Phil Hartman sits in a chair wearing a cliched caveman animal skin while a make up artist teases his hair to make it look unkempt. Behind him are mobile stage lights and various rigs, including props. The red "filming" light comes on.
Phile mutters in a low voice, "Get away from me, you're blocking my beautiful face..."
The hair stylist scurries off. Phil looks up and smiles; on his face moderate forehead ridges and in his mouth prosthetic ugly teeth.
"Hello. Or: Ugg. I'm Phil Hartman. You may be asking yourself: Is the make-up department on another drunken bender or does Phil owe some producer? Neither. And don't worry about my beautiful face; I assure you it's tucked away safely underneath the layers of make up and prosthetics."
From time-to-time here on 'Newsradio' when we worry the ratings may be slipping and that the icy-old hand of cancellation is nigh, we like to do one-off's which are outside the standard continuity of the show: What if WNYX was a spaceship in the future? What if WNYX was the Titanic? Or what if WNYX was a brothel full of top-heavy broads full of sexual zest and endless pleasure whose only client was Bill McNeal? Well, maybe not so much that last one; still trying to get that pitch approved. Producers and network censors - you know what I'm talking about.
With that in mind, this latest attempt at a rating's grab sees WNYX as a cave and it's employees as cavemen and cavewomen, seventy-thousand years before the birth of Christ. We call it: Newsradio: 70,000 B.C.; surely a title like that isn't doomed to failure.
I know - it's hard to imagine a time before me, Phil Hartman. And who would want to?

You think the castaway son 'Gilligan's Island' were as primitve as can be? Well, sit back and check this out."
"CUT!" the direct yells.
"If anybody needs me, I'll be outside the studio getting high in my Porche," says Phil.

The screen fades to black. The it fades band and to an alpin horn rumbling low as we see Dave looking around in his fancy caveman cloth and tie over it; he moves on. Over the scene moderately-paced percussion music plays. Bill stops where Dave had bee and looks around, too, smoking a hand-carved wooden stick. He ducts and pushes a long low-hanging branch out of his way, which snaps back and smacks Joe in the face.
"Dude!"
He rips the branch off and continues. Then Mr. James stops and props himself up against a tree with a hand; he uses his shoulder cloth to wipe the sweat from his brow, then follows. Then we see Matthew - hideously deeply ridged over his face and with bucked teeth - looking outside a cave entrance. He sees the horde coming and picks up a conch shell and tries blowing; only a sputtering air sound comes out. He tries again after looking inside it and banging it into a hand to knock anything out of it.
"This damn thing won't work," then he tosses it and yells out into the cave, "Here they come!"
Lisa stands up and walks to the front of the cave. Beth and Catherine stop using rocks to tan the inside of animals skins.
Dave stops outside the entrance and counts to make sure all male horde members are presant.
"Ugg, Dave!" cals out a man from a cave atop theirs.
"Ugg, Thag," Dave waves back.
Bill enters first and stops at Lisa.
"Gazzizah, Lisa. May I say that you are looking particularly mate-able today."
"Keep moving."
"You're the cave mistress," he continues on it and we hear his voice from further in, "Gazzizah, Catherine."
"Gazzizah, Bill," we hear her say back.
Mr. James and Milos pass by Lisa, both with animal parts slung over their shoulders in carrying skins.
"The hunt was good, I take it?" asks Lisa.
"Dave said to talk to him," says Mr. James.
"Huh..." she folds her arms.
"Annnddd four," Dave says as Joe trails in. Dave finally enters. He walks up to Lisa and gives her a kiss on a cheek, "Gazzizah, Lisa dear."
"Gazzizah, Dave. I'd ask how the hunt went, but Mr. James told me to talk to you."
"Yeeeaaahhh, about that..." he slings a big animal thigh off a shoulder and into a pile, "the hunt went bad. The heard migrated into the Badlands. Joe scouted, but found nothing. Then we all heard Tiny Arms roar from a hill or two away and retreated."
Lisa sighs heavily, knowing the answers already before speaking, "Where meat come from, Dave?"
"You remember Korg and his lovely child-baring female-of-preference Mara, and the Korg clan?"
"Of course, the other side of the mountain. They're good people. Why?"
"Well, Korg provided the sabertooth meat in ecchange for some of out mammouth."
"And?" Lisa adds in an annoyed voice.
"And I had to promise you to him for seven fireballs setting non-reproductive encounters."
"Dave!" she punches him.
"What? You just said he was good people."
"Dave, I'm tired of you always being alpha male around the cave. I wanna be alpha male!"
"Well, I don't think that's gonna be possible, Lisa."
"Give me one good reason."
"Okay. For starters: You don't have a penis."
"Ooeeewww, I hate that," Lisa grumbles.
"Now, Lisa, as my father taught me and no doubt your father taught you, in the game of rock, sand, penis, penis always wins."
"Did somebody say they need penis?" Matthew slinks over.
"No, Matthew," says Dave.
"Because I have penis if anyone needs any."
"Go away, Matthew," says Dave.
"Oh. Okay," Matthew then wanders off to Joe, who is talking to Beth.
"Basically me, Lis, and Catherine spent the day de-blooding and preparing skins for further preparation tomorrow. Oh, and Thagina two caves over came to visit. You?" she asks Joe.
"Well, the prey crossed into the Badlands; no doubt intimidated by my pecks," he flxes them, "So, being the lead tracker, Dave naturally sent me to go scout out more mobile slabs. So, I climbed atop a peak; my muscular physique sweaty and buldging. I didn't see any prey, but I did spot fresh neandrethal tracks; probably from that sneaky Zorg clan. I flexed my pecks the whole time and never saw a single Zorg. We had to end the hunt early when we heard z tiny arms roar nearby. But I pumped my pecks and my gluts and what not and it kept its distance."
"Sexy," she feels one of Joe's flexed arm muscles.
"Wow. I wish I had something I could flex. Pfy - I wish I was alowed to leave the cave," says Matthew.
"So, how was your day, spaz?" says Joe, not even looking at Matthew and while flexing the muscle for Beth.
"Well, I saw Thag from atop climb down. Then Thag stopped by to say ugg to me. Oh - and a bird pooped on skinny Tag; so that was funny."
"Yeah, sounds good," Joe and Beth walk away from Matthew.

Matthew wanders around again, this time stopping at Bill, who is laying back and smoking.
"Hey, Bill, can I fluff your mammouth-hair blankets?"
"Nooo, I'm comfortable already."
"Perhaps you'd like a mint leaf?"
"Nah, thanks anyway."
"Huh. Catherine is taking a nap again. She seems to always fall asleep when you take her to the mammouth blankets after a hunt."
"You know cavewomen: tey need their beauty sleep."
"How come no matter how much sleep I get I never get any more attracrtive?" asks Matthew.
Bill laughs, "Matthew, the sky gods have dained you to be ugly. You aren't daring to question the wisdom of our unseen all-knowing sky gods, are you?"
"No! No. OF course not. You would know best about their wisdom, given how your father was a sky god."
"That's right," he grins slightly.
"Tell me the story again, Bill."
"Wwweeelllll, okay," he inhales on the smoking stick a logn drag and then exhales in no rush, "Once upon a time my mother..."

Dave follows after Lisa as she storms away from him; they pass by Joe. Dave stops and calls out.
"Lisa, come on! Don't you think you're being unreasonable? It's just a little one-on-one grunt time!"
"Go grunt yourself!" she yells back, going further back into the cave.
He looks over at Joe, who is pushing around a large stone.
"Joe, what are you inventing now?"
"Check this out," motioning to it while holding stone chisling implements, "I call it the Garelli 8."
"Joe, why must you always toy with the sky gods? Isn't it enough you invented fire?"
"No. Check this out. I call it the 'Wheel'," he pushes the circular object and it rolls away.
"What is is this 'wheel' does?"
"It, ahhh ... makes things easier," he pushes it again and it rolls away some more.
"Great, Joe, another useless thing that after a long tiring day of hunting mammouths, also runs away from us when we're weating and starving."
"Dude, you know my brain isn't big enough to handle that many consecutive words."
"Sorry. Bill, are you ease dropping behind us again?"
"Where else am I going to get all that tasty cave gossip?"
"Bill, I am the alpha male of this cave and I would appreciate if you at least humored me."
"What ever you say, chief," says Bill, blowing smoke into Dave's face.
"Why don't you just regail them with the Garelli 8," suggests Dave to Bill.
"What is a Garrelli anyway?" asks Bill.
"It's my last name," says Joe.
"I thought your name was Joe?" says Bill, confused.
"Joe is my first name."
"Your name's Garrelli?"
"Yeah?"
"Garrelli?" Dave chuckles.
"What's so funny, dude?"
"For starters - what the hell is a last name? And 'Garrelli'? It's just so silly. I mean - what's wrong with 'Thag'?"
"Dave, everybody's 'Thag'. A last name is a way to distinguish who you are talking about."
"We already do. There's Thag in the cave across from ours, there's Thag in the cave two caves down, and there's Thag in the cave above ours."
"And if Thag moved out of the cave across from ours?" asks Joe.
"I'd call dibs on his cave," says Dave.
Mr. James, who waddled up during the conversation, speaks up, "Dave, I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but we all have particularly weird names."
"Yes, but Joe's is weirder because he has two or them."
"All great neandrethal minds are ahead of their time," says Joe.
"I'm sure that's what all last-namers tell themselves."
"Well, clan, as amusing as it would be to continue standing here and making fun of Joe's pointless and redundant second name, we got to help the women folk prepare meat for nightly feast. Come on."
They pick up the sabertooth tiger parts and head off.

A couple of hours later. The fire-cooked meat is nearly gone and ambient sunlight is nearly gone as the sun has already started to set.
"Dudes, even though I've been eating sabertooth my whole life, I got to say it: I friggin' love sabertooth. IT makes me feel like I got tiger blood, man. ARG!"
Bill speaks up, "Joe, do you supposed when the sabertooth is stalking it's victim and calculating it's attack, that it takes consideration whether or not prey has two names?"
"Might wantto sleep with an eye open, dude." Joe replies.
"Or maybe just hearing the name Garrelli is scary enough," Bill adds.
"Come on, Milos, let's go bury the meat and bones so we don't attract predators," says Matthew.
They both get up to begin work.
"Actually, Milos, you go on ahead. I have to talk to Matthew. Over by the cave entrance," says Dave.
They both walk over.
"Is it about me finally being allowed outside?" asks Matthew.
"HAHAHAHAHA, no," Dave wipes a tear of laughter from an eye.
"Oh."
"As you know, Mr. James is getting really really really old; perhaps even the oldest neandrethal known to have ever lived, somewhere in the fifty annual cycles range - maybe even over sixty annual cycles."
"Wow, that's old. My brain can't even process that. It makes my head hurt," says Matthew.
"Undersrandable. However, as a result, he's no longer able to move the cave boulder to block the entrance for the daily rest and nightly slumber. Given that none of the female clan are strong enough to move it on their own and that you're always in the cave, it's now your responsibility to move the Boulder of Life."
"David, I am so so honored you have chosen me to put your faith, and your trust, into, when it comes to the Boulder of Life."
"I couldn't think of anybody else to move a large heavy rock. By the way, you do recall what the Boulder of Life is, right?"
"Yes. Well, no. IT sounded like a fancy title of importance. Like Joe: Hunter slash Gatherer."
"Only Joe refers to himself like that and only when impressing women from other clans or regailing us with a tale of passed glory. About the Boulder of Life, Matthew ... ever notice how we wake up each cycle start alive?"
"Well, I never really thought about it that way before, but yeah. I woke up alive today, too."
"Ah huh. As you can see, eberybody else is closing their caves off now," Dave looks out and waves around, "Krazappie, Thag!" he then looks back in, "And that's because predators come out at night and look for neandrethals to eat. So, if you'd like to kep waking up alive, you musn't forget to block the cave entrance with the Boulder of Life."
"Got'cha, David," he walks away.
"Matthew."
"Yes, Dave?"
"Forgetting something?"
"Oh - you mean right now?"
"Yes, Matthew, before it's dark and the predators come out."
"I am on it, Dave," he begins pushing the boulder.
"Beth - more kindling on that fire!" Dave walks off, already onto his next thing to boss.
"That's a good job pushing that boulder there, Matthew!" Mr. James says, half encouraging Matthew.
"Thanks! Matthew's movin' up in the world."