Here's one news article from 2002:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/3785708.htm
Posted on Fri, Aug. 02, 2002
Anna Nicole Smith has no Osbourne family values
It was inevitable: Once the Osbourne family proved you could find fame and fortune by allowing cameras to poke around your private lives 24-7, a string of other ``celebrities'' lined up to do the same.
``The Osbournes'' worked because Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly Osbourne were interesting people and MTV did a sharp job of editing down hours of material into something resembling a reality sitcom. It also worked because, as bizarre as the Osbournes were on the surface, the family was a functional one within which parents and children actually communicated -- albeit with a heavy sprinkling of the F-word.
On the other hand, take a look at the life of Anna Nicole Smith, whose ``The Anna Nicole Show'' (premieres 10 p.m. Sunday, E!) is the first of the ``Osbournes'' clones to get out of the box. Smith, 34, is a woman of zaftig frame and little talent whose chief claim to fame was that she was once a Playboy Playmate and a Guess! jeans model. After her modeling days were over, her full-time job was ``celebrity,'' and she was spotted at every film opening, every Hollywood party for no apparent reason other than she looked faintly familiar to the paparazzi.
Later, Smith added litigation to her list of talents -- as in suing and being sued. She married an ancient (and very wealthy) oil baron named J. Howard Marshall in 1994. When he died seven years ago, at age 90, Smith found herself in a seemingly never-ending court fight with his son over the oil baron's substantial estate.
That case still hasn't ended, which may explain why -- for a nice little fee -- Smith is letting E! into her life.
``I'm doing it because I've been stuck in the house so long from the litigation,'' Smith claimed during a recent session with reporters. ``And when E! came, it was just . . . the perfect time for me to get out. It's just to have fun with the show and get out of my house and get away from the litigation.''
I have to explain at this point that Smith made these comments while sitting tensely on a pink (her favorite color) couch and clutching her toy poodle, Sugar Pie, who has her own shrink and takes Prozac. She was accompanied by her lawyer, Howard (No Not That One) Stern and her assistant Kim Walther, who gave up being a Jehovah's Witness to become hopelessly devoted to Anna Nicole.
No Not That Howard Stern, Kim the Witness and Sugar Pie will all be part of the show, as will Smith's teenage son, Daniel, who appears to be a normal kid who's been dragged into this mess against his will. When this series starts airing, Daniel may ask to be put in the witness protection program and given a new identity.
To be perfectly upfront, I haven't seen a full episode of ``The Anna Nicole Show,'' but I've seen enough ``highlight'' clips to know a dog when I see one. This is one pathetic exercise in exploitation with one truly embarrassing scene involving Anna Nicole talking about how long it's been since she's had sex and the creative use of a pillow. And it's clear that Anna Nicole's life isn't full enough and E! had to cook up little road trips (Anna Nicole goes bowling!) to fill out the series.
Mark Sonnenberg, the executive vice president of entertainment for E!, justifies the show by saying that ``there's an incredible fascination that people have with Anna. And for E!, we're about bringing people closer to celebrities.''
Of course, people are also fascinated with freeway car wrecks, and that's pretty much what this series is: a car wreck.
You have been officially warned.
