America's Got Talent Returns: But Did Sharon Osbourne Turn Up?

America's Got Talent returned to screens on Tuesday evening (August 14, 2012) to help cure the country's Olympics hangover. After taking a break for London 2012, Howard Stern, Howie Mandel and Nick Cannon sloped back into work for a live show in Newark: but what about Sharon Osbourne?

The reality matriarch had claimed she was quitting the show because she felt NBC discriminated against her son Jack by not allowing him to compete on 'Stars Earn Stripes'. Jack's Osbourne's multiple sclerosis was understood to be a stumbling block in having him complete on the rigorous show, and Sharon made her feelings known. The game-show has since come under fire from some of the world's most powerful peace activists including Desmond Tutu, who accused it of glorifying war with its military themes. Anyway, Sharon did end up turning up for America's Got Talent but remained strangely muted throughout proceedings, being sure not to say anything too outrageous and giving her opinions calmly. Nick Cannon opened the show which featured 12 acts taken from YouTube videos. Unlike Osbourne, Stern couldn't wait to get back into the swing of things, saying, "I gotta tell you, Nick, it's been two weeks.Those Olympics went on and on and on. I'm ready to judge". Unfortunately, most of the acts fell flat, leading Stern to ask, "Whose idea was it to have a YouTube show?".

The first act - Clint Carvalho and his Extreme Parrots - were rather self-explanatory. Clint called out his cockatoo (who was on a nearby rooftop) and got him to fly into the theater. Elsewhere, a band named Reverse Order sang Katy Perry's 'I Kissed a Girl', leading Stern to comment, "I think you guys suffer from not being together that long".