Following a group of three cavemen living in modern-day society, this insurance ad spinoff should’ve taken out a bigger policy—there’s no amount of coverage to keep ABC from reeling over this one for a while. Ridiculously playing up stereotypes that exist today, they dare to ask the hard-hitting questions. For instance, do cavemen eat hamburgers, or do they just go straight for the raw meat? With sex, once you go cavemen, do you ever go back? And is it wrong for cavemen to use so-called derogatory terms like “Cro-maggers” when talking about themselves? Or, like the “n”-word and other slurs that get banned and bleeped, is it considered passé or in bad taste? Not that these people can be the judges of taste, mind you…
Who’s that?: Sam Huntington plays Andy, the naïve, fun-loving caveman; Nick Kroll plays Nick, the pessimistic, obnoxiously combative caveman; and Bill English plays Joel, the cavemen who’s out to prove they’re just like everyone else. Joel dates Kate (Kaitlin Doubleday), a Homo sapien, and John Heard and Julie White waste their immense combined talent playing Kate’s country-clubbing parents.
Buzzed about: Yes, we’re sure you’ve heard all about it—the sitcom based on those (barely funny themselves) Geico commercials that spout “so easy, a caveman can do it.” Guess they weren’t talking about making a good TV show.
The “ooh” factor: They certainly try hard to draw parallels between their cavemen oppression and modern-day issues of racism against every minority group there is. Although, trying hard to do that is not really a good thing, now that we think about it…
The “eh” factor: What made the show creators decide that the cavemen’s hair had to be completely filthy? What, they don’t sell conditioner at the Cave-Aid? The fact that these guys look different isn’t why they can’t acclimate. It’s that they look like they haven’t showered, shaved, gotten a haircut or a hot oil treatment in, well, ever—which, essentially, plays right back into the stereotype debate the show is supposedly trying to bust.
The verdict: Barbarically bad.
“Cavemen” premieres Tuesday, Oct. 2 at 8 p.m./7c on ABC.
Please log in to comment