If there’s one thing Bullz-Eye and Premium Hollywood readers alike know about me by now, it’s that I’m way too polite for my own good…but even *I* couldn’t find anything more polite to say about “Cavemen” in my Fall TV preview than lines like this…
“Given how people reacted to the mere idea of transforming a series of Geico commercials into a 30-minute sitcom, you’d think that the producers would’ve set their sights on being the best damned comedy of the new season. Instead, they’ve got a heavy-handed and horribly-failed attempt at poking fun at the foolishness of racism, one which will almost certainly have the NCAAP foaming at the mouth.”
…and this:
“Any series which falls back on a parody of ‘Baby Got Back’ in 2007 deserves whatever horrific fate may befall it. If ‘Cavemen’ lasts more than a few episodes, it’ll either be because the writers have figured out what went so horribly, horribly wrong, or, more likely, because people are perversely fascinated by how incredibly bad it is.”
Do I feel bad about making these statements? No, because, hand on heart, the pilot really was that bad. But after having the opportunity to speak to Joe Lawson, who wrote and created the original GEICO commercials that inspired “Cavemen,” I was surprised to find that I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing more of the series…and, honestly, I didn’t necessarily expect that. I’ve got a pretty open mind, and I was planning to keep it open while watching the premiere episode (which, you may have heard, will not be the pilot episode that most of us critics ripped to shreds), but was I actually looking forward to watching it? Not so much. But as you’ll see from this conversation between Lawson and myself, he manages to explain away the pilot without actually defending it, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment in and of itself, while also coming across as a guy who really does think he’s got a good sitcom on his hands.
We’ve only got one thing left to mention in the preface, and that’s that a few quotes from this piece have already appeared in an article for The Virginian-Pilot, since the only reason Lawson and I came to chat in the first place was because of his connection to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia…but The Pilot only wanted 300 words, and since I had just much good stuff left over, it seemed like a shame to waste it!
Okay, read on…!
