The B.C. Sitcom for P.C. Times

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, March 8, 2007

Sitcom-challenged ABC -- struggling to launch shows in the face of all those humorless groups that have killed TV comedy by rendering off-limits all the good jokes about blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, Christians, gays, women, stutterers, the physically challenged, Tom Cruise if he's working on a movie for your studio, the Amish and even Beverly hillbillies -- thinks it finally may have found the lobby-proof sitcom joke butt:

Cavemen.

ABC has ordered a pilot for a comedy called "Cavemen," starring the three guys in the Geico car insurance ads.

In the sitcom -- one of 16 the network has ordered as it puts together next season's prime-time slate -- the three cavemen live in the suburbs of modern-day Atlanta (which perhaps the network feels is closer to the Paleolithic era than, say, Manhattan). There, they suffer from the prejudice of others, in much the same way they have since Geico first claimed in its ads that its Web site is so easy to use "even a caveman can do it."

"We felt it was a way of doing a social satire without offending any particular group -- other than cavemen," an ABC network spokeswoman told The TV Column on condition that she be allowed to toil in anonymity. "It's just a big, noisy, fun idea."

Ironically, that's just what Geico and its Richmond ad firm, Martin Agency, had in mind when they were searching for someone about whom they could say even an idiot could navigate the insurance company's dot-com.

"We can't offend cavemen because they're not around anymore," Dean Jarrett, Martin Agency senior vice president of marketing, told The TV Column.

The leap to "what if they were around" was the work of a moment.

"I love those darned cavemen and think it could be great," says Martin, who has worked at the ad agency 18 years. "The fact the whole country is talking about it, even though it's just a possibility, says something about their popularity."

The idea of a "Cavemen" sitcom is not unlike the scathing social satire ABC aired from spring '91 to summer '94. "Dinosaurs" starred gigantic puppetlike reptiles and included an episode in which a dinosaur about to join the Young Males Carnivore Association (YMCA) decides to become a herbivore, for which he's called a "herbo" and booted for going against the laws of nature.

Yes, broadcast networks used to be able to get away with stuff like that. And dared to.

Details were sketchy on "Cavemen." It's not a given that the actors in the ads would get to reprise their roles for the sitcom. One of them, John Lehr, is not available -- he's attached to the TBS sitcom "10 Items or Less," about a family-run grocery store. And ABC may prefer to cast better-known actors with sitcom chops, though, sadly, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton and Kelsey Grammer are signed to other series and Michael Richards is, so far as we know, still in Racist Rehab, substantially narrowing the field.

Joe Lawson, the Martin Agency employee who wrote the caveman ads, wrote the script for the pilot and is listed as co-executive producer, according to a spokeswoman at ABC Television Studio, the Disney division that would produce the show for Disney-owned ABC network. She asked that her name not be used because the survival rate of TV industry publicists who do not allow their names to appear in the press tends to be better than that of those who do.

We were unable to reach Lawson yesterday, but Jarrett assured us Lawson "is pretty protective about his cavemen." Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who also have been involved in the ad campaign, are on board to executive-produce and direct the pilot.

Jarrett's also tickled pink because, unlike the usual practice in which advertisers pay to slip their products into network entertainment series, "it would be neat if an advertiser actually got paid because of the use of their characters" as stars of a sitcom.

To a network that had not been able to launch a hit sitcom in ages, the Geico cavemen must seem pretty attractive. The ads play well with younger viewers on YouTube, starting with the first spot, in which a caveman on the set for a Geico commercial throws down the mike and storms off saying "not cool" to an ad in which the cavemen in their swank apartment are watching the ad on TV, horrified at how condescending it is. Next chapter, a Geico suit is taking them out to dinner to apologize, saying they did not know "you guys were still around," to which one responds, "Maybe next time you should do some research."

The cavemen have also been to the Oscars. And you can visit their bachelor pad at cavemancrib.com and rifle through the books on their shelves ( "War and Peace," "Don Quixote," "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher" by Beatrix Potter), pick out music from their iPod, read articles in magazines on their coffee table about Atlanta hosting this year's http://iheartcavemen.com Southeast meet-'n'-greet, "when the city will swarm with the young, attractive and available."

It's no wonder ABC is tapping the commercial world for its comedy inspiration. Sitcoms based on ad characters have been so unsuccessful of late.

Take CBS's 2002 "Baby Bob," for instance, starring the smart-aleck brat who first appeared in TV spots for the FreeInternet.com service; that sitcom lasted only a handful of episodes, though it did help launch Bob's next career -- Quiznos spokesman.

More often, advertising figures as TV characters are foisted on children, on Saturday morning shows. Remember when the Fox network decided to star Chester Cheetah, snack food salesman for Cheetos, in his own series?

Asked whether Geico is going to get free ad time in the show if it's picked up, the ABC TV Studio spokeswoman says there is no "ad component" to the pilot deal.

In all the navel-gazing that's been done over the "Cavemen" pilot, several people likened it to the early days of TV, when shows like the "Colgate Comedy Hour" were produced by advertisers to air on the broadcast networks. If the "Colgate Comedy Hour" had been about a family of toothpaste, that is.

The ABC TV Studio spokeswoman said she'd never had so many e-mails from the general public about a project, including some who think they are naturals for the roles because of their physical resemblance to, um, cavemen. One guy wrote in saying he had a series of caves under his house and invited the network to shoot the series there.