Inspiration comes from multiple sources: unrequited love, harrowing ordeals, sunsets … and now, apparently, car insurance commercials featuring cavemen.
ABC caused a stir recently by ordering a sitcom pilot based on the cavemen characters in a series of Geico commercials. In these commercials, the cavemen adjust to modern life and express disdain for Geico’s claims that setting up car insurance is so easy that cavemen could do it.
This isn’t the first time an ad campaign has spawned a television series (anyone remember the CBS sitcom “Baby Bob,” featuring the talking baby that hawked Quizno’s?). So this got me thinking about ad campaigns that would make interesting TV show premises. Here are a few of my favorites:
“DirecTV HD Theater” ““ My buddy Aaron came up with this one, inspired by those DirecTV HD commercials that take movie scenes (i.e. “Back to the Future”) and have characters pitch DirecTV within them. The idea is to have a collection of these scenes, except that the movie scenes featured would be ridiculously awkward ones. Some suggestions include the part in “Boogie Nights” where Mark Wahlberg gets beat up by homophobes after being paid to masturbate in a pickup truck, Jon Favreau’s awkward, successive phone calls in “Swingers,” and the part at the end of “The Godfather: Part II” where Michael kills Fredo. “Fredo, you’re dead to me.” (Turns toward camera.) “And so are you, if you don’t get DirecTV HD.” It’d be like the old Texaco Star Theater with ungodly kitsch value.
“The El Pollo Loco Guy” ““ One of my most reviled commercial pitchmen, the El Pollo Loco Guy would make an entertaining action star. Different scenes could be set off by the announcer screaming “El Pollo Loco,” in the same way the “Law & Order” sound separates scenes. The show would also follow the Guy (apparently named El Caliente) as he investigates Unusual Flavor Occurrences for the FBI. Imagine a harrowing action scene where El Caliente chases a chef in order to ascertain whether his poached eggs recipe truly qualifies as an Unusual Flavor Occurrence. Then, when El Caliente is forced to silence the evil chef, he can unleash the show’s signature catch-phrase (“Taste the Fire!”) as he delivers his brand of tasty justice. Wow. I actually am excited about this now. Uncomfortably so. Okay, moving on.
“THIS Is Our Country” ““ This would be a social problem show in the vein of “The Wire,” based on those Chevy commercials that run during every sporting event with that damned John Mellencamp song. The show would portray all of the aspects of the United States that get tossed under the rug, including urban poverty, racism at its worst, and waste and pollution. Mellencamp would be your guide, playing his guitar and singing like a troubadour guiding you through all the things you’d like to pretend don’t exist in the United States. It’d be like the musical segments in “There’s Something About Mary,” except way more depressing. Yep, this is our country alright.
“Dropped” ““ A show following the people in those Cingular commercials whose calls get dropped, leading to some crazy hijinks. I saw these commercials and definitely saw this being a salient plot device for any number of shows. And really, after the myriad of gimmicky shows that premiered this past year (“OMGZ GUYZ WE’RE $TUCK IN A BANK!!!!”), would anyone really object to an anthology series that followed a different group of people every week whose day was somehow ruined by a dropped call? I mean, the commercial where the guy is talking to his girlfriend and the call drops, causing him to think she’s cheating on him, could go any number of ways ““ comedy, drama, action, you name it. Sure, it sounds ridiculous, but is it really any worse than “Six Degrees,” the worst show ever, whose unique, signature gimmick is that people’s lives are connected? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
In writing this, I’ve realized something fairly disturbing ““ I would watch all of these hypothetical shows, stupid as they may be. In the end, I guess this proves that commercials are often as entertaining, if not more so, than some of the shows that we watch. In that case, I guess I’d better get ready to TiVo “Cavemen” when it premieres.
Seeing as how I seem to have the mind of a caveman, I’ll probably love it.
Humphrey apologizes if any cavemen were offended by his parting shot. E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.