Daily Sign of the Apocalypse

Lisa de Moraes writes in today’s Washington Post about the most recent sign that a) network TV is a few feet further into the grave than Hollywood movies b) creativity has resorted to plagiarism c) Jesus will be flying down to Los Angeles in a hovercraft with Buddha to personally punish anyone involved in this project.

What is this project? Oh, just the fact that ABC has picked up a pilot based on the Geico commercial that features three Cavemen who are picked on by society at large for being cavemen. The basis of the sitcom is that:

the three cavemen live in the suburbs of modern-day Atlanta (which perhaps the network feels is closer to the Paleolithic era than, say, Manhattan). There, they suffer from the prejudice of others, in much the same way they have since Geico first claimed in its ads that its Web site is so easy to use “even a caveman can do it.”

…The idea of a “Cavemen” sitcom is not unlike the scathing social satire ABC aired from spring ’91 to summer ’94. “Dinosaurs” starred gigantic puppetlike reptiles and included an episode in which a dinosaur about to join the Young Males Carnivore Association (YMCA) decides to become a herbivore, for which he’s called a “herbo” and booted for going against the laws of nature.

Yes, broadcast networks used to be able to get away with stuff like that. And dared to….

The ABC TV Studio spokeswoman said she’d never had so many e-mails from the general public about a project, including some who think they are naturals for the roles because of their physical resemblance to, um, cavemen. One guy wrote in saying he had a series of caves under his house and invited the network to shoot the series there.