If you blinked, you missed it. Earlier this year a pop culture milestone came and went with scant evidence of its passing; a TV show so tremendously awful that, as recently announced, it has been mothballed forever, much like the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was known as—cue melting Nazi—The Osbournes Reloaded.

Now just because this FOX “variety show” is deserving of a cozy place in TV Hell right next to The Brady Bunch Hour doesn’t necessarily mean we should dismiss it entirely. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that The Osbournes Reloaded is way better than the legendary Brady bomb—and by way better I of course mean way worse. Or vice versa. I know; it’s hard to tell the difference anymore.

The comedian Patton Oswalt had a bit in which he likened America to a nation of Caligulas, so severely overentertained and blasé that they can no longer tell if they’re being entertained or not. What with the YouTube and the boob tube and the Intertube pumping out product non-stop and everybody becoming little more than content receptacles, it may be true, but come on—that Caligula guy really knew how to throw a party. I wish I could say the same for the Osbournes.

So, from what fertile creative loam was this show conceived? Here’s Sharon Osbourne: "Somebody came to us and said we'd like to put several million behind you and put you back on TV. Why not?" She later added, “If you're looking for a good old traditional variety show, you might want to change the channel."

Take that. Yes, she’s ever so cutting edge. She’s all up in your grill. She’s 56, lives in a fucking mansion, and is apparently still banking on the quaint notion that she and her family are so ferociously rock and roll that they’ve got the squares quaking in their cardigans.

Obviously, “banking” is the operative word here. Like an organ grinder and monkey, Mrs. Prince of Darkness just can’t seem to let Ozzy take a stab at quiet, private dignity, once again trotting the old bird-chomper out to make a dithering spectacle of himself, with Jack and Kelly, the cretinous, hermaphroditic offspring in tow—the latter clearly existing only to embody and define the useless junk celebrity.

Just look at what this family has wrought. Thanks to the success of their famed fake reality show, cable TV is now infested with knockoffs featuring all manner of has-beens, burnouts, and attention whores, from Gene Simmons pretending to be a befuddled dad to Poison’s Bret Michaels looking for party skanks in some kind of touring sex bus. How diminishing can returns get?

So, in a way the concept of an Osbournes variety show makes perfect sense, just because it makes no sense whatsoever. Much like the show. Oh, right—the show. Say, do you like fart jokes? Cheap, mean-spirited pranks? My favourite bit found the family working at a drive-through window, insulting the customers and throwing food at them—very Sex Pistols—but with the hostility aimed not at the upper crust and establishment, but at some guy who just wanted a burger.

This isn’t so much variety as bric-a-brac. Or pocket lint. Or ass-crack debris. It doesn’t matter. Everything is critic-proof now. Everything has an excuse, some sort of meta level, bullshit alibi. If the audience has forgotten how to be entertained, maybe it’s because the entertainers have forgotten how to entertain. But sucking is acceptable now, practically encouraged. Why should the Osbournes be any different? It’s just too bad they don’t have to give the money back. Or the time spent watching this shit.