It’s hard to believe now, but before “The Osbournes” premiered on MTV in October 2002, the idea of camera crews following celebrities at home and turning it into a “Real World”-style docuseries was unheard of.
Long before the Kardashians or the “Real Housewives,” viewers were enthralled with the everyday workings of the Osbourne family — dad Ozzy, wife Sharon, daughter Kelly and son Jack in particular. It was a rock ‘n roll “Ozzie and Harriet” for the modern age, down to Ozzy Osbourne getting frustrated while trying to work the TV remote or being angered by the dogs roaming around his house. “SHARON!”
“It was so wrong, but unlike anything else that was on TV,” said former MTV topper Van Toffler, who spent nearly three decades at the network and oversaw many of its landmark series, including “The Osbournes.” “Frst of all, that family — with the king of metal featured, and all the things he was allegedly accused of doing — but also the language! We had to bleep so much of the dialogue. That became such an integral part of it, the way we bleeped it, how often we bleeped it, and we weren’t making it up.”
Variety spoke on Tuesday to Toffler following the news of Osbourne’s death at 76. “I want to say I feel so sad and full of sorrow for Sharon and the kids, that is my immediate feeling.”
Meanwhile, through his Gunpowder & Sky shingle, Toffler also recently sealed a deal to return to the MTV family and play a large role with this year’s Video Music Awards, which take place Sept 7th. “I have no doubt we will spend the next month figuring out the proper tribute and send off to Ozzy on the Video Music Awards, because he was such a large figure in music history, and the family was such such impact on MTV history, and we need to acknowledge that.”
“The Osbournes” was an out-of-the-box hit for MTV, breaking ratings records at the time for the channel and attracting as much as 8 million viewers in one airing. The family was everywhere in 2002 — including that year’s White House correpondents dinner.
“It was a ginormous global hit. I remember sitting with Sharon having a meal, and we were both in disbelief that they were on the cover of every magazine,” said Toffler, who exited the company in 2016 as CEO of Viacom Media Networks Music Group. “And it wasn’t music magazines, it was Variety. It was US Weekly and EW and People. It was amazing how the country and the world became infatuated with his family.”
The idea was hatched after the Osbourne family shot a segment for MTV’s “Cribs,” which peered inside the homes of celebrities.
“We were deep in the throes of reality television in the early 2000s but I don’t think we’d ever had someone over 50 years old featured on any show on MTV in its history,” Toffler said. “We were looking to launch ‘Cribs,’ and we shot a bit with the Osbournes, and we all kind of looked at each other and just felt there is some wonderful, serendipitous chaos and insanity in this house that people would eat up. What a loving, dysfunctional, chaotic, musical family they were. And it just hit us to keep shooting, which went on for years.”
Part of what made “The Osbournes” work, Toffler noted, was that it showed an entirely different side of Ozzy Osbourne. The rocker was known mostly for his on-stage Black Sabbath antics, like that oft-repeated story of the time he bit the head off of a dead bat.
Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne, Jack Osbourne©MTV/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Ozzy had an allegedly sinister style and way about him, and you know, snorted a line of ants on a tour with Motley Crue and all the lore that all of us read,” Toffler said. “.People were scared shitless of him. You know, the prince of darkness. But he’s like a lovable teddy bear. I mean, we know who the tougher one was in that in that family, and it wasn’t Ozzy. So I think it just endeared him to people around the world… And then just getting to sit with him was eye opening and and quite wonderful over the years.”
Ozzy being Ozzy, of course, it was not always clear what he was thinking — or saying.
“I mean, to be clear, I can never understand him,” Toffler said. “Even pre his current illness, on drugs, off drugs, it was always a mystery. And fortunately, Sharon or the kids were nearby, so they would kind of interpret it. He spoke, and then there were the subtitles for the conversation. But, he was lovable, and he was so devoted and loving of Sharon and the children and something people wouldn’t expect. Devoted dad and husband.”
The success of “The Osbournes,” of course, also made the family white-hot at the negotiating table — and it wasn’t cheap to stay in business with the family. In the wake of its initial success, Ozzy and Sharon secured a $20 million payday for the next two seasons of the show.
“Oh, my God, it was a nightmare, to tell you the truth,” Toffler said of the negotiation. “After the first season, when they hired a proper agency, I guess they all decided that they had a flu that didn’t enable them to work — unless they got some big fat checks. We worked out something really fair, and I think everyone was happy. But look, Sharon grew up with a very passionate manager of a dad who was notorious in his own right, and Sharon fought for what she believed her family deserved. A lot of, let’s say screams and and shouting matches around it, but it was all fine in the end.”
The success of “The Osbournes” opened the door for MTV and reality TV “to just kind of follow our whims around subcultures,” Toffler said. “I somehow believe the Kardashians would have found the limelight, ‘Osbournes’ or no ‘Osbournes.’ But I do feel that ‘The Osbournes’ revealed to people that they could have an alternative career beyond music in Ozzy’s case, or management in Sharon’s case. That they could have a revelatory show about their lives that was different than their core way they became famous.
“And I think ‘The Osbournes’ opened the door for kind of exposes about people’s lives, kind of like what we did with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson (‘Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica’). They both were pop stars, and then we documented their marriage. ‘The Osbournes’ definitely opened the door for that kind of verite follow-doc series.”
From Variety US