I have to be upfront and tell you that I sat down to watch “Cavemen” because my close friend, Tony Gardner, designed the makeup for the cavemen characters both in the popular Geico commercials and the television series. Tony is a master at what he does, having been in the effects business for over 25 years. Most recently, he and his company transformed John Travolta into a woman for the hit movie, “Hairspray” (although you wouldn’t know it by the way New Line promoted the film). Like I said, Tony is a friend. I want him to succeed.
That said, I anticipated the worst after each and every review I read for the show stated that “Cavemen” is terrible. Julie and I hunkered in for a long half hour. We analyzed the makeup for about 5 minutes (it was stellar, of course), but you know what, we both got caught up in the first episode and laughed a lot. The show was very funny.
I’m not saying it’s the next “Arrested Development” or even “Two and a Half Men”, but I laughed much more at the jokes in “Cavemen” than I did at the over hyped Fox sitcom, “Back to You” (starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton). “Back to You” was supposed to be the “return of the sitcom”. Yeah, well, I loved that one so much that I didn’t miss it when I forgot to TiVo last week episode.
The negative reviews of “Cavemen”, I believe, were clearly a case of TV writers hating an idea and not giving it a chance. While a show like “Brothers and Sisters”, which was dreadful in it’s first, like, five episodes, was allowed room to grow and given some leeway, a series based on a commercial is deemed horrible and not worthy of a second look. Well, I’m here to say that I’ll be checking in on “Cavemen” next week and it’s not because I know the guy who does the make up effects.
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