“Alright, here it is: we take a normal, by-the-numbers sitcom. I mean, totally unremarkable in every way.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe we make it single-camera and don’t have a laugh track and play some OK Go in the background, because we want people to think we think that we’re hip and unconventional. But really we’re as completely ordinary as we can possibly be at this moment in time.”
“I’m tracking you so far.”
“Alright, here’s the twist: some of our cast is wearing caveman makeup. Well? What would you say to that?”
Stunned silence slowly turns into an overwhelming wave of applause. Cheers erupt, cigars are lit, backs are clapped, and a burlap sack emblazoned with a cartoon dollar sign is handed to the presenter. Curtain.
“But wait–what if we could ruin what little novelty the concept has to offer by exposing it to the potential audience through a series of well-known, omnipresent advertisements? Would that do anything for you?”
Weirdly enough, I went to college with one of the cavemen. So I’m happy for him that he’s on a network show, rather than doing internet spots, Verizon wireless commercials, and VH1-like pop culture shows, as he had been doing. I’m not so happy he’s doing this particular show.
If only that’s the way it really went down. Instead what happened is this:
“OK, there’s these characters some ad execs developed to sell products, and they’ve become wildly popular. So what if we took those same characters and put them in a totally cookie cutter sit-com? Think of how many more products we could sell that way!”