# Geico Cavemen **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2007, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417 "2007-03-10T22:22:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/1 "2007-03-10T22:22:00Z")
What are they? Cro-Magnon? Wiki says that Cro-Magnon ‘[differ] from their modern day descendants in Europe by their more robust physiology and slightly larger brain capacity than that of modern humans.’ So if they have a larger brain capacity, perhaps it’s fitting that they’re the intelligent ones in the commercials. 😉 Geico Cavemen also have large noses and pronounced brow ridges, which I associate with Neanderthals. So which are they supposed to be? ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/2 "2007-03-10T22:37:17Z")
are you seriously expecting a car insurance company to be historically/anthropologically accurate about cavemen in a commercial? You could be joking, of course. I can only hope. I personally think they are just very smart neanderthals. ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/3 "2007-03-10T22:39:07Z")
Maybe we’ll find out in their TV show. [Link](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070303/ap_en_tv/tv_cavemen) ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/4 "2007-03-10T22:57:44Z")
I think they are Neanderthals. Or relatives of Wilem Defoe. They were actually pretty intelligent. Just a different kind of intelligence than Cro-Magnon. For instance they didn’t make art. So the bits where they were playing piano and such are unrealistic. Of course there’s also the matter of them not existing anymore. And that this is a silly little commercial. But…I think they’re Neanderthals. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/5 "2007-03-10T22:58:11Z")
I think they are supposed to be Neaderthals, with the brow ridge and the sloping forehead and all. “Cro-magnons” (the term is not used much any more) were basically Anatomically Modern Humans (the preferred nomenclature, dude), who looked pretty much like us physically, and were local to Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/6 "2007-03-10T23:04:14Z")
What are they? OVEREXPOSED. That and the Peter Graves/Verne Troyer/movie announcer/Little Richard GEICO commercials. Guys… GET SOME NEW ADS! ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/7 "2007-03-10T23:05:52Z")
[QUOTE=Hello Again] “Cro-magnons” (the term is not used much any more) were basically Anatomically Modern Humans (the preferred nomenclature, dude), who looked pretty much like us physically, and were local to Europe. [/QUOTE] :dubious: Wait a minute. Since when were Asian, African etc. etc. people not anatomically modern humans? Doesn’t seem like a good choice of name. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/8 "2007-03-10T23:14:34Z")
No, the term “Cro-magnon” is for European AMH’s. AMH is for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/9 "2007-03-11T00:04:39Z")
Yes, I think that the Geico Cavemen are supposed to evoke Neanderthal Man. (Which a True Fangeek would use to explain the lisp, since that form of human had a different oral/pharyngeal configuration.) No that the Ad Agency would be able to tell one from the other, really. That, _AND_ what **Sampiro** said: they’re beating a once-clever gag into the dirt. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/10 "2007-03-11T00:11:36Z")
Incidentally, have we ever seen one actually driving a car? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/11 "2007-03-11T00:29:20Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Incidentally, have we ever seen one actually driving a car? [/QUOTE] They never drive, so they make the best clients. Geico never has to pay out on their policy, so they get the cheap rates. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/12 "2007-03-11T01:23:37Z")
If you study their skull shape and the ratio between the pre-cambrian mandible protrusion and the degree of slope of the upper lower posterior anterior cranial scrotus you’ll find that they are quite clearly of the sub-species _homo not funny or at all clever_. Further, they appear to be a more highly evolved version of their primitive forbears _homo ad-man sans creativity._ ---
**Author:** ![Operation\_Ripper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/34f0e0/32.png) [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/13 "2007-03-11T02:15:47Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] What are they? OVEREXPOSED. [/QUOTE] Pfft. I still grin when they come on, especially the people-mover one. ---
**Author:** ![Fritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Fritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fritz)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/14 "2007-03-11T02:39:37Z")
[QUOTE=Operation Ripper] Pfft. I still grin when they come on, especially the people-mover one. [/QUOTE] Ditto that. I think they’re all funny as hell - but the people-mover is the best. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/15 "2007-03-11T05:57:30Z")
Overexposed? Try exposed at all. I freakin’ hate those commercials. They are not funny. They’re the worst kind of not funny. The kind that thinks its really really hip and cool and creative when in fact its corny and monotonous and just plain stupid. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/16 "2007-03-11T06:43:59Z")
[QUOTE=Hail Ants] Overexposed? Try exposed at all. I freakin’ hate those commercials. They are not funny. They’re the worst kind of not funny. The kind that thinks its really really hip and cool and creative when in fact its corny and monotonous and just plain stupid. [/QUOTE] Spot on. And there are many, too many other commercials with the same lame attempt to be so hip and so edgy that they just end up being nonsensical, unfocused, completely off-target, often quite mean in a petty, overly-materialistic way, and just generally juvenile, ineffective, and lame. If these type of commercials had suddenly popped up in the 70’s or 80’s people would have probably burned their TV sets. Or, more likely, just avoided whatever crap the spots were pushing and ridiculing them at every opportunity. But they didn’t appear back then. They weren’t even _possible_ until the fashionably cynical 18-35 masses started going around flaunting their gauche “hip” badges; their mod-capitalist gang-signs marinated in herd-certified irony. These hipster shit-spots came upon quickly (at the time of the [Dot.com](http://Dot.com) boom), yet gradually enough that while people were at first skeptical and kinda “WTF is this?” they soon became so inundated that they swiftly marched into line and started laughing at this crap because they thought they were supposed to. Plus, everyone else was laughing so… hey, join the crowd, right? It’s all rather like some Simpsons episode where the locals of Springfield start acting like a mindless mob of sheep: “Hey look! CAVEMEN ARE TALKING LIKE MODERN PEOPLE! Huh huh huh he haaa !!!” These crap-ads are just one more highly-visible symptom of the General Rot. We’re all frogs in a pot of sewage that is slowing being brought to a boil of self-serving, world-eating, me-centered bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/17 "2007-03-11T06:51:55Z")
So you remember the ads of yore, in which people were portrayed as new Solons, fully capable of striking down the demons of Ring Around the Collar with a single bon mot? The Geico cavemen are so many steps above that it’s hard to measure. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/18 "2007-03-11T07:50:43Z")
[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I] If you study their skull shape and the ratio between the pre-cambrian mandible protrusion and the degree of slope of the upper lower posterior anterior cranial scrotus you’ll find that they are quite clearly of the sub-species _homo not funny or at all clever_. … [/QUOTE] Come on, Ellen Degeneres isn’t _that_ ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/19 "2007-03-11T11:01:34Z")
Ads??? Pffft. Tivo! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2007, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417/20 "2007-03-11T14:12:07Z")
[QUOTE=Hail Ants] Overexposed? Try exposed at all. I freakin’ hate those commercials. They are not funny. They’re the worst kind of not funny. The kind that thinks its really really hip and cool and creative when in fact its corny and monotonous and just plain stupid. [/QUOTE] They make me more likely to AVOID Geico. Which is a shame, if only because I adore the Gecko. He’s just so damned cute. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/geico-cavemen/395417.md?page=2)