There's Something In The Pilot That Producers Don't Want Us To See Family
The first tipoff was the line that the pilot for the new series "Cavemen" is being re-shot.
The ABC network and producers said they decided it jumped ahead too far in the characters' lives and failed to establish them properly.
Okaaaay... curious minds want to know, what's the real reason?
That's there official answer and they're sticking with it.
Then we read this, "Cavemen is not a racial metaphor."
Okaaaay... then why are the hairs on the back of my neck starting to stand up?
The people bringing us this out-the-box, forward-thinking program said Wednesday the comedy is much more than the insurance company commercials that inspired it, but isn't designed to be an ambitious allegory about race.
Okaaaay... maybe we're being overly sensitive.
Geico's TV spots show highly evolved but shaggy-looking cavemen chafing at misconceptions about their sophistication and intelligence. The series, debuting Oct. 2, follows another trio of Cro-Magnons facing prejudice as they try to fit in contemporary society.
On second thought, this definitely sounds like it's Black people. Which begs several questions:
1. Are there any Black writers?
2. What about actors?
3. Ditto producers and directors? Surely some grips, right?
4. No, really, tell me we're doing wardrobe or set design. Hair & Make-Up?
Who's responsible for craft services? Security? C'mon, work with me here.
"If the show works, it will work because people care about these three guys under a lot of makeup and ... can relate to their problems and find them charming," producer Mike Schiff told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting.
Schiff and fellow producers responded to reporters' questions about the series, many of them focusing on parallels between the cavemen and black stereotypes and the pitfalls of turning an ad into a series.
The producers said the characters' creative potential and their "fish-out-of-water experience" was only touched on in the commercial spots. ABC obtained rights to the characters from Geico, which is not involved in the show.
"We knew we'd be under a lot of scrutiny" adapting the Geico concept to a series, producer Will Speck said. "But I think it just makes our job a little harder."
There was no intention to have the Cro-Magnons represent any minority group, said his colleague, Josh Gordon. "We're aware that the pilot (episode) 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.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like someone conceding that we have another "Hot Ghetto Mess" on our hands.
"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," producer Joe Lawson said.
Okaaaay... get Al Sharpton on the phone. I think we just found another issue for the reverend to take on!