There's no accounting for taste,- which may account for the Osbournes. MTV's latest, wildly popular, foray into reality television is like a white "Cosby" with a 30-year hangover.
Three decades ago Ozzie was the heavy metal front-man for Black Sabbath, who popped pills and bit off a bat's head onstage. Now, he's resurrected; not as the naughty Prince of Darkness, but as an ageing, shambling family-man struggling to control his teenage kids. Not to mention the TV remote.
Millions tune in each week, perhaps amazed just to see Ozzie still alive, but there's something more complex behind the success, and now other fading stars from Cybil Shepherd to Kato Kalein hope to extend their fame with their own reality-shows.
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Martin Kaplan - Director of the Center for Entertainment Stuides at the USC Annenberg School
Mark-Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Ecology at NYU
and Gene Simmons, a founding member of "Kiss" and the subject of a new reality based television show.
Mark-Crispin Miller compares "the Osbournes" to "the Loud Family", a television series from 1973 listen
Mark-Crispin Miller on the economy behind reality television listen
