'Armed & Famous,' a.k.a. La Toya's Last Shot

CBS next week will debut a reality series in which it has armed with loaded guns a bunch of has-beens, including a 21-year-old recovering drug addict who says he has attempted suicide, once put a knife to his sister's throat and once shot her, and who says he had enormous difficulty handling the stress of his previous reality-series experience.

Joining Jack Osbourne -- son of Ozzie and former star of MTV's "The Osbournes" -- on "Armed & Famous" are La Toya Jackson, Erik Estrada, professional skateboarder Jason "Wee-Man" Acuña and former WWE wrestler Trish Stratus.

In the series, the five C-listers were put through something approximating the training given to reserve police officers in Muncie, Ind., and then put to work as cops on the 6 p.m.- 2 a.m. shift in that city of 70,000 residents, 60 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

Ironically, Muncie Police Chief Joe Winkle told reporters yesterday on a phone conference call that Osbourne was one of the two C-listers best suited for the gig (Stratus was the other).

Estrada and Jackson would be nixed in real life because they are in their 50s; the age limit is 36 for new recruits, Winkle explained. The young Osbourne, on the other hand, "works well with people, is pretty strong verbally" and "seems to have a knack for the job."

And he's a good shot, doing the best by far among the five in firearms training.

Not surprising. In the first episode of "Armed & Dangerous" Osbourne tells the camera, "I love shooting guns -- they make me feel good. I started shooting guns at 6; at 8 I shot my sister. . . . Right now I own two guns."

And that's not the first time he's used a sister for weapons training. In his autobiography he says, "From the moment I became a teenager I started having trouble controlling my temper. I would have these incredible fits of rage. I'd trash my room and get into really nasty vicious fist fights with my sisters. I think the boiling-point for my parents came when I held a knife to Kelly's throat."

In his autobiography and in interviews, Osbourne has said being catapulted to celebrity status while doing "The Osbournes" was "like a shock to the body" and an "insane" experience.

"You get followed by photographers, you can't go out and have a cup of coffee with a friend without someone coming up to you with a picture and saying 'Sign this.' . . . It's stressful."

Still, Winkle told the reporters Osbourne's well-documented instability was "not a concern" so long as he had not been arrested for his actions. "My understanding is he's not had an arrest for any of those things," Winkle told reporters. He said Osbourne passed the psych test, and the show's executive producer, Tom Forman, who was also on the call, jumped in to say Osbourne passed it "with flying colors."

Reporters on the conference call seemed remarkably un-knicker-knotted about the premise of this show -- Jack Osbourne + La Toya Jackson + guns.