Image Credit: Jeff Katz/A&EI can vividly remember, as a teenager, buying, and loving, Twisted Sister’s 1983 single “I Am (Am Me).” “Wow, Dee Snider’s right!” I thought, cranking up the volume to drown out the protesting cries of my parents and the neighbors’ dog. “I am me! Also? I am!”
Cut to 27 years later and the make up-loving, heavy metal vocalist has been given his own Osbournes-esque reality show, Growing Up Twisted, the first two episodes of which debuted last night on A&E. Alas, the “me” that “I am” will probably be watching something else next week. It’s not that Snider’s dislikeable. Quite the opposite. The Long Island-dwelling singer seems like a fine, upstanding citizen who, together with wife Suzette, has done a splendid job of raising four kids, Jesse, Shane, Cody, and Cheyenne, all of whom are now in either their teens or twenties.
But what is admirable in real-life can’t help but come across as a bit of a snooze in “reality” life. True, all concerned do their best to act outrageously — the first show featured both tattoo parlor visits and homemade pubic wigs. Frankly, though, the stars of Growing Up Twisted seem much too grown up already for the format.
