Flashback Friday: Captain Caveman

I'd like to find out exactly how someone came up with the idea of a caveman superhero. Of course, I'm talking about Captain Caveman. But I mean, when you look at a picture of a Cro-Magnon, you don't think superhero. Now I can see how that would work. A caveman superhero could be super-strong, super-athletic like Tarzan swinging from buildings. There have certainly been worse superheroes. But that's not what they did with Captain Caveman.

No, first they made him look more like Cousin It than Lucy. Then they decided to give him a magic club that has dinosaur heads pop out to do stuff like knock out bad guys, sort of like a portable version of Fred Flintstone's living room. Never saw that on the Discovery Channel. And it flies. Again, cavemen aren't really known for flying.

But somehow it worked. I loved Captain Caveman, especially his "Captain...CAVE-MA-A-A-A-AN" battle cry. I'm just glad somebody looked at him and said, "Uh, maybe we should put him in the Stone Age" and put him in the Flintstones. That gave him more context, but did bring up the question why he was the only caveman-looking guy in an age of cavemen. Still, it made him more like a prehistoric Superman than a Scooby-Doo clone. I'd like to see somebody remake Captain Caveman as a serious superhero with an ape-like appearance, transported from the prehistoric era to our time, super-strong and swinging from buildings like a hairy Batman. The more I think about it, the cooler it seems. Dang, I wish I could draw.

Best Captain Caveman website is Freddy Corven's at Geocities.

Fun Facts:
* Captain Caveman first appeared as a minor character on the Scooby-Doo Team of Laff-A-Lympics. He was so popular, they spun him off onto his own show.
* Captain Caveman's first show was intended as a rip-off...er, reference...to Charlie's Angels with Captain Caveman unfrozen by and leading a team of beautiful women. That's what Charlie's Angels needed...a caveman.
* On the Flintstone Comedy Show, Captain Caveman had the improbable secret identity of a reporter (ala' Clark Kent).