The Osbournes

I must say that when I saw the promos for this show it looked *interesting*, but I thought SURELY I'd get bored after the first episode. Not true! This is the funniest darn show I've seen ever on TV, and that includes old favorites like Cheers, Frasier, Roseanne and Murphy Brown. Forget that it's the best show on cable, it's the best show on TV, period! And this from a 37 year old who should be ashamed of themself for watching something like this. :)

Funny, irreverant, rude, crude, disgusting (all the close-ups of the dog's poo). It's all of that, and more. I've never laughed as hard as I have over a family's problems like I have for the Osbournes champagne problems (Kelly losing Ozzy's gold card when she wasn't even supposed to have it, or throwing fruit and hams at their noisy next door neighbors). I also love the way Kelly went shopping in Beverly Hills with her mother wearing pink, fuzzy slippers. Only in Hollywood.

Then of course there was the episode where Ozzy is absolutely AGHAST that Sharon wants to use bubbles in his stage show. ("Bubbles! Oh come on Sharon! I'm Ozzy f*%$ing Osbourne! The prince of f*&$ing darkness man! I won't do it!"). Ozzy seems to bumble through every situation while Sharon lays down the law. That episode where he keeps wanting to leave when they are busting the kids for smoking pot and having fake ID's comes immediatley to mind.

This is reality television at it's best. Forget Survivor, Temptaion Island, Fear Factor and The Real World. Forget Must See TV on NBC on Thursdays, now it's Must See TV on MTV at 10:30 on Tuesdays. This is the new milenium of reality television! Watch this show! You'll be awfully glad you did.

I keep seeing early 00's reality tv on Hulu, but MTV needs to release this to HBO Max! This is a reality show I would rewatch. It's like a time capsule. They were hilarious! Hard to believe this was so long ago and their kids are all in their 40's, or close to it.

Everyone is saying (on older reviews) that THE OSBOURNES needs to be streaming, and here it is, the day after Ozzy Osbourne died, and it's on Amazon... has been a few weeks actually... but now it must be getting more views than ever...

It's fun to watch, kind of like a rock star version of The Munsters, and the kids are funny and offbeat while Sharon is the perfect b-word-wife who has a heart of gold...

But there's a sad element watching, in retrospect, because it's been known since 2023 that Ozzy has had Parkinsons, which was diagnosed in 2003, which means he had it during this show...

And from episode one, the Parkinsons really shows... you can see it VERY clearly in his gait, and his trembling hands, which, originally, when this came out, it was as if Ozzy did too many drugs, or perhaps was suffering DT's... so people laughed about how he moved around, not knowing what we know now...

However, HE IS FUNNY, a kind of dry Peter Sellers quality combined with a Columbo-esque ability to hide a true genius that helped invent a brand of music called Heavy Metal (while Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin INFLUENCED metal, Sabbath INVENTED IT OUTRIGHT)...

So watching THE OSBOURNES is fun and addictive like reality shows are supposed to be... And it's obvious why it was such a smash hit way back when...

Yet it's now equally sad knowing what's known, and seeing what's completely and painfully obvious now.

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

Totally engrossing. As someone who is way beyond MTV's prime demographic (being firmly ensconced in the 35+ demo), I should be ashamed of myself for loving this show so much. It's one of the best 1/2 hours on TV. Ozzy is a total burnout who just also happens to have enough brain cells left be a loving husband and father. Sharon has enough brains for the both of them and you can see that she and Ozzy truly love each other and their kids. The kids are teenagers, albeit ones who grew up on a tour bus and take the occasional private jet now and again. All in all a typical family of four...four-letters that it. And that's part of the beauty of it. They deal with real family life in surreal circumstances. These are good people who happen to be "f**king mad" and the result is total entertainment. I wouldn't want to be a member of the family, but I'd certainly like to be one of the neighbors, and I promise I'll keep the music down.