America's Got Talent's new judge, the irrepressible Sharon Osbourne, tells it like it is about the Hoff, hissy fits and calling it quits. (NBC's AGT next airs tonight at 8 pm/ET.)

TV Guide: How do you feel about replacing Brandy as a judge on America's Got Talent? Sharon Osbourne: I do not feel I am replacing Brandy. She is a gorgeous girl. I am old enough to be her grandmother.

TV Guide: Before the second season of America's Got Talent even premiered, there were rumors flying about feuds. Is it true you walked off the set the first week? Osbourne: Yeah, I did. It was a day where there was one young contestant after another. [Fellow judge] Piers [Morgan] has a definite dislike for children or younger artists. It was appalling behavior. I just couldn't take the way he was talking to them. And it was not just the children — he was being particularly appalling to everybody that day. I just had it. I was ready to scream.

TV Guide: So then you left. How far did you get? Osbourne: I ripped up all my papers for all the contestants for that day and the next. And then I stormed off to my dressing room, took off my suit and was like, "Get the car — we are going home."

TV Guide: And then what happened? Osbourne: The director got [executive producer] Simon [Cowell] on the phone. Simon is always the voice of reason. He had his entrepreneur's hat on, and he said, "You have got to be professional. You signed a contract here, and you could really get into a lot of trouble. You have worked with worse people in your life. You can handle this."

TV Guide: Did you then return to the set? Osbourne: No. I sat down and phoned my husband and my kids, and had a little a cup of tea. Ozzy is a fan of the show. So he said, "Oh, I want to go to the finale." [Son] Jack said, "Mom, [Piers] would love to get rid of you. If you quit, he gets his way."

TV Guide: What's with the animosity between you and Piers? Have you tried to work it out? Osbourne: I never sat down with Piers, just the two of us. Nor would I. I talk to him about what we are doing, but in between contestants there is no communication. It is not that we don't get along, it's that we just don't have any sort of relationship. I wouldn't hang out with him or go have a cup of tea.

TV Guide: What was the mood on the set like after that video surfaced showing judge David Hasselhoff drunk, eating a hamburger on the floor? Osbourne: Obviously David was very upset and we were very upset for him. It was very unfair. The man didn't do anything wrong. How many people do we know who have been drunk in their own homes and done silly things? The man did not hurt anybody. He was not abusive. So what if he was drunk?

TV Guide: What did you say to him that day? Osbourne: Hey, we are all behind you. You did nothing wrong. None of us is perfect.

TV Guide: In the midst of all the drama, you did manage to judge the new acts. Who was the strangest? Osbourne: You see complete extremes of talent on this show. There was a ventriloquist woman singing with her mouth closed. She never moved her body, just stood there like a statue singing. It was ridiculous. We also had a guy who was running on a treadmill, making a drink with eggs and fruit in a blender, and painting — all at the same time. When he came flying off this treadmill, paint went on the floor.

TV Guide: Do you have a hidden talent? Osbourne: Probably dancing. Ozzy and I used to dance a lot. He's good. We don't have time much anymore. He [just started] his world tour.

TV Guide: You have judged reality shows in England and America. What are the differences? Osbourne: People here are more extreme in their talent — or lack thereof. In England you get more gray, more middle of the road, not particularly brilliant or not particularly bad. Here it's one way or the other.

Let our snazzy new Online Video Guide dig up some Talent for you.

From Mr. Peepers to Mr. Hooper, classrooms and comedy comprise a favorite TV pairing, but no show combined the two with its era better than Welcome Back, Kotter. From floppy hats and bell-bottoms to the slightly stoned-out look on the students' faces, Kotter became the 1970s for most kids. Products such as lunch boxes, board games and dolls (including a perfectly coifed John Travolta) solidified the iconic stature of the series and its cast. Ron Palillo, who played lovable schnook Horshack, took some time to raise his hand (with a quick, "Ooh-ooh-ooh!") and answer a few questions about Kotter's new Season 1 DVD, his first meeting with Travolta, and why Horshack and Screech went mano a mano.

TV Guide: Here we are over 30 years later welcoming back Kotter on DVD. When did you know the series was a monster hit?Ron Palillo: My mom came to L.A. and I thought it would be a great idea to take her to Disneyland, and everywhere we walked there were people behind us. I didn't think anything about it, because the show had only been on about three weeks, but a security guard said, "Are you on that TV show?" I said, "Yes," and he said, "You really should go now. We don't have any VIP tours today." Kicked out of Disneyland with my mom. She, of course, loved it.

TV Guide: Why did the show end?Palillo: We were all getting a little long in the tooth. You can only play 16 for so long; I was pushing 30 the last year of the show. That last season the show just didn't know what it was anymore. We got a whole new set of writers and they wanted to make the show relevant, when the one thing Kotter prided itself on was that we didn't fly any banners that said, "This is our cause."

TV Guide: Did they ever want to do a Horshack spin-off?Palillo: Yeah, we filmed one and the pilot tested very well, but because of politics, they went with [the Barney Miller spin-off] Fish. After Kotter, Garry Marshall asked me to come in as a regular on Happy Days to play the first hippie to hit Milwaukee, kind of a Bob Dylan thing. That would have been like getting into the middle of a family, though, and I knew I'd never really feel part of the group.

TV Guide: What did you think of John Travolta the first time you met him?Palillo: A good-looking, funny... uh, dope. [Laughs] He was an incredible actor and a lovable guy, but a big old dummy. When he was getting ready to do Saturday Night Fever, he was on the set doing his dance routines and we all watched and thought, "This could really be something" — and it was.

TV Guide: Do you speak to him anymore?Palillo: Very rarely. I think the last time I saw him was two years ago when the Museum of American Film had a tribute to him and I was asked to speak about his Kotter years. No, we don't stay in contact, but when we do see each other, all the guys, it's genuine glee. When we did the ABC 50th-anniversary [special] and all the cast was together, it was like it was the first year of the show. Our ages had changed, but not our attitudes.

TV Guide: You're all now official '70s icons.Palillo: That's sweet. You have to remember that was a time when there were only three channels to watch, so it was us or finding out what was happening on Walton's Mountain. [Laughs] But really, there was something about that period of time that was very merry; it seems to me it was the last time the country was happy.

TV Guide: What are you doing these days?Palillo: Well, I did a movie called The Guardians, where I play a Scottish professor, and that's out now or should be soon. I'm also an artist, and I have a company that wants to put my art on T-shirts. I wrote a play called The Lost Boy that got amazing reviews, and I may be taking that to Los Angeles soon. Oh, and I just finished an indie film called The Curse of Micah Rood, where I play a 70-year-old hermit who owns an apple orchard. It's the best work I've done.

TV Guide: Better than fighting Screech on Celebrity Boxing? I find that hard to believe, sir.Palillo: I was sold a bill of goods on that! I was told I'd be boxing Davy Jones from the Monkees, who is about my size, and when I got out there to learn how to box, because I'd never done it before, they told me, "It's not going to be Davy Jones, it's going to be Dustin Diamond." I said "Who?"

TV Guide: What did you do when you got in the ring?Palillo: Little did I know, Dustin had the wingspan of a pterodactyl. He asked me not to hit him in the face, and I couldn't even reach his face! I got in a few good punches, but he hit me in the face and knocked my contact lens out; that's when they called the fight. I always wanted to do a real guy thing, you know? I think I was pretty heroic just by getting into the ring. I didn't think anybody would be watching that show. What was I thinking!

Let our Online Video Guide school you on Kotter with some classic clips.