Ozzie Nelson, Charlie Sheen

Years ago, there was a show--was it on Biography?--about Ozzie & Harriet and the Nelson family.

Critics responded as if it had exposed the Nelson family as frauds who failed to live up to their public image.

I didn't agree. I thought they seemed like a very nice family, pretty much as they appeared to be. They were together constantly, they worked together and were extremely close. The kids were home schooled. There was a morals clause in their contract, so Ozzie Nelson would sit down with the boys and explain to them what they couldn't do and how it would result in the financial ruin of their family and all the people who worked on the show. They were the ideal family--well, some people's ideal.

But----the result of the homeschooling was that Ricky Nelson was very poorly educated and had to work for hours writing simple business letters. The result of the morals clause was that Ricky and David hired a prostitute for Ricky while they were on vacation in Britain. Ricky was 14.

It's not that their private lives didn't match their public image. It's just that their image wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Three and a Half Men

I guess it would be kind of stupid for a TV sex comedy to have a morals clause in the stars' contracts. But it looked like the poor devils who work on the show would be out of work while Charlie Sheen is pulling himself together.

Some people suggested that Sheen pay the cast and crew while he goes through rehab. He no doubt spent a fortune on his binge. But now they're reporting that they'll resume filming in a few weeks. The episodes they don't film now will be added on at the end of the season, so no one will lose any work.

I sat through about ten minutes of an episode of Cops one time. They investigated a robbery. The poor guy was fairly wealthy, but he put his money in a trust fund because he was a recovering drug addict and he didn't want to lose his fortune when he went into relapse, as most recovering addicts do at some point. Good thing he did. He went on a bender and his new drug addict friends cleaned out his house.

Charlie Sheen should give that some thought once he gets back to normal.

I wonder how Angus T. Jones will end up. Will he be more of a Ricky or more of a David Nelson?