Catching up with the Osbournes

In preparation for the second season of The Osbournes (which begins Tuesday, November 26, at 10:30 p.m., EST), MTV aired a half-hour special throughout November called Catching Up with the Osbournes that served as a prelude to the new season. With that, it is perfect timing for readers and yours truly to do some “catching up” of our own with a recap of the special, a look at what has been happening with the family over the past several months, details on what to expect in the second season of series, and details on what to expect in upcoming recaps of the program right here on RealityNewsOnline.

When we left the series in May 2002, the family was just beginning to be hit by a blizzard of publicity and merchandise that came out pertaining to the program. Some of it cute (I have to admit that the little Kubrick-like toys are fun), some of it just . . . well . . . questionable (no, shot glasses of a family with a recovering alcoholic in it is always a great idea for merchandise). Probably the piece of merchandise heard about the most was The Osbourne Family Album, a quasi-soundtrack album for the television series that was released on June 11, 2002. The CD came with 13 tracks that served as a group of songs the family wanted to put together on an album, and not just a collection of Ozzy tracks (although Ozzy does have three songs on the album besides Pat Boone’s rendition of “Crazy Train,” which also serves as the series’ theme song). The paper foldout cover contains notes from each of the Osbournes as to why the tracks were picked for the album, along with a tear-out “greeting card” of the Osbournes that contains a paraphrasing of the oft-quoted “You’re all (bleeping) mad . . ..”

For Ozzy fans, it’s probably not worth the trouble to get a hold of, unless you’re the type of fan that has to have everything connected with Ozzy that comes out. As to fans of the series, it’s a cute timewaster; certainly harmless enough to pass some time on for a quick listen and to see what the family members had to say about important songs in their lives. The only other reason for fans of the series to give it listen is to hear one of the band Jack had been trying to “develop” over at Epic – a band called Dillusion, with the track “Mirror” – and, of course, a chance to hear Kelly Osbourne sing her cover of the Madonna hit, “Papa Don’t Preach.”

As to Kelly’s remake, I was actually surprised how much I liked it. To those readers who were around to read my recaps of the first season, I pointed out there that I was no fan of the song, so I was hesitant to hear Kelly’s version. However, I did like the reworking of the song, with a punched-up beat thanks to the band Incubus (who backed Kelly up on the track, although they are nowhere to be seen in the video for the song). Kelly’s voice is all right, I believe. It’s hard to tell by the mixing of the track, not to mention how easy it is to “sweeten” vocals these days, but it certainly seemed passable to me. We’ll see how that goes when her full-length music CD comes out on November 26, which is entitled Shut Up. I saw her performance of the title track from this album on The Tonight Show last week and have to say that it wasn’t that impressive, but she’s young and still learning, so there’s no reason to get all maniacal about it. Certainly no worse than most of the teen singers out there, to be honest.

Of course, Kelly’s track leads directly to the next piece of merchandise that may be of interest to fans, which is that of Kelly’s DVD single of her video for “Papa Don’t Preach,” released in August 2002. The video, featuring Kelly singing the track in a full-blown concept video, is cute and certainly in-step with the reworking of the song. Fans of the series might be interested in picking the DVD up for some of the bonus features on the DVD. The “making of the video” documentary features a few interview segments with Kelly, where she appears a bit calmer and articulate than she had gotten a chance to be on the series itself (probably because she doesn’t have Sharon, Ozzy, or Jack vying for camera time). The documentary is not earthshattering overall, rather bringing home the point that shooting a video is boring, tedious work, but fans may enjoy it for Kelly’s comments and for a brief appearance by Sharon near the 2/3’s point as well. The DVD single also includes seven commercials made in the Osbourne’s living room/kitchen for The Osbourne Family Album (and shown frequently on MTV during the summer), which are also cute to see. What I’m essentially saying is that fans would not really be missing out on anything if they didn’t check out the DVD single, but for those interested, you can usually find it for $10 or less, which isn’t that horrible of a price to pay for the material you get on the DVD [clicking on the link, above, will bring you to Amazon where it’s $9.98]. For those who do not have a DVD player, the CD-single also contains the “making of” documentary as well.