Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: Features

Media Credit: TV Cavemen/Bob D'Amico/ABC/MCT "Cavemen" stars Bill English, Nick Kroll, and Sam Huntington (left-right) portray scraggly-haired Cro-Magnons struggling to assimilate in contemporary society. [Click to enlarge]

I am no authority on the art of producing television shows, but who in their right mind thought the Geico cavemen were worthy of a sitcom? Creativity in L.A. is officially dying.

"Cavemen," which airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC, centers around blue-collar caveman Joel and his know-it-all friend Nick. The two are part of a dying breed - the caveman - in a largely Homosapien world.

In the premiere episode, Joel is forced to confront the fear that his non-cavewoman girlfriend is embarrassed to tell her friends about him, while the side plot involves Joel's heartbroken brother coming for a visit after his girlfriend cheated on him.

The actual storyline doesn't matter, though, because "Cavemen" is really just one big, unfunny take on race relations.

Take away the camp-factor of the cavemen and what are you left with? Bad jokes that would fall flat no matter who you are dealing with - from black to white or Puerto Rican to Asian.

From start to finish, the show piled on one stale stereotype after another.

During a particular scene with Joel's landlady, she continually calls him by his friend's name, even after repeated corrections, implicating that all cavemen look alike.

If that wasn't too obvious, though, she follows her extremely prejudiced behavior by telling Joel he should think about wearing a ribbon in his hair; because that's how she tells her luggage apart at the airport.

Is this what counts for comedy now?

The subject of inter-species dating was at the forefront of the entire pilot episode as well.

Joel's best friend Nick repeatedly airs his feelings on mixing it up with the "sapes," unfurling gems like "stick to your kind…crave the cave" and "keep your penis in your genus."

While "Cavemen" turned out to be just as lame as I thought it would, there is a way to turn things around: hire Dave Chappelle to write for the show.

"Chappelle's Show" was based almost entirely on race relations. If that isn't qualification enough, the show was so funny TBS is actually paying to run it in syndication; there were only two-and-a-half seasons!

If "Chappelle's Show" taught us anything, it's that the touchy subject of race can be an integral part of comedy. Not only that, but it can be handled in a fresh and hilarious way - something "Cavemen" is clearly lacking.

While cavemen may have invented the wheel, these "Cavemen" clearly did not invent comedy. Hopefully someone at ABC will take my advice.

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