ABC refused to send critics screeners of the "Cavemen" premiere tonight and no wonder. The first episode was no funnier than the original pilot the network sent out in June. (The pilot has since been retooled and will air as a subsequent episode later this fall, if the show survives that long.)

Based on the Geico TV commercials, "Cavemen" (8 p.m. Tuesday, WTAE) is a (failed) attempt at social commentary/liberal allegory where the cavemen are the minorities. A real estate agent in the cavemen's apartment building can't tell them apart.

"Maybe one of you guys should tie, like, a piece of colored ribbon in your hair," she says. "It's so much easier for everybody."

The lead cavemen include brothers Joel (Bill English) and Andy (Sam Huntington), who live with roommate Nick (Nick Kroll), the pseudo-intellectual.

"Keep you penis in your genus," Nick advises Joel about dating sapes (AKA homosapiens). Too late. Joel is dating the human Kate (Kaitlin Doubleday), but he worries she may be ashamed of him because he hasn't gotten to meet her friends yet. Of course, it turns out she actually has a thing for cavemen; she's not embarrassed at all.

But "Cavemen" is itself an embarrassment because it's not funny. At all.

When the best joke in the half-hour is to rhyme "genus" with "penis," there's little reason to hope that this comedy will avoid extinction.