Cohen used his keen selfless public defender skills and rescued Ryan Atwood from his poor life in Chino.

The fellowship was created to help summer law students who provided public defense on a volunteer unpaid basis. Each year one or more student would be chosen for their wonderful charitable attitude and work ethic. The winning students would receive or split a cash prize of 3,000-5,000 dollars which was donated by Fox, Warner Brothers, Peter Gallagher and the Boalt Totally Awesome Prom Fundraising Event.

This Fellowship went on for three years, with each year Peter Gallagher stopping by to present the award to the winning students and hanging out to sign autographs etc.

Jason Balitzer accepting his award in 2004 with actor Peter Gallagher that plays Sandy Cohen in The O.C.

The first winner was Jason Balitzer in 2004. In 2005 Ronnie Lin was the winner and lastly in 2006 there were five total winners, Ruth Mackey, Joey McInnis, Rachel Pfeiffer, Loriani Santos and Van Swearingen!

The Sandy Cohen Fellowship was loved by the media and was mentioned on Entertainment Weekly, The Jimmy Kimmel Show, The New York Times and even the official Fox O.C. website. Peter said “I think this club is amazing. They aren't lampooning [Sandy] as an impossible dreamer missing out on a fat paycheck. Instead, they are encouraging people to do the right thing.”

Members of the fellowship would also meet every Thursday to get their O.C. on, watching the latest episode, gossiping about what would happen next, all the while eating snacks! Furthermore the fellowship would also host O.C. related parties throughout the year.

John (guitar), Iiona (keys), Anne (bass) and Captain Oats on drum machine

There was even an official band of the fellowship called "Orange Crush" who formed in December 2003. "Orange Crush" played at O.C. club meetings and wrote all original fun O.C. songs. This hot three piece plus Captain Oats on drum machine was a force to be reckoned with. With catchy hits such as "Anna Face" and "Summer Come Over" all of which can be downloaded here!

Peter Gallagher said in the Oakland Tribune: "I love the fact that [the OC at Boalt] are encouraging people to go into the public defender's office, and the fact that it happens to be based on a character I play is all gravy. I think this club is amazing. They aren't lampooning [Sandy] as an impossible dreamer missing out on a fat paycheck. Instead, they are encouraging people to do the right thing."

The Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship only lasted a little while but the memories and lives changed in the process will remain priceless! What a cool experience that had to be! Cheers to all the future Sandy Cohen PD's of the world who Dare to Dream!

This post was just liked via Twitter by the man himself Sandy Cohen aka Peter Gallagher!

For more check out boalt.org

Photos provided by boalt.org

Seeing Double: Ryan's Golf Cart Stunt Double!

The O.C. isn't really known for it's action-packed moments but it does have a few! And with those scenes you can always count on there being some epic stunt double action occurring as well.

An obvious stunt-doubled scene in particular is in season 1 episode 16 titled "The Links". You know the episode where the gang heads to Palm Springs for the weekend via Oliver's parents golf course mansion.

In the episode the group goes golfing and then at one point Oliver declares a race back to the club-house. Things get a little wilder than anyone except Oliver had expected.

They started racing like a couple of gentlemen but Oliver quickly turns the race into destruction derby! At one point Oliver drives his golf cart almost into Ryan and Luke's causing their cart to go out of control.

If you look closely during the above fast action cut scene you will see a stunt-man in place of where Ryan was sitting in the golf cart. On the very right you will see where Oliver and Marissa's cart comes close to making contact. Wrist cuff check, opened button up shirt check, bad Ryan wig check, check! Our theory is that Benjamin McKenzie didn't want to risk his charming good looks too early in his career so he said Hey Josh Schwartz hook me up with a body double baby! Alternatively perhaps Ryan couldn't pull off those kinda crazy golf cart maneuvers and Josh Schwartz had to call in the big guns!

The stunt double/stunt driver for Ryan according to IMDB is Matthew Taylor, he was in three O.C. episodes. He has been a stuntman for 20+ years and has doubled for some big Hollywood names including Brad Pitt!

Interestingly enough during the golf cart stunt shots Chris Carmack appears to be riding as Chris Carmack. Although the IMDB page for this episode states the stuntman for Chris was Kanin Howell (8 O.C. episodes). We couldn't find any scenes in this episode showing the stuntman Kanin Howell unless they did an epic job at disguising him as Luke (which could be possible). #stuntlife.

Rare Photos: Adam Brody the McDreamy of The O.C.?

Well played Fox, well played.