Cavemen Summary
Genres: Comedy
The ABC sitcom Cavemen was inspired by a popular TV advertising campaign for GEICO Auto Insurance. These were the ads which a smarmy commercial spokesman who claimed that a GEICO policy was so simple that "Even a caveman could understand it" was taken to task by a pair of real cavemen, who despite their goonish Neanderthal appearance--matted hair, buck teeth, bushy eyebrows et.al.--were urbane, sardonically witty and very easily offended! In the weekly-series version of this concept, a trio of young, hip cavemen lived and worked in contemporary San Diego, doing their best to fit in with the non-caveman world while still remaining fiercely loyal to their prehistoric "roots". Bill English played Joel Claybrook, the hardest-working of the three "primitives", who secretly broke the unofficial Code of the "Maggers" (a nickmame for Cro-Magnons) by falling in love with Kate (Kaitlin Doubleday), a blonde, blue eyed "Sape" (short for "Homo Sapiens", a cavemen term for those who'd evolved into "modern" humans). Nick Kroll was Joel's roommate Nick Hedge, a sullen slacker who militantly disapproved of mixing the species and had no intention of ever assimilating into the "Sape" world. Sam Huntington rounded out the threesome as Joel's nerdish, whiny younger brother Andy. Jeff Daniel Phillips, who'd starred in the original GEICO commercials, was seen as the protagonist's friend and fellow "Magger" Maurice. Others in the cast included Stephanie Lemelin as Kate's best friend Thorne, a "Sape" with an insatiable Caveman fetish, and Julie White as Leslie, the realtor for the boys' apartment building, who had to keep admonishing them to behave like everyone else and not be so "primal." The ABC publicity department proudly trumpetted the rather obvious fact that Cavemen was intended to be a metaphorical slam against racial prejudice (it was even more obvious in the pilot episode, which was set deep in the American south--Atlanta, to be exact) and a plea for tolerance and understanding for those among us who were a little bit different. . .or even a whole lot different! The series' unsung heroes were the talented members of the makeup crew, who convincingly transformed the three stars into hirsute cavedwellers without sacrificing the actors' personalities or hampering their natural facial movements. The much-ballyhooed network premiere of Cavemen took place on October 2, 2007. Hal Erickson, Rovi
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