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This issue is about ‘The Simpsons’ switching time slots, funny tweets, Nikki Glaser burns, perverted plants, movies that sound stupid, and much more.

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‘Shifting Gears’ Can’t Shake Its Tim Allen-ness No Matter How Hard It Tries

There was a time, not very long ago, when conservative comedy was generally dismissed. Conceptually, commentators would say, it’s a contradiction in terms, in that the purpose of comedy is to challenge systems of powers that conservatives, definitionally, seek to preserve. In practice, they only have one joke, and it’s not funny. But in a political climate in which hard-right voices are dominant, ABC evidently doesn’t need to be known as the network that summarily fired Roseanne from her namesake sitcom for one racist tweet too many; now it’s the network getting back in the Tim Allen business after cancelling his last show in 2017, and despite his many backward views and unprofessional on-set behavior. His new multi-cam sitcom, Shifting Gears, is too witless to get mad about, but it’s striking how much effort and talent it wastes trying to counter-balance a 21st-century Tim Allen character.

From Beloved Geico Commercials to Disastrous ABC Sitcom: An Oral History of ‘Cavemen’

For decades, insurance commercials were total bores. They talked about their policies and what they covered and how important it was to protect your family and everything else about the insurance industry that would put you right to sleep — until one little reptile changed the entire game. 

In 1999, Geico introduced the Geico Gecko, the pioneer in making insurance commercials cute, funny and mascot-based. The company’s next ad campaign was just as revolutionary — not to mention, evolutionary. In 2004, it came up with a new motto to promote its new website: “So easy a caveman can do it.” The line was made extra memorable by the commercials that accompanied it. After a generic-looking salesman said to the camera, “So easy a caveman can do it,” a nearby caveman would become wildly offended. 

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