Are ‘Cavemen’ (the Ads) a Bad Omen for ‘Cavemen’ (the Show)?

[Brian Damage]

The “Cavemen” commercials are back. What does that mean for the “Cavemen” television series?
The Martin Agency, the advertising agency for Geico Auto Insurance, announced yesterday that a new cavemen commercial aired in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Tampa and other cities on Sunday, for the first time since a half-hour sitcom inspired by the ads premiered on ABC last fall.
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In the commercial, the actors portraying cavemen are shown reacting to the television show.
“At least they didn’t say ‘It’s so easy,’” one of the characters says in the spot, referencing the popular “It’s So Easy, Even A Caveman Can Do It” tagline of the commercials.
The return of cavemen commercials may be a bad sign for the “Cavemen” television show. As Stuart Elliott reported in October, Geico and ABC agreed that the cavemen commercials would go on hiatus when the television show started, “to give the new series time to establish an identity separate from its parent.”
Do the return of the commercials indicate the end of the show? A spokesman for the Martin Agency referred questions to ABC. The network has placed “Cavemen” in limbo: it is not on the network schedule, but it hasn’t been canceled either, according to a spokesman.
The show “got a lot of viewers to try it out, mostly out of curiosity,” a report by the media buying agency Magna Global noted last month. “Many of them drifted away before episode two.” If the television show winds up being cut by ABC, as looks likely at this point, at least viewers will see the characters in the commercials.

http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2...emen-the-show/