Sad news: It’s been reported that heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne has passed away at the age of 76. This may come as a shock to some rock fans, considering that Ozzy and Black Sabbath just played a “farewell” concert in Birmingham, England mere weeks ago.
Unlike Barbra Streisand’s many bogus retirement tours, this one, sadly, really did turn out to be his final show.
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While Osbourne was known as the “Prince of Darkness,” in later years he was more than happy to play his zoned-out, unintelligible rocker persona for laughs, whether it was his cameo in Austin Powers in Goldmember or a commercial for World of Warcraft.
And Osbourne, to his credit, was totally willing to turn one of the most notorious, and controversial, moments of his career into a punchline with a 100-percent success rate.
During a 1982 concert in Des Moines, Iowa, the “Crazy Train” singer famously bit the head off of a real bat, which probably would have been more shocking had he not drunkenly bitten the head off of a live dove just one year earlier.
Osbourne later explained that he believed that a fan had thrown a rubber bat onto the stage, which is somewhat understandable considering that the fan later admitted that the bat was dead before it was smuggled into the concert. “It was a sheer accident,” Osbourne told David Letterman a month after the concert. “I thought it was one of these toy bats, so I picked it up and bite the thing’s head off, and suddenly everybody’s freaking out.”
As a result, he had to endure several “very painful” rabies shots during a post-show trip to the emergency room.
Even though this may not have been the most pleasant of memories, Osbourne didn’t shy away from parodying the notorious concert in his later years. For example, one of the funniest moments in “Chef Aid,” the 1998 episode of South Park, came when guest star Osbourne randomly grabs Kenny and bites his head off.
Two years later, the climax of the Adam Sandler-starring Little Nicky found the son of Satan battling his villainous brother, who then transforms into a large bat. But Nicky has a magical orb that, when shattered, reveals a secret weapon: Ozzy Osbourne, who promptly devours the creature’s head while the crowd cheers.
And when Osbourne visited the offices of Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2001, he similarly bit the head off of a stuffed NBC peacock. O’Brien probably enjoys that clip even more now.
Osbourne even sold his own line of Ozzy Osbourne-branded plush bats with detachable heads.
Somehow he never thought to market a line of mentally unstable model trains, though.
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