They're (formerly) grrrrreat!

At the home for retired advertising icons, not everyone's happy to see the Geico Cavemen hit the big time.

Editor's note: Read more of our TV Week 2007 coverage.

By King Kaufman

Read more: Satire, ABC, Arts & Entertainment, Arts & Entertainment TV Features, King Kaufman, TV Week, TV Week 2007

Sept. 13, 2007 | The John Cameron Swayze Home for Retired Advertising Icons, a converted three-story Victorian mansion on a quiet cul de sac in Santa Barbara, Calif., is a deceptivey peaceful place. Beyond the manicured lawn, behind the pleasant sky-blue facade, the home is a cauldron.

"They're all pretty miffed," the Maytag Repairman told me over the phone. He said he'd looked into moving in last year when a corporate takeover put his future in doubt, but found the place "too negative."

"It's all worked out for me so far," he said, "but even if it hadn't, I just couldn't deal with all that bitterness."

What's got them crying like Iron Eyes Cody at the home? "Cavemen," ABC's new sitcom starring a trio of prehistoric dudes who got their start pitching auto insurance. (The show premieres Oct. 2 at 8 p.m. EDT.) "You watch," the Repairman told me, "every single person in that house thinks they should have their own series. If you're breathing, they'll try to get you to read their script. In fact, what's your address? I've written a little something in my free time."

With an introduction from Ol' Lonely, I paid a visit to Swayze, as residents call it, and immediately saw what I'd been warned about.

"Do you know who I am?" Karl Malden barked at me as he answered the front door.

"Yes," I said. "You're --"

"Twenty-one years keeping American travelers safe from theft," he growled. "I was all over the world. I've got stories, mister. Ten seasons' worth at least. Everyone knows I can carry a TV series. I carried that punk partner of mine every Thursday night. And they give a show to a bunch of insurance-selling cavemen instead of me? What are they thinking?"

"I think most people think you're dead," I said, as politely as I could manage.

"Well, they better wise up," he grunted and motioned for me to follow him in. He took me to the kitchen and introduced me to a pleasant woman named Madge and a guy named Mike, who looked way too young to be living in a retirement home. Mike sat next to me and ate a chocolate bar. "Mmm, chocolate," he said. We all sat and talked for a while and I tried to place Madge. Finally, she said she used to pitch Palmolive dish detergent.

"You know, you're soaking in it," she said just as another fellow walked through the swinging kitchen door eating from an open jar, saying "Mmm, peanut butter."

"Palmolive?!" I shrieked, yanking my hand back and accidentally elbowing Mike, who recoiled, sending his candy flying -- right into the peanut butter!

"You see how I did that?" Madge said, ignoring the ruckus. "I've developed a reality show where I trick people into --"

"You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" the new guy roared at Mike, who ran up to him and glanced cartoonishly from the guy's face to his chocolate bar, half-buried in the goo. "You got peanut butter on my chocolate!" Mike said.

They each took a bite of the chocolate. Madge nudged me and nodded at Mike. "He won't like it," she said. "He hates everything."

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