MTV shacked up with the Osbournes for six months, with the now-familiar intention of capturing the experiences of “real people” in their natural habitat. The table-turning difference here is that the Osbournes are not the tedious “real people” of the televised variety. They—or their paterfamilias, anyway—are already famous. And if the series makes one thing abundantly clear, it's that after 30 years, being famous is a job like any other—a job that requires dressing up in “Moulin Rouge” drag and fellating a banana, but a job nonetheless. (And one with its own pitfalls. “Darling,” Ozzy patiently explains to Kelly when she complains about his failing hearing, “you have not been standing in front of a billion decibels for 30 years. Just write me a note.”)
… When English neighbors keep the Osbournes up at all hours playing techno music and singing “My Girl” with acoustic guitar accompaniment, Ozzy finds himself thinking longingly of his old neighbor, Pat Boone. Sharon misses him, too. “He was just the best person ever to live next door to. You don't realize it until you get the neighbor from hell.”
Via Robot Wisdom [1], Herman Numster, rock god [2]
No wonder this show is popular. How often do you get such a disconnect between a bat head biting rock star and a father telling his daughter not to consume drugs, and they're the same person? Or that he preferred Pat Boone as a neighbor? (they must have had a good relationship—what else explains Pat's Heavy Metal album? [3])
[1] http://www.robotwisdom.com/
[2] http://salon.com/ent/tv/diary/2002/04/11/osbournes/