Ozzie and Harriet they’re not.
But Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne and their children just might be theperfect sitcom family.
At least the stars of MTV’s The Osbournes, a “situation-realityseries” that premiered Tuesday night, seem to possess the ingredientsnetworks usually look for in casting a family comedy:
A clueless but charismatic dad whose job allows him to spend plenty of time at home.
Sure, being an aging rock star known for eating bats onstage isn’tas “normal” as working in a nuclear power plant, like The SimpsonsHomer, or being a sportswriter like Everybody Loves Raymond’s RayBarone.
Butit does bring plenty of perks, including built-in opportunities forcelebrity cameos, such as Tuesday’s Jay Leno appearance.
And at least we know what this Ozzy does. In The Adventures ofOzzie and Harriet, which also starred a real-life Hollywood family,TV viewers were never really told how former bandleader Ozzie Nelsonmade a living.
A sensible, good-humored mother whose grasp of reality seems to be greater than her husband’s. Sharon swears more than most sitcom mothers — and MTV obligingly bleeps it out each time she does — but it’s hard to imagine even Malcolm in the Middle’s formidable Lois doing a better job as the ringleader of this particular circus. Two squabbling teenage children (the Osbournes’ third child, Amy, 18, isn’t involved in the show). Kelly, 17, sports pink hair, while Jack, 16, favors a more, er, military look. Both inherited their parents’ tendency to punctuate with profanity.
Unlike Showtime’s rock-star comedy, The Chris Isaak Show, TheOsbournes is supposedly unscripted. MTV, using the technique employedin The Real World and Road Rules, filmed the family for nearly sixmonths and then edited it into something resembling a story.
Thepremiere, which focuses on the family’s move into its new home inBeverly Hills — Sharon estimates it’s the 24th house her kids havelived in — might well be an episode of The Munsters, as the camerafocuses on the little decorating touches that make the Osbournes theOsbournes, including a box labeled “dead things.”
But it’s the little character touches that make The Osbourneswork.
At one point, when Ozzy’s efforts to master the satellite TV’sremote control prove to be in vain, he calls in Jack, who sets thingsup and then settles in with Dad to watch the History Channel.
Later, Ozzy, trying to offer fatherly advice to Jack on handlinghis sister, remarks, “I love you all. I love you more than lifeitself, but you’re all f**king mad.”
An appearance on The Tonight Show requires Sharon and Kelly’spresence backstage, Sharon explaining that Ozzy’s nervous because,though “he likes Jay a lot, doing TV makes him nervous.”
Looks as if he’d better get used to it.
The Osbournes airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on MTV.
