Not only has a foulmouthed, tattoo-covered, longhaired, burnt-out rock star taken over the role of America’s newest TV dad, he also happens to be British.
That’s right — Ozzy Osbourne, the former lead singer of Black Sabbath, as well as the man known for biting off the heads of two live bats to impress record label executives, is television’s newest patriarch. Following in the footsteps of TV fathers such as Ozzie Nelson of “Ozzie and Harriet,” Mike Brady of “The Brady Bunch” and Cliff Huxtable of “The Cosby Show,” Ozzy Osbourne of MTV’s docu-series “The Osbournes” is, surprisingly, not unlike his predecessors.
Just like any family, Ozzy, his wife Sharon, their 17-year-old daughter Kelly and their 16-year-old son Jake struggle with the everyday conflicts of day-to-day life.
After the success of an episode of MTV’s “Cribs,” which featured the Osbournes moving into their 24th house, the cable network saw potential in creating a series based on the family’s surreal yet traditional lifestyle. Perhaps realizing that Ozzy, now a 53-year-old rock legend, needed a career booster, Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon granted MTV six months of unlimited access to document the lives of herself, Ozzy and two out of three of their children. Their eldest daughter, Aimee, opted not to be part of the show.
Judging from its ratings, which have increased by 57 percent since the show’s premiere episode March 5, MTV executives are not the only ones who find the Osbourne family entertaining. Thrilled by the unexpected success of “The Osbournes,” and in anticipation of the series conclusion at the end of the season, MTV is reportedly slated to debut six new reality programs in the next two months.
In just over a month, “The Osbournes” has received enough media attention to create celebrities out of the fellow members of Ozzy’s household. Yet unlike other reality show pseudo-celebrities, who achieve fame by creating insanity in a mundane setting, Ozzy’s wife and children seem to have found fame by normalizing the extravagant environment they live within.
Looking beyond obvious irregularities such as Ozzy’s fame and fortune, the Beverly Hills mansion in which the family resides, the incessant use of bleeping throughout the show to cover up the extensive use of profanity from all members of the family including the children’s nanny, and the mass quantities of devil heads and crucifixes which cover the interior and exterior of the house, the Osbournes are like any other American nuclear family.
Whether it be Ozzy attempting to understand how the remote control works; Sharon seeking to get revenge on her neighbors by throwing food over the hedges that divide the properties; Kelly secretly getting a tattoo or Jake complaining about having to “feed a tree” on a school camping trip, the Osbournes are proof that even the rich and famous have to struggle through the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
Witnessing how Ozzy, the self-proclaimed King of Darkness who seems to be on the verge of a self-induced coma, is going to deal with the domestic realities of family life is one of the show’s most appealing aspects.
So just like Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Ozzy and Sharon grapple over how to parent in a loving, honest way while maintaining enough authority to discipline their children. Which is what happens when Kelly and Jake and their celebrity friend Elijah Wood decide to go club-hopping. Ozzy — a man rumored to have taken acid every day for two straight years — instructs his children to avoid getting drunk or stoned because he is jealous that he can’t. He continues to use his parental voice of sanity and maturity by urging his teenage children to make sure to use a condom if they decide to have sex. It is Kelly’s embarrassed facial reaction to her father’s long-winded words of wisdom that makes this rather unorthodox moment surprisingly genuine.
Although it can be difficult to understand what Ozzy is saying through his slurred, profanity-filled language, some rather unusual acts of affection come across in a family that has a deep respect and a real love for one another. The Osbournes are just like any other popular sitcom family, except they happen to be real . . . and f*cking hilarious.
