The Osbournes, Season 2, Episode 16: Tennis Racket

Since this week’s episode is a bit of a quick one, we’ll just jump right into it.

The episode opens with Ozzy in his hotel suite. Getting what appears to be a pack of gum from Tony, his assistant, Ozzy mumbles something that sounds like “some jam pudding.” Ozzy fumbles with the packaging for quite some time before what appears to be a Chiclet shoots out of the pack and hits the rug. Ozzy reaches over, picks up the gum, pops it in his mouth and then walks out of the room.

After the opening credits, we see the family at home. Everyone seems content in the house, but it is the noise from outside that is now putting everyone on edge. It appears that neighbors on the other side of the house (not the ones from the first season who were playing music late at night) are making a lot of noise by playing tennis on their tennis court. At all hours of the day and night. From the editing of the show, one would think that the neighbors are waiting in the bushes, rackets in hand, just waiting for Ozzy or Sharon to come out to the garden so they can then disrupt the Osbournes’ lives with their noisy tennis games. Perhaps that really is what is happening, but either way, it is upsetting them all.

Speaking of neighbors, Sharon is shocked when a package comes from the noisy neighbors from Season One (and for those who don’t remember, a short recap is done in the program to remind everyone of Sharon throwing a ham over the fence and Ozzy throwing wood through the neighbor’s window). The package contains dog artwork and a dog necklace, along with a letter of apology from the neighbor about all the problems that happened between them. According to the letter, the neighbor had just lost their dog to coyotes that live in the area. Sharon thinks it is “damn sweet” of them to offer the gifts and tells everyone that she will have to go over and see them.

The tennis games are still going, however, and Jack and Ozzy try to come up with some things to do to get back at the neighbors. Jack suggests having a band practice outside in the garden, then reduces that option to just bringing his drumkit out to practice on. Ozzy thinks it is a swell idea – that is, until Jack starts hammering away on the drums. The noise from the drums and the tennis court drives Ozzy back into the house, defeated.

Back inside, Kelly says she wants to get another cat. Ozzy tries to stop Kelly and Sharon from discussing the issue, but as has been seen before in the series, no one can stop Sharon when it comes to adopting more animals into the house. Ozzy says that he might as well change his name to “Ozzy Doolittle” thanks to all the animals in the house.

Sharon may be happy with the idea of another cat in the house, but she’s getting near the breaking point with all the noise from the tennis court, not to mention the tennis balls that are dropping into the yard (which she is worried will hit one of the pets). Lamenting that she should throw something at them, she has Lola go outside and begs for her to bark and “act like a dog.” Opening the door to the yard, Sharon screams at the neighbors and the games are on.

Going out to the yard, decorated by several tennis balls, Ozzy turns on some classical music to listen to as he paints. He is soon disrupted from his solitude by the “clip-clop” paddling of the tennis ball in the next yard. In response, Ozzy pulls out a CD of loud heavy metal music and cranks it up, but it only seems to get the neighbor kids hopping around and dancing.

To aggravate the family further, Tony and Melinda are told that the woman in the house next door is upset about animal droppings on the tennis court and cat hair on the seat cushions. Since the woman is afraid of cats, she wants the Osbournes to come over and clean it all up. While suggestions go around about having the droppings tested for DNA comparison in order to prove that the Osbournes cats are not making the messes, it is mentioned that a black cat of the family had somehow gotten into the basement bowling alley next door. After hearing about the bowling alley, Melinda thinks it may be a good time to stop on by.

The family has other ideas. After discussing the royalty status of being related to the [bleeping] prince of darkness, Sharon tells the news to Jack and Ozzy and both try to come up with ways of getting back at the neighbors. Jack’s suggestions get more violent as time wears on, making Sharon wonder where he could have gotten such ideas. Sharon and Ozzy essentially laugh off Jack’s suggestions, but Jack is already motivated to do something.

Jack decides that he’ll go out with his paintball gun and decorate the tennis court with paint. He figures that if he disguises himself and does it late at night, no one will know he did it. Yep, no one will know… except the entire MTV crew filming him and the television audience watching the episode at home.