The Osbournes

Just watching Ozzy and Sharon on the Tonight Show, I "got" it, where the buzz was coming from. I hadn't seen "the Prince of Darkness" since Ozzfest '98, where women had his name painted on various body parts. Now here he was with his arm around his non-bimbo fuschia-haired wife of 20 years, dressed in black but with a goofy smile. I couldn't understand half of what he was saying, but I found myself hanging on every garbled word. He was so funny, so endearing, in a way I can't explain! I found "The Osbournes" to be the same way--hilarious and fascinating and endearing, inexplicably. I think it's largely the surreal juxtapositions of seeing someone "larger-than-life" live. Just watching him DO anything, from interacting with his kids, limping around his yard looking for his cat, or sitting coloring a picture...keeps me grinning. There are a couple people that hate this show (my aunt, Bill Cosby) and can't understand its success (and that's OK). That is because they don't latch on to its irony. With this show, you either "get" it or you don't.

You'll probably know in the first 5 minutes which camp you belong in.

Believe me, when I first heard about The Osbournes, I was rolling my eyes. Here goes another rich rock star, being trailed around by cameras. But after having seen several episodes, it's well worth it!

They say they are the picture perfect model of the disfunctional family, and that everyone in US can relate to them, and I agree (but not about the US thing, i'm from Asia)! All the cursing and screaming between Jack and Kelly, Kelly or Jack fighting with Sharon or Ozzy. Especially "disagreements" between Ozzy and Sharon are HILARIOUS. It makes me you think that your crazy family is not the only one in this world. Take away the silliness, and you've got a loving family.

Even though the show is *sometimes* a pain because of the frequent bleeping and Ozzy's hard to understand accent, I had fun watching this show. I didn't know how real this funny reality TV could be!

Network: MTV; Genre: Reality/Comedy/Documentary; Content Rating: TV-PG (for strong language and suggested profanity, adult content, crude humor and suggested drug use); Available: DVD: Classification: Neo-Classic (star range: expanded 1 - 5);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (4 seasons)

In "The Osbournes" MTV cameras follow the real-life family of heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne which includes his ballsy, eccentric wife Sharon and their bratty, but strangely endearing children, Jack and Kelly, as they move into a new Beverly Hills home and proceed to go about the daily minutia of their lives. As the show proceeds we see Ozzy on tour, Kelly promoting her debut album, Jack heading in and out of rehab, Sharon behind-the-scenes of her short-lived talk show and the general family squabbles and disarray between them.

There may be a generation gap when dealing with a show like "The Osbournes". Above a certain age people just won't "get" the irony that smartly, expertly, wraps around the subjects and brings this show together. People will either be horrified seeing the legendary Black Sabbath front-man of their youth shuffling around the house or be horrified at the show's appearance of chaos, bleeped-out vulgarity and juvenile disrespect. It is that sense of humor towards its subjects, that ironically juxtaposes the antics of this Gothic clan in the packaging of a happy-go-lucky 50s sitcom (in which Ozzy is hilariously billed as "the Dad"), that makes "Osbournes" work spectacularly where so many other straight-up documentary shows fail. The fundamental premise - a real family in a show styled like a conventional sitcom - is brilliant.

An endearing aspect of the show is still that it allows us to see a celebrity behind closed doors doing every day choirs. There is a strange joy watching Ozzy making smoothies, walking the trash to the curb and running around looking for a cat in the bushes. It is exactly what a reality show should be. "Osbournes" breaks the usual rule-of-thumb that holds the reality genre as a whole back: real people just aren't very interesting. Other reality shows take pseudo-celebrities or people seeking their 15 minutes and give them a serious, ego-nourishing love note treatment; assuming we care as much as they do. Unlike these straight-faced documentaries, "The Osbournes" goal is comedy and - breaking the norm - the Osbournes themselves are actually fascinating to watch. This is true whether you love them or hate them, because the show is so tongue-in-cheek that our likeness of the show and Osbournes themselves are not mutually exclusive. And whether it is real or stage or simply edited to maximize the laughs (which it no doubt is, a round of applause goes to the show-runners stitching this thing together) - it is fun TV.

"The Osbournes" debuted as a massive hit in its first season. A summer of relentless hype that followed effectively helped MTV reduce their only semi-intelligent series to a fad. But the show as a whole is so much more than the novelty of bleeped out obscenities. It is an unconventional series about an unconventional family that radiates more love for each other than most supposedly "functional" TV families. I adore Sharon, who will say anything to anybody, Kelly's honesty, Jack who may or may not be a violent sleepwalker and Ozzy - who, even with his hilariously indecipherable speech and burned-out body, is still a truly bright and witty individual. More interestingly, after season 1 the whole thing becomes a twisted looking glass - a show about subjects whose lives are now being effected by the show they are on.

It didn't go the initially side-splitting way I wanted it to (there are few things funnier than Ozzy heaving a log through the neighbor's window), but life had other plans and the show was forced to deal with one real life family catastrophe after another, including Sharon's battle with breast cancer. In retrospect, it did so in a respectable and humorous way. There are dud episodes, usually the ones that find the family outside of the home or on vacation, and a lengthy, wildly homo-erotic wresting match between Jack and deadbeat house-guest Dill rank as a series low point. But there are many turns into true episodic brilliance: Kelly's feud with Christina Aguilera (and the hilarious about-face ending), Kelly's filthy first boyfriend, Bert, and the provocative, reality-bending, season 2 finale are favorites. The show swung back with a vengeance in the 4th season, one that leaves the entire family seemingly at a satisfying place in their lives.

Funny, strange, original, wacky, messy and even touching. "The Osbournes" is very likely the greatest thing MTV has ever stumbled on and a high for the reality genre - one that I suspect to be to self-righteous to pull off something like this again. Sometimes it was like putting yourself through a spanking machine, but I will go out on a limb and say that this show will be remembered. MTV has now moved on to masterpieces like "The Ashlee Simpson Show", but this 4-year video record was the first and will likely remain the best of its kind. It is more than a reality show, "The Osbournes" was a unique reality comedy that had fun playing with the medium at the same time.

Sharon, Ozzy, Jack and Kelly - thanks for sharing.

* * * ½ / 5

The Osbournes is with out any doubt the best show on right now. The Osbournes is funny and entertaining. The Osbournes are not your normal family television show. What's radical about this show is it isn't staged. The Osbournes don't read off scripts. This show deals with real life situations. When the Osbournes use the F word it is funny because they say it and it some how makes you laugh. I think Jack is the coolest one on the show. He's not like Kelly (who goes out there and tries to make she look like a fool.) Although Kelly is the most funniest one on the show because she always the one who says the F word. So if you haven't watch The Osbournes on MTV. You are missing out on a very funny show. The Osbournes come on at 10:30 E.S.T on Tuesday's on MTV.

Yeah, you heard me right - this program is an intelligence test. Sit a bunch of people in a room and make them watch it for an hour, and their comments will let you know how intelligent they really are. It seems that the morons of the world only see a program where a stoned father allows a bitchy mother to run his life while his children (he actually has *at least* three, by the way) run amok.

The reality is that Ozzy Osbourne is a model of what I wish I could have had for a father. Not once have I seen Ozzy resort to terrorising his children, talking down at them as if they are lower than dung, or other deflations of his children's self-esteem. In fact, in all the interactions between Ozzy and his children, I see a man who would do anything to protect them in spite of the absurd situation that his career (which is still actually going strong) often puts them in. If I had parents like Ozzy and Sharon when I was Jack's age (as a reference, I'm a few years older than Aimee), I'd be a much better-adjusted person today. I've never seen Sharon pick up any of her children by the neck and smash their head on things.

The really sad part about the whole thing is that Ozzy is far more intelligent and calculating than his critics, but he will never get full credit for it. The whole show was merely conceived as a big swipe at the morons who would have us believe the Cosbys are the ideal family, as well as promotion for a new solo album (once the solo album publicity dies down, you can bet there will be another Black Sabbath reunion album). The worst thing about the way pop media portrays Ozzy today is that they dismiss him as irrelevant because they can't pidgeonhole him and make him fit into their narrow little approved genres. The sad fact is that Ozzy's music, and the music he makes with Sabbath in particular, is even more relevant today than it was thirty-two years ago. The world really has become that much more oppressive and bland in that time (and the company that bought out Ozzy's label in the 1990s, Sony, has had a lot to do with this, just to name one guilty party). Still, Ozzy and company have had a lot of bands follow in their footsteps (and I don't mean the Warrants and Poisons, et al, they are just tryhards), and some of them, like My DyING BRIDE, we should be eternally thankful for.

Many fans accuse Sharon of merely being a golddigger, and while it is almost certainly true that this show is more or less entirely her idea, the fact remains that Ozzy most likely would never have had a solo career if not for her. I do thoroughly detest Kelly, however. She really just seems content to ride on her father's coattails, something that Ozzy himself would have abhorred during his youth. Jack, however, is a very funny guy. He gives a great sense of being the tragic victim of the media obsession with his dad, and yet at the same time his sense of humour and his temper demonstrate that he is truly his father's son.

So all in all, if you've heard some Fundy moron tell you what a horrid family this is and how we should all be rallying against them - don't listen. I know my childhood would have been much happier if we'd had shows like this around to demonstrate to young parents like mine the RIGHT way to engage in conversation with your children. Even though Aimee was right to refuse to have anything to do with the show (I'm sure Kelly and Jack would have done the same if they were more "grown up"), it still makes me glad that in fifty years time, there will be shows like this to contrast against absolute slime like the Cosby show.