From Ozzie Nelson To Ozzy Osbourne

Toogood Reports ^ | April 28, 2002 | Chuck Baldwin

[Trust but Verify]

Chuck Baldwin needs to lighten up. The Osbournes are what we all are: flawed.

[americalost]

I've heard people saying that Ozzy walks around in that show like a doddering old fool but he's nothing like that IRL. It's all just another act, just another fake real-life fiction.

[Senator Pardek]

Speaking of perfect TV families, why did June and Ward do such a good job with The Beaver, but totally screwed up with Eldridge?

[oceanperch]

I saw it once came off as a burnt out old man and a bitter wife. I turned the channel to depressing. Not even on a slow night rather watch old Lelsie Neison Flicks.

[Skooz]

I agree with a great deal Baldwin writes here.

I also love "The Osbournes" and watch it whenever I can. I cannot explain the dichotomy. If not for "The Osbournes" I wouldn't know or care if MTV was on the air.

But, it does say a great deal about how low our culture has sunk.

[Hawkeye's Girl]

This author is a moron.

Ozzy and family are just like my family: real people who aren't perfect, yet love each other very, very much. His show is outstanding, and a perfect example of why you shouldn't drink to excess or do drugs. He's even Christian and pro-war, for Heaven's sake.

Don't let a few bad words throw you off from the message of the show, man.

[FITZ]

I cannot explain the dichotomy

I like the Osbournes ----I think I realized why when I read that MTV might have more celebrity shows like this ---I realized that most celebrities wouldn't be interesting at all because they would use the time to preach and condescend to us. Ozzie and his family aren't arrogant, they aren't trying to show us political correctness like Cher, Alex Baldwin, Bono of U2, Julia Roberts, Rosie, and on and on do. He's just a simple man he says, he can't even figure out the remote control --and maybe that's what is nice. Very rare in celebrities.

[rond]

I don't think our society has profoundly changed. People in 1952 (when the Nelsons hit the air) certainly used curse words; does anyone want to say Ozzie Nelson never turned the air blue? People had sex before marriage. They used and abused drugs, including alcohol and cigarettes. There were children out of wedlock ... love affairs that resulted in murder ... music that confounded the elders of the day and made them think society had gone to hell in a handbasket (though in the '50s, the ruling elders would have had a hard time explaining the "innocence" of "In The Mood").

The difference, in my opinion: People in the 21st century talk more about it. People get out of detox or rehab and tell everyone they know. People take meds for mental illnesses and tell everyone they know. We're living in a huge, Oprah-like world, where disclosure is king.

Better, or worse? Or just different?

[gcruse]

When I was young, Ozzie & Harriet was current. What we looked back on then was Ma and Pa Kettle on the Farm. I never wanted to go back and live on the Kettle farm, nor do I want to go back to O&H (what on earth did Ozzie do for a living?). If American culture has indeed collapsed, what are you doing still here, Chuck? Or are you a Baldwin of the Alec variety?

[Lower55]

June to Ward, "Don't you think you were a little rough on the beaver last night?" :)

[jellybean]

Eldridge was the black sheep of the family...

Well, someone had to say it!

[RLK]

"In some ways, they live a very normal life in this upper-middle-class environment, mixed with a really strange mentality and dysfunction." In other words, people like the Osbournes because they are mixed up and dysfunctional also. If that isn't a commentary on where we are as a culture, I don't know what is!

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It's the same reason the Clintons have hysterical appeal to many. They are a validation of the corrupt dysfunctional lives their supporters are living.

[x]

One family therapist explained the show's success saying, "There's a domineering mother and a feeble father, something that's common to many families."

But some say the 50s had already turned down that road. Harriet may not have been domineering like Osbourne's wife, but Ozzie Nelson was already pretty bland, detached and feeble. Maybe TV itself dethrowned the father and helped to create a void that domineering mothers could step into. But for better or worse, Ozzie Nelson, Ward Cleaver and the other TV dads of the 50s were far from older models of male or paternal dominance.

[Balding_Eagle]

The Osbournes are what we all are: flawed.

Don't include us in that 'we'. I watched it once. I came away stunned that that they weren't too humiliated to allow it to be shown on TV.

The fact that many, even here at FR, are saying that the Osborns reflect how many freepers grew up, shows how far we've plummeted. It's very troubling, obviously my generation failed terribly.

[RLK]

I don't think our society has profoundly changed. People in 1952 (when the Nelsons hit the air) certainly used curse words; does anyone want to say Ozzie Nelson never turned the air blue?

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Throughout my younger years I never heard even one of the men in our neighborhood use the language now routinely heard in movies and on TV. To do so would have got them blackballed from association from other men of stature in the community. How old are you?

[RLK]

I might also add many of those men were ex football players and WWI and WWII vets.

[Uncle Meat]

"There's a domineering mother and a feeble father, something that's common to many families."

That sounds like an old friend of mine growing up.His Dad was lame from a Korean War wound [and having his wife back the car over him].His mother was mean as a snake and kept him[the Dad] in the basement.One time having an argument she shoved a hot punkin pie in his face and shoved him down the stairs of the basement.There was never a dull moment in that household.

[norraad]

.....rough on the beaver last night?",

Shocking Language!

[Uncle Meat]

One of the worst things about Leave it to Beaver was they way they insulted your intellegence.One show they had Eddie and Wally trying to get back at Lumpy chaining his rear axle to a tree.The joke backfired and snatch it out from under the car.Lumpy's ol'man come outside to see what was going on,then told Lumpy to drive the car back in the driveway with no rear end.