The Dana Carvey Show | |
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Genre | Sketch comedy |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 8 (1 unaired) |
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Running time | 30 minutes (with commercials) |
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Network | ABC |
Release | March 12 – April 30, 1996 |
The Dana Carvey Show is an American surreal sketch comedy television show that aired on ABC during the spring of 1996. Dana Carvey was the host and principal player on the show while Louis C.K. served as head writer.
The show's cast consists heavily of Saturday Night Live and Second City alumni including Carvey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Bill Chott, Elon Gold, Chris McKinney, Heather Morgan, Peggy Shay, Robert Smigel, and James Stephens III. The writing team also included Louis C.K., Charlie Kaufman, Jon Glaser, Dino Stamatopoulos, Spike Feresten, and Robert Carlock. In addition, Carvey and Smigel's former Saturday Night Live colleague Greg Daniels contributed material for the premiere episode.
The Dana Carvey Show aired only seven of its planned ten episodes. While the program was short-lived and featured controversial material, it has since been considered ahead of its time. The show is also recognized for providing early exposure to Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, two comedians who would go on to have success years later. In addition, The Dana Carvey Show served as a launchpad for Smigel's series of TV Funhouse cartoons. [1]
"We kind of did reductionist bits where we'd just get away from beginning-middle-end, where the wacky character would walk into a scene and frustrate a straight man for six minutes. Instead, we just said 'And now, here are skinheads from Maine,' and then we just did 10 jokes."
—Robert Smigel [1]
Robert Smigel turned down an offer to rejoin SNL as a producer, favoring the challenge of working with Carvey in prime time. Smigel and Carvey were given SNL's audition tapes which led them to hire Bill Chott and Jon Glaser. They were also joined by Louis C.K. who worked with Smigel on Late Night with Conan O'Brien . Steve Carell was hired through Smigel and Carvey's auditions in which Smigel recalls seeing future SNL alumni Tracy Morgan, Jimmy Fallon and Ana Gasteyer; however, The Dana Carvey Show had but a small cast to fill. Smigel himself cast Stephen Colbert, whom he had met years prior, and had tried to use on Late Night. Colbert sent them a homemade audition tape in which he used his newborn daughter as a puppet. He later noted, "I was completely desperate." [2]
The writing staff for The Dana Carvey Show included, Louis C.K. (head writer), Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Carlock, Greg Daniels, and Dino Stamatopoulos.
Carvey also saw the new show as an opportunity to move his family away from Los Angeles and raise his two young sons in New York. His family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, however, causing Carvey to commute several hours to the studio during a brutal winter. [3] He regarded Smigel as the true writer and "creative force" behind the show while Carvey considered himself "kind of a zombie." This was due to his tiring schedule of balancing work and fatherhood which he later considered a mistake.
During the show's development, Smigel and Carvey focused on being different from SNL. The sketches would often be "reductionist bits" in an attempt to feel more "presentational" like Monty Python . This would sometimes frustrate writers whose ideas, while creative, were sometimes rejected because they did not fit the show's approach. Smigel has expressed satisfaction, however, in the outcome of working under such restrictions and believes the show would have found a greater balance had it been given more time on the air. This experimental approach also allowed the show to include short films and cartoons, starting with The Ambiguously Gay Duo . Smigel later considered the cartoons his favorite aspect of the program and noted, "My whole career came out of the impulse to do cartoons on The Dana Carvey Show." In the summer following the show's cancellation, Smigel continued to develop more cartoon ideas which would be used on SNL's TV Funhouse .
Smigel noted that the show had many options in terms of networks. Carvey says that his "first instinct" was to produce the show for HBO, [4] while CBS would have guaranteed several more episodes than the series eventually received. However, the duo was "overly tempted" by the reigning profile of ABC and its prime time offer. The network originally planned on airing ten episodes [5] and did not interfere with the show's creativity, simply wanting a good lead-in to NYPD Blue .
The Dana Carvey Show also attempted to put The Onion on television with Stephen Colbert reporting as an anchor in deadpan style. This material long predated his time on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report . However, the sketches went unaired and have since been subject to rights issues. [1]
The show's humor varied between crude and sophisticated. It debuted on Tuesday, March 12, 1996 at 9:30 ET. On its premiere, following the family-friendly Home Improvement , the notorious first sketch featured Carvey as President Bill Clinton, demonstrating his compassion by having a human baby (which was a doll), several puppies (real ones) and a kitten (also real) suckle milk from his multiple prosthetic nipples. Years later, Carvey claimed that "having that right out of the box sent the wrong message about the show. The show got really panned because of that, and we were in trouble from that point forwards." [3]
Carvey also recreated some of the characters he developed on Saturday Night Live, including his signature Church Lady, and parodied the news of the day, as well as the media, politics, commercialism, and other sketch comedy shows. One particularly memorable sketch, "Skinheads From Maine," involved a pair of white power skinheads dressed in plaid, sitting on a porch, whittling, and conversing alternately about their racist beliefs and innocent matters such as the weather in a thick mock Maine accent. ("Nice sunset we're havin'..." "Ayuh, the weather's the only thing the Jews don't control.")
Additional post-produced bumper material was often featured between sketches. One such example, Discovery Channel After Dark, featured an edited montage of wild animals mating, and performing other actions that would be considered obscene if shown being done by their human counterparts. This was a parody of adult-based, late-night cable programming.
An animated sketch that first appeared on the show, The Ambiguously Gay Duo , featuring the voices of Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, became well known on SNL after Carvey's show was canceled. Additionally, a sketch used in the unaired eighth episode about Tom Brokaw prerecording the announcement of Gerald Ford's death was used verbatim when Carvey hosted Saturday Night Live on October 26, 1996.
When The Dana Carvey Show first appeared, it was greeted with above average reviews and a lukewarm response from the audience. Despite the fact that ABC only aired seven episodes of the series, it has maintained a small but loyal following. The first six episodes that aired were officially titled based on the presenting sponsor of the show:
This was an homage to the classic television shows that Dana Carvey grew up watching in the 1950s and 1960s, wherein a variety show would have a single sponsor whose advertising and promotion were integrated with the show.
The show was videotaped at the CBS Broadcast Center at 524 West 57th Street in New York City. As an inside joke to the fact that an ABC television show was being recorded at a studio owned by a rival network, each show's opening announcement stated, "from the ABC Broadcast Center in New York, it's The ________ Dana Carvey Show!" The blank was where the sponsor's name is heard as a man stands at the top of a ladder outside of the Broadcast Center placing the ABC logo over the CBS Eye logo. Dana would then begin the show surrounded by dancers wearing (for example) gigantic Mug Root Beer soda can costumes.
Each of the first five sponsors were products of PepsiCo, Inc. Shortly after the show's debut, however, PepsiCo announced that its units Taco Bell and Pizza Hut had pulled advertising which would have brought in $600,000 per episode. A spokesperson for the latter told Variety that the company did not "feel comfortable" with the show based upon the premiere episode's content. An ABC spokesperson also told Variety that some sketches in the premiere "went too far." Nevertheless, Pepsi-Cola and sister company Mug Root Beer remained sponsors. [5] The sixth sponsor was a locally popular Manhattan Chinese restaurant, while the final episode had no presenting sponsor.
Episode | Original air date | Sketches | Cast |
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"The Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show" | March 12, 1996 |
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"The Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show" | March 19, 1996 |
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"The Mountain Dew Dana Carvey Show" | March 26, 1996 |
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"The Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show" | April 2, 1996 |
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"The Pepsi Stuff Dana Carvey Show" | April 9, 1996 |
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"The Szechuan Dynasty Dana Carvey Show" | April 23, 1996 |
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"The Dana Carvey Show #7" | April 30, 1996 |
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"The Dana Carvey Show #8" | Unaired |
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Due to the controversial content and declining ratings, the show was canceled after eight of its ten planned episodes were taped. Smigel and Carvey recalled wanting a parental warning for the show, but were not granted it because of advertiser concerns. However, the duo considered the program less racy by today's standards, stating, "If you take out the teats and a few things, maybe the Mountain Dew, mostly it was clean and silly and abstract." They also regarded Two and a Half Men , a later CBS sitcom, as "much dirtier" than The Dana Carvey Show. "I think that [ABC] wanted a little edgier Carol Burnett Show , and they got something that was a little more than they bargained for," Carvey recalled. The two also believe the show could have been more successful had it been given more time to develop, much like Late Night with Conan O'Brien did. Smigel put it simply, "Bottom line, the network was the wrong fit, wrong timeslot. Cable obviously would have been -- we would have been given credit for what was good instead of attacked for what wasn’t." [1]
Nevertheless, Carvey expressed pride in the program serving as Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert's launchpad and in its creative approach: "We did not compromise anything, literally, in a completely commercialized environment, and did exactly what we wanted - for better or for worse." Colbert has also offered credit to the show's format for developing his satirical onscreen persona, stating, "If you have an opportunity to give it right to the audience, there’s a special connection that you make by looking at the camera." [2]
Upon the program's cancellation, its writers rearranged their office in an askew fashion as a parody of destroying it in anger. They quickly corrected its appearance after angered security guards complained. Carvey returned to stand-up comedy, specifically corporate shows, where he was in high demand and turned down many gigs. His family returned to Los Angeles where he could revolve his schedule around raising his children. Smigel's Ambiguously Gay Duo concept carried on with further installments on Saturday Night Live and led to the creation of several other cartoons. Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert were later cast on Comedy Central's Daily Show where its co-creator, Madeleine Smithberg, was a fan of their "waiters nauseated by food" sketch. The two went on to have significant comedy careers in film and television.
More recently, The Dana Carvey Show has become available via a variety of Internet-related outlets. The series in its entirety (including an eighth episode unaired by ABC) has been available on iTunes, Joost and at no charge on Hulu, Crackle, and YouTube. After Hulu added the show to its lineup of programming in 2008, The Dana Carvey Show was nominated as one of eight finalists for the "Shows we'd bring back" category in the first annual Hulu awards. [6]
In addition, a two-disc DVD set of the show was released in May 2009 by Shout! Factory. The release included deleted sketches, the unaired eighth episode, and commentary extras featuring the show's creators. This release was met with numerous editorial retrospectives of the program.
Dana Carvey would eventually host a program on ABC again 26 years later, when he served as a guest host for the July 18 and 19, 2022 episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! as part of Jimmy Kimmel's traditional summer break from the show. [7]
Upon its debut, Joyce Millman of Salon called the series a "rousing blast of kamikaze satire" and summed up by declaring, "In his relentless flogging of the advertiser-driven TV biz, Carvey delivered prime time's funniest biting-the-feeding-hand stuff since Michael Moore's short-lived NBC (and briefly, Fox) series TV Nation ." [5] Caryn James of The New York Times , however, gave a negative review, claiming, "the debut already looked tired and old" adding, "Right now, the Carvey writers had better be thinking up something edgier than a dancing mug of root beer." [8]
In 2009, New York Times writer Dave Itzkoff lamented, "Comedy fans may remember it as a crucible in which many future stars were forged. But for the people who created the show, it was a stark lesson that when idiosyncratic talents are given the freedom to follow their personal muses, a mass audience does not always follow." [2]
Entertainment Weekly's Alynda Wheat gave the DVD a B− and proclaimed "You can see why Carell and Colbert became famous [...] But just as clear is that Carvey was too wildly hit-or-miss to work." [9] Paste Magazine gave a "respectable" 73 rating and noted that while the show's topicality hasn't dated well, "when the Dana Carvey Show is on its game it's outstanding, especially towards the end of its short run when it really found its voice." [10] CHUD.com also commended the show's writing and gave an 8/10 rating. [11]
The series is currently available to stream on Crackle. It was available to stream on Hulu from its launch until its removal around May 2020.
In October 2017, streaming service Hulu released a documentary entitled Too Funny to Fail that details the show's rise and fall. [12]
Dana Thomas Carvey is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and producer.
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since September 2015.
Enid Strict, better known as The Church Lady, is a fictional character portrayed by Dana Carvey on American sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live. The character appeared on the show from 1986 to 1990, and again in 1996, 2000, 2011, and 2016. She also appeared on The Dana Carvey Show in March 1996, reading a Top Ten List, "New Titles for Princess Diana."
The Ambiguously Gay Duo is an American animated comedy sketch that debuted on The Dana Carvey Show before moving to its permanent home on Saturday Night Live. It is created and produced by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier as part of the Saturday TV Funhouse series of sketches. It follows the adventures of Ace and Gary, voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, respectively, two superheroes whose sexual orientation is a matter of dispute, and a cavalcade of characters preoccupied with the question.
Robert Smigel is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and puppeteer, known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. He also co-wrote the first two Hotel Transylvania films, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Leo, all starring Adam Sandler.
KonstantinosPolluxAlexandros "Dino" Stamatopoulos is an American writer, producer, and actor. He has worked on TV programs such as Mr. Show, TV Funhouse, Mad TV, The Dana Carvey Show, Late Show with David Letterman, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He has also created multiple animated TV shows such as Moral Orel, Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, and High School USA!. As an actor, he is best known for his recurring role as the character Alex "Star-Burns" Osbourne on the NBC comedy series Community, on which he also worked as a producer, a consulting writer, and wrote two animated episodes.
Hans and Franz are characters in a recurring sketch called "Pumping Up with Hans & Franz" on the television sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, played by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon, respectively.
Saturday Night Live is an American sketch comedy series created by Lorne Michaels, who also produced many episodes. The show has aired on NBC since 1975.
Saturday TV Funhouse is a segment on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by SNL writer Robert Smigel. 101 "TV Funhouse" segments aired on SNL between 1996 and 2008, with one further segment airing in 2011. It also spawned a short-lived spinoff series, TV Funhouse, that aired on Comedy Central.
Steven John Carell is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Michael Scott in the NBC sitcom The Office, in which he also worked at several points as a producer, executive producer, writer, and director. Carell has received numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for The Office. He was recognized as "America's Funniest Man" by Life.
Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American sketch comedy series that was co-created by Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels, with Michaels also serving as the producer. The series premiered on the American broadcast television network NBC on October 11, 1975.
The Colbert Report is an American late-night talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December 18, 2014, for 1,447 episodes. The show focused on a fictional anchorman character named Stephen Colbert, played by his real-life namesake. The character, described by Colbert as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot", is a caricature of televised political pundits. Furthermore, the show satirized conservative personality-driven political talk programs, particularly Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor. The Colbert Report is a spin-off of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, where Colbert was a correspondent from 1997 to 2005.
"Wayne's World" was originally a recurring sketch from the NBC television series Saturday Night Live. The first "Wayne's World" sketch appeared in the 13th Saturday Night Live episode of the 1988–1989 season, on February 18, 1989. It evolved from a segment "Wayne's Power Minute" (1987) on the CBC Television series It's Only Rock & Roll, as the main character first appeared in that show. The Saturday Night Live sketch spawned a hit 1992 film, its 1993 sequel, and several catchphrases which have since entered the pop-culture lexicon.
The Reverend Sir Dr. Stephen T. Mos Def Colbert D.F.A., Heavyweight Champion of the World, is the fictionalized persona of political satirist Stephen Colbert, as portrayed on the Comedy Central series The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and occasionally on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS. Described as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed high-status idiot" and a "self-important right-wing commentator", the character incorporates aspects of the real Colbert's life and interests but is primarily a parody of cable news pundits, particularly former Fox News prime time host Bill O'Reilly.
The twenty-second season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 28, 1996, and May 17, 1997.
The nineteenth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 25, 1993, and May 14, 1994.
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David Wayne Spade is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His comedic style, in both his stand-up material and acting roles, relies heavily on sarcasm and self-deprecation.
Bill Chott is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Mr. Laritate on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place.
Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show is an American documentary film that premiered on Hulu on October 21, 2017. Directed, written and produced by Josh Greenbaum, it explores the creation of The Dana Carvey Show, how its creative team was assembled, and how the show ultimately came to be cancelled.