Cavemen

Network: ABC; Genre: Comedy; Content Rating: TV-PG; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: 1 season

Take a moment to just look up and down this website and read all the negative "reviews" of "Cavemen". I'll wait.

You'll see that people are reacting to it in a visceral way with a seething, infantile, spite, anger and generalized name-calling that I find bewildering. It's a hatred that goes beyond what you would get if the show were simply not funny or "sucked".

So, are the rumors true? Is "Cavemen" really the stupidest show ever? It is profoundly frustrating listening to people beat this show into the ground with the kind of rage and offense that I think should be directed at reality shows. So, no, ABC's "Cavemen" isn't the worst show ever. Far from it. After seeing Evan Marriott telling bachelorette contestants that he doesn't think they are "stupid", Method & Red starring in their own sitcom, Tori Amos forcing Jon Stewart into a conversation about back sweat and Scott Baio spending this summer complaining about being 45 and single, a sitcom revolving around modern cavemen wouldn't register a blip on my list of TV turkeys.

In fact, I think the show is quite good. And if anyone still has doubt that there are far worse shows out there, I just have two words: Andy Milonakis.

I suspect some of the hatred comes from the shallow reality that the cavemen are unattractive characters and people are reacting to seeing something on TV that isn't trying to be beautiful. I also suspect one of the reasons the show is so hated is because of it's origins. We've had shows based on books and movies and other shows, but "Cavemen" is based on a series of wildly successful insurance commercials. That would be enough to activate the rage center in the mind of anyone who already thinks there are too many commercials around, inside and on top of our existing programming. That I understand. Nobody - and I mean nobody - wants to watch "Heroes" and have a half screen promo for "Phenomenon" pop up in the middle of the action, obscuring an on-screen subtitle. Where did networks get the idea they could get away with that and not anger everybody?

I happen to be biased towards those brilliantly funny Geico commercials. Not since the Budweiser frogs first croaked onto the scene has a commercial series be so deserving of water cooler laughter and Tivo playing. They were so fresh and spoke to a very specific sense of humor. They aren't broad and the show follows suit.

Now taking those commercials to the small screen and fleshing out a one-joke idea to a 22-minute story is a tall order. Fortunately, that one-joke is a good one and makes for a solid setup. If the stories aren't always fresh, they are amusing. The joke in the Geico commercials is not that cavemen are persecuted minorities, it's a joke on political correctness and how political correctness has made us - all of us - a little hyper-sensitive and over-emotional. Unlike the American social construction of "race" equating with skin color, the cavemen are literally another race, and are treated as such, but in an environment of media and political correctness feel they should be treated just like everyone else. Why not?

In the show's search for plot to fill the running time, the wit of the ads is strained and the point almost entirely lost. The show goes the easier route, with the cavemen feeling victimized without playing up the hyper-sensitivity that made the commercials such a riot. I suspect this is another reason the show is hated. As we've learned race, as a subject, is apparently given a double-standard when it comes to comedy. That subject, and only that subject, must be treated with kid gloves and the fact that "Cavemen" throws around racial metaphors so recklessly is causing bleeding hearts some consternation. I choose to celebrate it. Comedy should know no limits. Even if you don't think it's funny.

That said, some commercial wit remains. "Cavemen" isn't jokey; it's dry, wry, deadpan and amusing because it plays such a loony universe so perfectly straight. It's different than most sitcoms in a way I couldn't help but like. I'm a fan of conversation, not set-up/punch-line jokes or shows that are up their own ass trying to show how clever they are or comedies that insist on throwing the wet blanket of relationship drama on top of them - so I found it entertaining just watching the cavemen (played under heavy makeup by Bill English, Nick Kroll and Sam Huntington) sitting at a bar debating frivolous relationship issues or arguing politics in their lavish apartment in front of "Halo 3". Should they vote for the "Caveman Candidate" or the other guy, who because he is not a caveman is automatically "anti-Caveman"?

While it isn't as sharp as "South Park" or other big dogs of the satire genre, there is some welcome and refreshing (and richly ironically) satire here aiming at politics, fads, consumerism and corporate America. The show's got it's finger on our contemporary fad-based pulse, which is all too rare on network TV. "Rock Vote" and "The Shaver" hit the nail on the head. My favorite episode of the show's short run may be "Cavewoman" where the show gives it's own twist on "Friends"-style relationship sitcom situations and revels in the guys obsession with a hip new yogurt shop. The simple-beyond-words, quick-fix ending struck a pure comic note usually only seen in better slacker sitcoms ("Seinfeld"/"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia").

It's that concern with the frivolous, the little every day things- playing Wii, perennially writing your graduate thesis, getting hooked on self-help seminars or delicious yogurt - that grew on me and made "Cavemen" such an amusing delight. Sue me.

* * * / 4

When I first heard of this show coming out, I was actually looking forward to it. I knew I had to watch it with an open mind, which I did last night. It wasn't roll on the floor funny, but I had a few chuckles. I can see this show struggling for a bit before finding a comfortable funny format. I am going to give this show a chance for the first season. If after that I still feel 5/10 about it, I'll stop watching.

So, yeah, the first episode was nothing to write home about, but everyone should check out this series at least once. The plot of the pilot was actually a decent story.

Overall response, I'm still neutral on it. The show can still prove bad and it can still prove good.

Geico commercials using the Cavemen were funny in the beginning. Actually, only the Duck with Mango Sauce spot was funny. Now they're tired & really not funny. Same with the show. The pilot seemed like the 7th episode. We assume that Cavemen live & breathe among us which eliminates any humor. There was no introduction to why they are here. I really think the script was well-written though, but maybe for the 7th episode. It was funny that "Wikipedia" was under construction. If Joe Lawson wrote the script, he belongs in Hollywood. It was very inside, insightful and well written. But any mystery or drama associated with Cavemen living amongst us was not there. The problem is that they made humans so sterile to accepting the Cavemen that it falls flat. Because there are no bad guys or conflicts in the comedy, it just won't work. They may not be walking upright in the near future. Just my thoughts for what they're worth.

For comedy it wasn't funny. Perhaps I was unable to relate to it. I just don't get it.

Plot Premise: A group of cavemen who are modernized and live amongst us but feel racial prejudice or pressure from society. Although i doubt it is that deep nor witty enough to encapsulate the above theme. The best guess would be a statement on black and white relations in the United States in a non controversial medium - the cavemen?? 3 brothers or friends live together each with radically different personalities and interests. They try to venture out in modern society and comment on or experience disastrously the modern society as modern cavemen in which the comedic outcomes only reinforce societies' stereotypes. The main character tries to engage the homo-sapient (white?) world with a regular love interest but is chastised as an uncle tom with the same comedic outcome from his efforts.

Nothing good to say about it.

So why does this show suck? Unfortunately, that really is the only question, because there is no doubt that it does.

For those unfamiliar with the premise of the show, the doomed-to-be-shortlived series Cavemen focuses on a number of Neanderthals and their struggle to exist in modern day America and is based on the characters featured in a series of television ads for Geico Insurance. The concept is solid and there is every reason to think it could be executed successfully.

I had to think about it for awhile, but then the tagline from the commercials -- something to the effect of "We're not that much different from you" provided me with the key to the show's suckiness. Even though cavemen/Neanderthals are actually a different species than humanity, the title characters of this show, it turns out, are exactly the same as those of us who are boring jerks.

Maybe its my background as a game writer -- rather than a soulless, hack, committee-based writer from California -- but this show had so much potential, and none of it has been realized. To start with, the producers should have focused on the fun things that would make cavemen different from us.

What could conceivably be funny, for example, about giving them occupations like perpetual grad student and furniture store clerk, when they would have more compellingly been drawn to things like subterranean utility workers and guides at cave parks? Why would they play prosaic games like squash, when a whole episode could be devoted to them trying get hunting licenses to go after game with spears? A show like this could write itself, and it takes some willfully bad writing to make it quite so crappy and boring.

Another tiresome aspect of this show is an attempt to portray the cavemen as being subjected to a number of stereotypes associated with various human minorities. Yawn! This has been done so many times before, and never more drearily than this. And, as noted previously, Neanderthals really are a different species, so using them as a metaphor for racial stereotyping is both uncompelling and off the mark.

Responses are welcome, including those from anyone who wants to tell me why I'm wrong. I'd like to enjoy this show and am just sorry that I have thus far been unable to.

Michael J. Varhola, Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine