Facebook Watch’s first breakout show was Sorry for Your Loss, a downbeat meditation on the minutiae of the grieving process. While it was sensitively written and beautifully performed by the likes of Elizabeth Olsen, the fact that it worked was largely down to the platform. You want to watch a harrowing exploration of the aftermath of death on Facebook because just being on Facebook in the first place is such an almighty downer that it sort of fits.

Human Discoveries is a different matter. Because Human Discoveries is a light, breezy comedy animation; it’s the sort of thing that tends to rely on the viewer already being in a good mood, which is a pretty big ask when you’ve just spent 20 minutes wading through the gutter of a permanently aggravated local community group.

And yet, by jove, it succeeds. Human Discoveries may not change the world. It’s not quite as smart as The Simpsons. It isn’t an out-and-out satire like South Park. It doesn’t plumb the miserable depths of BoJack Horseman and probably won’t act as a giant magnet for all the world’s most obnoxious fans, in the way Rick and Morty did. However, taken purely as a funny cartoon without context, Human Discoveries is pretty great.

The show is set in prehistory, which is well-trodden ground when it comes to comedy. The Flintstones did it. Dinosaurs did it. Cavemen, the 2007 American sitcom based on a long-running series of car insurance commercials, did it. But these shows all forced modernity on to their characters from the outset, from the Flintstones’ wisecracking dinosaur lawnmower to Robbie Sinclair’s weirdly human shoes.

Human Discoveries takes a different line. Its name comes from the fact that it is set right at the moment of human invention. In episode one, sick of being eaten by tigers, the characters invent fire. In episode two, they learn to cook meat, which keeps for longer than raw meat, and so they experiment with leisure time. By episode three, staring at fire has become the group’s primary leisure activity, which means that the storytellers of old have to up their game to compete. Only three episodes have been released, which means I can’t rule out the possibility that this is an entire series about the repercussions of fire, but fingers crossed it isn’t.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The height of fumbling ... Human Discoveries. Photograph: Facebook Watch

Because Human Discoveries is a show about the first people to figure anything out, there’s also plenty of endearing fumbling when it comes to emotions. While some of the older characters – primarily a traditional hunter-gatherer called Ugg – grunt, swagger and go about their business without much exploration, the younger group get caught up in knots of love, sex and etiquette. They’re operating at a time when many of these things don’t even have words, which only heightens their fumbling.

This is a good show with heaps of potential, worth watching for the cast alone. Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick are the headline names here, but they’re backed by a murderer’s row of talent: Stephanie Beatriz, Sam Richardson, Lamorne Morris and – playing a murderous elk – Lisa Kudrow.

By now, we’re all smart enough not to judge an animation by its first few episodes. BoJack Horseman began life as annoying, rather than soulfully depressed. South Park was initially just a vehicle for poo gags, until it became a vehicle for very timely poo gags. Viewed today, the first episodes of The Simpsons appear to be about an eerily still family of literal mutants. Compared with those, Human Discoveries comes out of the gate with incredible confidence. I’d happily watch several episodes of it with the premise it has. But if it were to change and adapt into something more complicated, like all those other shows, it will grow into something very special indeed. It’s just a shame it’s on a platform where you have to sidestep your racist uncle to watch it.