By Chris Cosci

This past Sunday, Super Bowl viewers were treated to a new series of commercials that showed off the advertising world's continuing downward spiral in creativity. Perhaps our expectations are getting too high, and the commercials just can't keep up. Then again, did Dodge really think we would laugh at some guy hacking up a piece of beef jerky onto the windshield of a truck?

However, I do have to give credit to Pepsi for finding a way to create humor out of the most over-exposed people in show business - the Osbournes. When they first appeared on MTV, the Osbournes were a phenomenon. People were fascinated to see that this celebrity family was just like other families, except for the large, gothic mansion, the drugged-out father and the never-ending string of expletives.

I know many people who find their show funny, but I will admit that I have never watched it. Of course, I really don't have to. Their popularity has grown beyond the boundaries of widespread into the territory of excess, practically bordering on the town of omnipresence. Every magazine has to write a story about them. Every talk show has to have them as a guest. And every news program has to do a story on them. What makes it worse is that everybody pretends to be cool by using the F-word to talk about them or introduce them. It's not clever anymore. In fact, I would go so far as to say it wasn't very clever the first million times, either.

The aspect of their cursing has become too prominent. I'm not trying to be prudish by saying, "my goodness, listen to the atrocious language when those naughty people speak; they should wash their mouths out with soap." I’m just saying that there's too much of a focus on it, as if they were being admired for using that language.

For a perfect example, take their recent appearance as hosts of the American Music Awards. I only saw a few minutes of the show (I would have gone into convulsions if I watched any longer), but I saw enough. Whenever they were on stage, they rambled incoherently and delved into their standard lexicon of curse words. To be fair, the American Music Awards aren't exactly the apex of class and dignity, but the Osbournes should have easily been able to host the show without resorting to four-letter words. That performance served as proof that their cursing has become a creative crutch. By now, the cursing has become so commonplace that it's boring, which is ironic because without the cursing, they're just another boring family.

As further proof, I offer the acceptance speech by U2's Bono at the Golden Globes recently. Bono managed to catch the censors off-guard by uttering the F-word in a fit of excitement over winning. When he said it, it was more shocking and funny, yet somehow more endearing and acceptable, than any of the multitude of times the Osbournes said it.

This brings us back to the Pepsi commercial. One of the things that made it so amazing was that it was completely free of cursing. And although the general idea wasn't new (consider previous commercials with Halle Berry zipping off her skin to reveal Barry Bostwick underneath), the idea of the Osbourne children zipping off their skin and turning into the Osmonds was actually clever. The advertisers for Pepsi came up with something new, a feat that the Osbournes can't seem to do themselves.

Of course, if there's one other thing that could upset me about the Osbournes, it's that they made watching the daily lives of celebrities legitimate television. In other words, without them, we wouldn't have to see Anna Nicole Smith on television. Just watching the commercials for her show is more painful than having a hot iron pressed against your forehead – not that I know what that feels like, either. Even if the Osbournes could only be blamed for making her show possible, that would be enough to convict them of cruel and unusual punishment.