Geico Caveman as the Subject of an ABC Sitcom? Actually, It's Not a Bad Idea

What do you suppose is the strangest fuel for a new television show; I mean a television show where the producers and networks admit it's all scripted and acted? (Unlike reality TV which is all scripted and acted, but which producers and network execs deny to the death.) What about, say, a Saturday Night Live skit being worked into episodic television? No? How about turning the classic movie Casablanca into a television show? It really happened. David Soul-Hutch from Starsky and Hutch-played the Bogart part.

Not too long ago ABC announced that it is in talks to develop a new half hour sitcom based on the exploits of...the Geico commercial cavemen, to be titled, appropriately enough, Cavemen. Now I know what you're thinking. Whether it's a bad idea or a good idea, I must surely be against it on general anti-consumerist principles, right? Well, not so much.

I actually think this could work. I must admit it. Those Geico caveman commercials are entertaining. I'm one of those guys who instinctively reaches for the remote during commercial time, but I do stop to watch a new Geico caveman commercials. For one reason: They are far more intelligent and well-written than 95% of what's on television. The caveman commercials feature a kind of deep, biting humor that I appreciate it. There's a darkness to their very message, a cry for understanding of a minority group that hits home in all too familiar a way. You could take those cavemen out and put in Muslims or Hispanics today and turn it into a television drama. The fact that the producers and ABC want to make it into a comedy will, I hope, not lessen the underlying message of judging people based on insufficient information.