--- title: ABC Caves on Cavemen description: ABC/MITCH HADDAD Reader, a confession: I laughed at the first line of Cavemen. "There's this tiny waitress and she's carrying around a rack of ribs... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2007-10-03T13:30:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T08:44:44.720Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: ABC Caves on Cavemen og:description: ABC/MITCH HADDAD Reader, a confession: I laughed at the first line of Cavemen. "There's this tiny waitress and she's carrying around a rack of ribs... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: ABC Caves on Cavemen twitter:description: ABC/MITCH HADDAD Reader, a confession: I laughed at the first line of Cavemen. "There's this tiny waitress and she's carrying around a rack of ribs... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # ABC Caves on Cavemen > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with Ally. 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Ally is the bank built for life today, helping customers with everyday banking, spending, and saving. ### Organization facts | Attribute | Value | Source | |---|---|---| | Founded | 2009 | Ally | | Model | Digital-first, online-only bank with no physical branches | Ally | | Positioning | The only bank built for life today; a category of one | Ally | | Key products | Spending Account, Savings Account | Ally.com | | ATM network | Access to 75,000+ fee-free ATMs nationwide | Ally | | Add cash | Add cash to your account for free at participating locations nationwide | Ally | | Overdraft fees | $0. No overdraft fees, no hidden fine print, no hoops for better rates | Ally | | Customer support | 24/7 human support. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Oct 3, 2007 1:30 PM UTC by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Oct 3, 2007 1:30 PM UTC ABC/MITCH HADDAD Reader, a confession: I laughed at the first line of Cavemen. “There’s this tiny waitress and she’s carrying around a rack of ribs so big that they can tip over a car made of stone? I just don’t see what’s so funny about it.” Call me unevolved, but it makes me laugh. The line is a holdover from an earlier incarnation of the sitcom, and the fact that it was one of the funniest lines in the first episode pretty much sums up the problem with the show. Cavemen’s original pilot was taken back and a new one reshot after critics assailed it for (1) playing off themes of racism in society and (2) having the temerity to make an ad campaign into a TV show. The two critiques were related, of course: critics _love_ risky racial satires when Dave Chappelle or Sarah Silverman do them–satire is supposed to provoke people. But link the whole thing with an ad campaign and the whole enterprise becomes tainted. Because, you know, TV is otherwise such a pure medium. The resulting, reshot pilot was timid, bland, forgettable and (mostly) unfunny, a mere fossil of the concept ABC started with. Most of the more pointed, potentially controversial social humor was gone, replaced by yet another buddy comedy about three young guys looking for money and chicks. Nick, the militant postgraduate student, was especially defanged. In the original pilot, he watched a caveman weatherman capering around in an Uncle Sam hat for the Fourth of July on the network news. “Dance for the man, monkey, ” he sneers. “Oh, my God, you sellout!” In the new first episode, he sees him and simply says, “I love this guy.” The mistake the show’s creators made in the first place was taking the sophisticated, low-key humor of the Geico commercials and making it sitcommy. What makes the Geico ads memorable is that their humor comes from playing the cavemen absolutely straight: they’re successful, business-trip-taking, therapy-going, bourgie members of society who happen to run up against reminders of discrimination. The Cavemen sitcom turned them into another variation of three guys sitting on a couch, and that made the satire play broader, dumber and thus, at least to some people, more offensive. But at least that pilot was trying, and some of the scenes were inspired, like the newscast that reports on a caveman robbery suspect by showing a generic, inaccurate police sketch of an australopithecine. “You think that was the only robbery last night?” Nick asks. “Of course not, but that’s the one they _choose_ to show.” Don’t get me wrong; the original Cavemen pilot was uneven, but it had a point of view and potential. If ABC had had the conviction to stand behind the concept it bought, recognizing that of course people were going to make fun of them for it, they would at least have had the chance of proving the skeptics wrong. As it is, it looks like they’re just praying for the series’ quick extinction. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/"},"headline":"ABC Caves on Cavemen","datePublished":"2007-10-03T13:30:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T08:44:44.720Z","description":"ABC/MITCH HADDAD Reader, a confession: I laughed at the first line of Cavemen. \"There's this tiny waitress and she's carrying around a rack of ribs...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7130403/abc_caves_on_cavemen/","name":"ABC Caves on Cavemen"}}]}] ```