Critics No Like ABC's Cavemen
It has yet to hit the airwaves, but ABC's Cavemen has already earned a stony reception.
The new series is based on the brainy Cro-Magnons from the Geico insurance commercials and their struggle to fit into a modern society that is predisposed to regard them as inferior.
As critics see it, the show has a lot of evolving to do before it premieres on Oct. 2.
During ABC's presentation at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour Wednesday, the network said the pilot was being reshot, as the show's creators felt it flashed too far forward in the characters' lives, while failing to properly establish their backstories.
Meanwhile, reporters drilled the producers about perceived parallels between the protagonist cavemen and black stereotypes.
Executive producer Josh Gordon said there was no intention of trying to have the cavemen represent any minority group in particular, though he acknowledged that some of the humor in the show's pilot episode could be misconstrued.
"We're aware that the pilot seems to lean a little bit more in that direction. But in the episodes that we're coming up with now, we never saw them as, again, a stand-in for one group," Gordon said.
His fellow executive producer Mike Schiff added that the theme of ethnic prejudice provided a "background to the show...but it's not a driving force."
Producer Joe Lawson, who wrote the Geico commercials that inspired the series, said the point of the show was the sense that everyone feels like an outsider at one point or another.
"I think it's really a show about acclimation more than anything, and that's something that everybody deals with, doesn't matter whether you are a minority or not," he said.
To that end, one reporter asked why the cavemen didn't trim their wild locks and shaggy beards in an effort to better fit in.
"There's a name for those kind of people, and they're called 'shavers,' and the cavemen community looks down on them," Gordon replied.
The series stars Bill English, Nick Kroll and Sam Huntington as the title cavemen. Two of the actors who starred as the Cro-Magnons in the Geico commercials were unavailable for Cavemen, but a third, Jeff Phillips, will be coming aboard.
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