Tonight ABC premiered the most anticipated show of the year “Cavemen”.   The show is about a group of upwardly mobile educated yuppy cavemen living in San Diego.  Living quite well in San Diego given it is one of the most expensive places in the country to live.

Of course the series is based on the series of Geico insurance commercials featuring cavemen.   There is a proud tradition of taking a niche-marketing gimmick and exploiting it into a wider entertainment vehicle.   We’ve all seen the Jamaican Bobsled team in “Cool Running”

This is also one of the fist Gimmick sitcoms since Alf or that show that was on UPN In it’s first year that was exactly like Married With Children but there was a foul mouthed puppet involved.  I don’t remember the name of the show but I do remember Nikki Cox for some reason…

This show is exactly what you expected and everything you’ve hoped for.  It’s so bad it’s good!

It does everything we’ve come to believe was wrong with the classic sitcom. You know the stuff that eventually lead to the evolution of the sitcom from “I Love Lucy” to “Scrubs”.   It even does the one thing I was hoping it wouldn’t do and become a political commentary on modern society.  Fortunately it did it in such a way that the goofiness of I Love Lucy is still found in its socially conscious point. 

The show features three cavemen, who all look exactly alike, but are distinctive in their personalities.    You’ve got a fairly normal one who is probably the leader.  There’s a psudo-intellectual who is bringing everyone else down and a neurotic guy constantly trying to get back with his ex girlfriend.

It’s your average setup that would be looking for a replacement by November, but done with Cavemen it’s going to go at least a full year!

It’s a gimmick but you can’t argue with a gimmick that works!

I’ll give Cavemen a 3/5 just for being original for once!