Nick Hedge

Nicholas "Nick" Hedge is a caveman and one of the three main characters in Cavemen, appearing in every episode. He lives in San Diego, California with his best friend Joel and Joel's younger brother Andy.

History
All that is known of Nick's early history is that he and Joel have been best friends since the 7th grade ("Nick Sick"). It can be assumed that Joel and Nick grew up in the same caveman enclave as Nick mentions "home" as a place where "everybody's like us" ("Her Embarrassed of Caveman").

His home life and family are largely unknown, though he apparently lived with his mother and slept in a race car-shaped bed before moving in with Joel ("Nick Get Job"). It is also clear that he is fiercely traditional with regard to the caveman celebration Longnight ("Caveman Holiday"), which may speak to his upbringing.

Character arc
Nick is first seen in the non-canon pilot; however, his official introduction is in the series' first broadcast episode "Her Embarrassed of Caveman." In this episode, Nick reveals himself as intelligent, but lazy, pretentious, and extremely sarcastic. He is also a strong advocate for cavemen's issues, with his beliefs bordering on anti-Homo sapiens specism. Early on, Nick comes out strongly against sapiens-caveman relationships, which becomes an issue for Joel who is dating a sape. While still not entirely supportive, Nick eventually comes to accept Joel's relationship.

Though Nick claims to be a superb lover, he spends most of his time without a girlfriend, only seen dating in "The Cavewoman." Heather, a cavewoman working at a trendy yogurt bar (which Nick hates for its popularity), shares many of Nick's feelings about Homo sapiens; but when they start a relationship, he finds her more aggressive and demanding than expected. While initially resolving to break up with her, Nick is too afraid of the beating she would give him and instead runs out on her during a movie. In response, Heather mails Nick a dead possum.

In "Caveman Holiday," Nick and Heather are reunited when she is invited to his Longnight celebration (the Longnight creed states that none can be turned away). Though initially uncomfortable around her, the emotion of Longnight leads them to sleep together again. By "Hunters & Gatherers," Heather is seeing Maurice, who fosters a polite, friendly attitude in her, which he ascribes to his position as a hunter, whereas Nick is a gatherer. At first, Nick is defiant about this categorization, but shortly accepts it and uses his gatherer intelligence to plot a strategy to have Heather beat up Maurice: By starting the rumor that Maurice preferred Kate over Heather in the bedroom.

Throughout the series, Nick tends toward unemployment, with Joel usually covering his rent; however, while he never seems to hold onto a job for long, he does find employment several times. In "Nick Get Job," Nick accepts work under Joel at Nörskbild after Joel is forced to fire two employees for inappropriate behaviour in the children's ball pit. He constantly shirks his duties and comes up with inane marketing ideas, frustrating Joel into indirectly having Nick fired. Unable to understand why he was fired, Nick is forced to conclude that Nörskbild management were uncomfortable working with more than one caveman. However, when shown security video of his performance, Nick acknowledges his failure, withdrawing his complaint.

Nick soon experiences legitimate discrimination at work when he takes a job as a substitute teacher ("The Mascot") at Lake Murray High School. Nick learns that the school's football team are the Lake Murray Savages, whose name and mascot are crude stereotypes of cavemen, similar to the Washington Redskins. Nick fails to have the Savage imagery removed, and is ultimately fired when he is provoked into attacking their costumed mascot Grok Grok. It is later revealed that Nick works as an emcee at The Dirty Bird for their open mic nights, and he is well-received by the high-brow audience.

Academically, Nick appears to have stalled. He has been working on his dissertation, entitled On beyond dualism, the evolution of symbology in a post-primitive society ("Nick Get Job"), for 3–5 years ("The Cavewoman"), and is described by Joel as having not written a page in over a year ("Her Embarrassed of Cavemen"). Nick claims to be working on it in his head, but has only once been seen getting productive work done; at a time when his emotionally and physically aggressive cavewoman girlfriend has set him a deadline ("The Cavewoman"). After their breakup, he appears to have returned to his usual rate of work. One benefit of Nick's prolonged education is his continued access to the student health clinic, which he takes advantage of in place of an insurance plan.

ABC biography
The following is Nick's bio from ABC's (now defunct) official Cavemen website. COLLEGE University of Pittsburgh at Titusville University of California, San Diego (post graduate)

MAJORED IN Archaeology, Political Science

CURRENT ACTIVITIES Kicking Joel's ass in squash, spelunking, thinking, postulating, evaluating, entertaining Andy, regulating those who need regulating.

MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT Reading this bio

CURRENTLY READING The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders

ON MY IPOD'S MOST PLAYED LIST "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac, "Sit Down, Stand Up" by Radiohead, "This American Life" by Ira Glass

NEW FAVORITE MOVIE Reds

PERSON I MOST ADMIRE The man in the mirror

FAVORITE QUOTE "The Times They Are a Changin'" Bob Dylan

TURN ONS Smarts, boobs, teaching, good writing, new pens, bookshelves.

TURN OFFS Narrow minds, rednecks, iceberg lettuce, diet soft drinks, neat freaks.

CURRENT FAVORITE WEBSITE http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Outside Cavemen
The character of Nick has also appeared on The View (also on ABC) promoting the debut of Cavemen. Sharing the couch as do most View guests, he discussed the reasons why cavemen have such a low profile, drawing attention to nonbelievers in evolution as a major contributory factor; View host Sherri Shepherd has famously stated her disbelief in evolution. He goes on to say that "there are tons of cavemen walking around on this flat earth;" Shepherd has also stated her uncertainty as to whether or not the earth is flat.