If you think Chino kid Ryan Atwood is having a hard time in high school in Orange County, Calif., on FOX's teen soaper "The O.C.," just listen to producer Mike Fleiss of The WB's "High School Reunion," which launches its second season on Sunday, March 14, at 9 p.m. ET.

"I didn't even go to graduation," he says. "I wasn't even there. I went to high school with a bunch of really pretty people, and some of them were still pretty [at my reunion] and some of them weren't really pretty. I went to Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton -- the O.C., baby. My high school was just like the high school in 'The O.C.'

"It had a bunch of rich people with nice cars, good-looking parents, hot kids. I was at the very bottom [of the social ladder]. I was in the parking lot, angry, no car. I had a moped. I'm 225 pounds, six-foot-four, riding around on a moped -- not the coolest."

Fleiss managed to overcome this somewhat inauspicious start in life to become a successful TV and movie producer, with such shows as "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette" and "Are You Hot?: The Search for America's Sexiest People," and the 2003 feature remake of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," to his credit.

He's also the man behind "High School Reunion," which was a ratings hit for The WB when it premiered last year, bringing together former classmates at a Chicago high school for a 10-year reunion in Hawaii.

Fleiss saw the idea as a slam-dunk for compelling reality television.

"You never really escape high school," he says, "how you were in high school, how you relate to people you went to high school with. What we found out is that when you put these people together for the first time in 10 years, it explodes right off the bat.

"You don't have to wait for relationships to develop. They're pre-existing relationships that have been festering for more than a decade. It makes for some pretty dramatic television."

Asked what he heard from viewers, Fleiss says, "Just that it's super-relatable. Everybody connects with that. Everybody looks back and remembers fondly, or not so fondly. Everybody went to high school; everybody had a person they had a crush on; everybody had a person they hated, a person who was a total dweeb, who hopefully came back and redeemed themselves later in life."

This time around, the reunion attendees are from the class of '93 from Round Rock, Texas. They (followed by their assigned "roles") are Lou Ann ("The Homecoming Queen"), Johnny ("The Quarterback"), Denise ("The Ex"), Gabe ("The Jock"), Heather C. ("The Ugly Duckling"), TJ ("The Redneck"), Laura ("The Drama Queen"), Lenny ("The Geek"), Jessica ("The Teen Mom"), Chris ("The Class Clown"), Trevor ("The Pipsqueak"), Tre ("The Player"), Daniel ("The Gay Guy"), Jeralyn ("The Wallflower"), Amanda ("The Sophomore Tease"), Heather F. ("The Sophomore Vixen") and Stacy ("The Sophomore Flirt").

For trivia buffs, all but four still live in Texas (and, shockingly, only one of those four lives in Los Angeles), three list "personal trainer" among their occupations, and two are pilots -- one military, one commercial.

"We measure the strength of the stories," says Fleiss, regarding how he picks his high school, "what sort of fireworks might be out there. In this upcoming season, we've got a couple that was involved in high school. He cheated on her; she told him she was pregnant; he married her; it turns out she wasn't really pregnant; they got divorced -- it's very 'Melrose Place.'

"Then, the evil producers that we are, we make sure that we not only bring him and her back, but we bring the girl that he cheated on her with. So if you really think about how you would want to write the story, then use the stories that exist to try to make those two notions connect, you're looking at a real dynamic environment.

"These people revert right back to 18 years old."

Fleiss has no plans, though, to look at 20-year high-school reunions.

"I don't want to look at people in their late 30s. I'm in my late 30s, and let me tell ya, it ain't so pretty. We like to keep our cameras on people with nice bodies and bikinis. The WB, where the most beautiful people are."

After shooting three seasons of "High School Reunion" (one is yet to air), Fleiss says, "I'm always surprised what people will reveal. These people bare their souls. Last year, we had a marriage proposal. The couple is actually married now.

"If you liked the first season of 'High School Reunion,' this season is much more explosive. It's wild and sexy and, in some cases, just plain wrong. We do something pretty damn impressive at the end of this season, too. It's a pretty shocking finale."

Is it good as a marriage proposal? "I would have to say yes."