The Pre-symbolic on the Imaginary
Television Review | ‘Cavemen’
They Put on Their Pants a Leg at a Time; It’s Just That Their Legs Are Hairier
By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Is “Cavemen” the worst comedy ever to appear in the history of American television? No, it is not. Conceits have certainly floated about the offices of network executives that have been less promising than the notion of cavemen friends suffering prejudices together in a contemporary metropolis.
I seem to recall a show running briefly in the 1980s about two Rhodesian Ridgebacks living in an East Side town house who one day look up at their owners and say: “You know what? If a doofus like you can make a killing in the leveraged buyout market, so can we.” Hold on while I check to see if I can come up with the title in Wikipedia. Well, it doesn’t appear to be listed there. Just give me another minute while I glance through my volume of “Total Television.” Huh. I guess the show never made it past preproduction.
And yet “Cavemen,” which had its premiere on ABC on Tuesday, arrived with decent intentions. In all fairness to the producers who injudiciously decided to spin off an entire half-hour of fun from the Geico ads depicting cavemen fighting off presumptions of their insensitivity, the notion of Neanderthals crying over girlfriends and invading the universe of urban-professional effetedom isn’t an untenable comic premise. Who expected the world to fall in love with a theatrical version of “Xanadu”? But it did.
You might even imagine a sociological imperative existing for such a venture, with men forced, as they are in this confusing world, to embody the style of “Swingers” and the soul of “High Noon.” One joke in the show has a caveman working in some facsimile of an Ikea, where all the shelves and chairs have ridiculous, unpronounceable names like the Bludencrock or something. Let the record reflect: I laughed.
But I laughed through my pain. “Cavemen,” set in some version of San Diego where people speak with Southern accents, doesn’t have moments as much as microseconds suspended from any attempt at narrative.
The Geico ads themselves, endlessly downloaded and parodied on YouTube, possess a stronger sense of story line. Given that “Cavemen” was reshot, recast and rehauled before it finally made it to the airwaves, it’s hard to fathom why better use wasn’t made of Jeff Daniel Phillips, whose slouchy sense of exasperation at the feminized, judging modern world is what elevates the Geico campaign to addictive sketch comedy. Mr. Phillips will make only guest appearances on “Cavemen” — if it survives, that is, all the rocks and fire.
CAVEMEN
ABC, Tuesday nights at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.