Newspaper: Reality TV's 'The Osbournes' Exhibits Fishing's Cruel Side

Jordan Kahn of The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that "infamous devil rocker Ozzy Osbourne — who infamously bit the heads off a live dove and bat and urinated on the Alamo" — thrust fishing's absolute worst foot forward during a recent episode of "The Osbournes".

"In 'The Osbournes', episode 18, called 'Angler Management', now playing ad nauseam on MTV, Ozzy takes his son fishing, laying waste to all that is good and wholesome in seafaring hearts," Kahn writes.

"If you've never seen 'The Osbournes', it is a reality TV show that hinges on this debacle for its train-wreck appeal. How does a man who has consumed enough narcotics to put down a herd of water buffalo, has enough tattoos to give him a blood type 'Iron Oxide Ink' and hangs a demon bust over his home's front door possibly cope with daily life?

"Woe unto fishing for existing in part as The Mandatory Father-Son Excursion. Blame that manifestation of the sport for landing it squarely in the fray of Ozzy's antics. Unless, of course, it was the chance to slay small animals that hooked 'The Prince of (expletive deleted) Darkness.'

"Whatever his reasons, he professed no less than a dozen times during the half-hour show that he had tried to take his boy, Jack, fishing for 17 years. Alas, the day of reckoning was at hand and off they went to the Marina Del Rey near Los Angeles to board the New Del Mar.

"The 75-foot charter boat holds 90 passengers but on this day it was just Ozzy, his son, two friends and the camera crew.

"Shortly after leaving the harbor, Ozzy and company unfurl their true colors — a black flag of heedless carnage. Jack and his friend start lighting M-80s with a cigarette and pitching them overboard. Pelicans instinctively dive-bomb the fireworks, thinking they're bait.

"Water explodes into a momentary five-foot wide crater right beneath the birds. None of the birds are dismembered or otherwise visibly damaged, but the direct hit elicits hysteric giggles.

"Next they pull out a firework about the size of a soda can that was either a stick of dynamite or a half-dozen M-80's duct taped together.

"Ozzy starts chanting, 'Do the big one!', only to have the captain of the boat walk up behind him and end the shelling." Read more.