In his own way, Ozzy Osbourne perfectly displays everything so terribly wrong with Man while perfectly displaying everything so wonderful in the opportunities life can provide.

Those of you who have been smart enough to avoid CBS as long as they have insisted on broadcasting Twenty-one – sorry, Survivor – can come up for air again and finally relax: the show’s fourth installment mercifully came to an end last night when, and I’m merely speculating here, someone felt betrayed, someone shed tears, someone had to face a pivotal decision and someone became a pre-tax millionaire. (Don’t spend it all in one place, honey.) Those Americans capable of thinking for themselves instinctively bolted upright when the show went off the air, relieved that the country’s general intelligence will not be insulted, at least not by this show, until the scripted fifth installment is filmed and assembled as to suggest something spontaneous happened. (I call this, editing into idiot-sized bites.)

Survivor is a particular irritant of mine because is doesn’t (and couldn’t, by its very design) resemble reality, particularly important if one is producing a reality based game show. Those of you getting ready to fire off an angry letter of protest pay attention here: Survivor participants, precisely because this is a game show, sign a detailed agreement that must, because of the Twenty- one scandal, meticulously outline every movement the players will make over the entirety of their stay, as to eliminate any appearance of corruption (too late). That means the amazing shock turns the players are subjected to over the course of the game are spelled out for them far enough in advance for them to be intellectually and emotionally prepared.

Hell, Temptation Island is more legitimate than Survivor, in that attractive young people dispelling bodily fluids all over one another while vacationing at a beautiful exotic location is much closer to reality than any circumstance where people end up standing on a pole with their hand on an “idol.” Sorry to say, I sat through half an episode of Temptation Island once … once. The show is, and this is the kindest way to say it, the absolute worst piece of debris I have ever seen. I can only imagine the show passed through a drunken frat boy’s colon before being deposited directly onto video tape at a wild kegger one night. Other shows – The Mole, Amazing Race are two examples – are at least legitimate in the sense they force their participants to rely on their cunning and intelligence, while Survivor forces one to … well … eat bugs, fly kites and bitch and moan to the other players.

You may ask, “Champ, what the hell are you getting at?” This: the only reasonably entertaining reality shows I have ever seen, and this is the point of the column, are Beavis and Butt-Head (which so brilliantly chronicled the daily lives of your average white suburban teenager) and the new sensation, The Osbourne’s, the highest rated show in the history of cable television. Now, to watch The Osbourne’s is to marvel at the American Dream, when you think about it … here is a man from British slums – and in “slums” I mean holes that make American projects look like the Ritz Carlton – who has risen to not only sell something like 60 million albums (with Black Sabbath and on his own), but become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

In his own way, Ozzy Osbourne perfectly displays everything so terribly wrong with Man while perfectly displaying everything so wonderful in the opportunities life can provide. This is the paradox upon which a show like The Osbourne’s is founded: Who in the world, besides Keith Richards, has done more drugs than Ozzy Osbourne, and he’s half retarded because of it which, if that’s what you’re into, is extremely amusing, but how? In the course of daily life, how is it possible for a normal person to find comedic pleasure in another’s being half retarded?

Well, let it be said we’re not talking about someone who was born a mumbling, stumbling, hunched over mess, he became that way on his own accord. And so, in that most people get what they deserve, it’s impossible to feel sorry for the man. On the other hand, he’s funny because, on various occasions, he’s just funny, and funny is funny. While examining his stage with wife Sharon (who is a doll and who tolerates much more than either logic or her marital vow commands), she attempts to explain to him the aesthetic value of a bubble machine. Now, anyone even reasonably familiar with Ozzy’s bit, and Sharon should certainly be one, knows a man who once bit the head off a live bat on stage is harmed with a bubble machine; doesn’t jive with the image, you understand. And he tells her so, in no uncertain words, saying that, as the Prince of f’ing Darkness, he cannot have BUBBLES ON STAGE. This is funny, if for no other reason because a hard rock legend simply cannot have Newlywed Game theatrics popping up around him while belting out “Iron Man.” So that’s part of it.

As to what motivates America to watch in increasing numbers, chalk it up to a morbid curiosity, my own included. This is not only how the other half lives, but also how your drunk uncle, his indulgent wife and their kids live. What The Osbourne’s lacks is a distinct moral or highbrow center, but even I long ago conceded life shouldn’t always revolve around intellectual stimulation and fine stage productions of Shakespearian epics; I did, after all, watch half an episode of that steaming piece of monkey crap called Temptation Island (probably for the bikinis walking around; I was sick at the time).

And not for nothing, but a continuing debate on what should be done about the dog relieving himself on the living room carpet is a conversation that comes much closer to reality than anything you’ve ever seen on Survivor, even if it’s being had by millionaires.