But they were also sometimes puzzled by Fontana’s narrative habit of putting one of the prisoners, Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), in front of the camera for fourth-wall-breaking soliloquies. Viewers who tuned in to Oz were in for a shock-the show featured the kind of graphic violence and casual nudity you’d find in an actual prison. Oz's Greek chorus monologues were a necessity. Eventually, the artist stopped, saying that he “can’t let this guy bleed anymore.” 2.
The tattoo artist kept retracing his needle work so the crew could get the best take. In an impressive display of commitment to Oz-especially since he didn’t know if the show would even last beyond a season-Fontana volunteered his arm to get an “Oz” tattoo for the opening credits montage. Oz's creator is the person you see getting tattooed in the intro.Ī former playwright, Fontana got his big break in television with the 1980s NBC hospital drama St. On the series' 20th anniversary, check out some facts on the cast, the gore, and the alternate series finale idea that was never filmed. As HBO’s first attempt at an hour-long dramatic series, it laid the groundwork for the dozens of risk-taking, novel, and novelistic shows to follow. Fontana came up with the idea following his work on Homicide: Life on the Street, where murderers were sent away: He wanted to explore what happened next.īefore The Sopranos or The Wire, television’s golden age arguably began on HBO on July 12, 1997, when the premium network premiered Fontana's prison drama Oz. When HBO was looking to expand its programming to include hour-long dramas in the late 1990s, the network was intrigued by writer/producer Tom Fontana’s pitch about a maximum security prison and a specific area, dubbed Emerald City, where prisoners could have more leeway in the hopes it would allow for their rehabilitation.
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