The Dana Carvey Show
Encyclopedia
The Dana Carvey Show is an American 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 CK served as head writer.
The show's cast consisted heavily of Saturday Night Live
and Second City
alumni including Dana Carvey, Steve Carell
, Bill Chott
, Stephen Colbert
, Elon Gold
, Chris McKinney, Heather Morgan
, Peggy Shay, Robert Smigel
, and James Stephens III. The writing team also included many future talents such as Charlie Kaufman
, Louis C.K.
, Jon Glaser
, Dino Stamatopoulos
, Spike Feresten
, Stephen Colbert
, Steve Carell
and Robert Carlock
.
The Dana Carvey Show aired for only seven of the 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 critical success many years later. In addition, The Dana Carvey Show served as a launchpad for Smigel's popular series of TV Funhouse
cartoons.
Robert Smigel
turned down an offer to rejoin SNL as a producer, favoring the challenge of working with Carvey on primetime. Smigel and Carvey were given SNLs 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, who would go on to major success, 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 particularly cast Stephen Colbert whom he'd met years prior and 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."
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. As such, 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 development, Smigel and Carvey focused on being different from SNL. The sketches would often be "reductionist bits" in attempt to feel more "presentational" like Monty Python
. This would sometimes frustrate writers whose ideas, while creative, were sometimes rejected because they didn't fit the show's approach. Smigel has expressed satisfaction, however, in the outcome of working under such restrictions and believes the show would've 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 SNLs TV Funhouse
.
Smigel noted that the show had many options in terms of networks. Cable was present, and due to its lackluster status, CBS
would have guaranteed several more episodes than what the series ended up receiving. However, the duo was "overly tempted" by the reigning profile of ABC and its primetime offer. The network originally planned in airing 10 episodes 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.
, 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."
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.
This was an homage to the classic television shows that Dana Carvey grew up watching, 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 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 cost $600,000 per episode. A spokesperson for the latter told Variety
that the company didn't "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. The sixth sponsor was a famous Manhattan
-area Chinese restaurant
chain while the final episode had no presenting sponsor.
and a few things, maybe the Mountain Dew
—mostly, it was clean and silly and abstract." and regarding 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."
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."
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 moved 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 led straight to Comedy Central
's Daily Show
where its co-creator, Madeleine Smithberg, was a fan of their nauseated waiters skit. 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 unaired by ABC) are 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.
In addition, a 2-disc DVD
set of the show was released in May 2009 by Shout! Factory
. This includes 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.
's short-lived NBC (and briefly, Fox) series TV Nation
." 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."
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."
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." 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." CHUD.com also commended the show's writing and gave an 8/10 rating.
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
television show that aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
during the spring of 1996
1996 in television
The year 1996 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1996.For the American TV schedule, see: 1996-97 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
. Dana Carvey
Dana Carvey
Dana Thomas Carvey is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.-Early life:...
was the host and principal player on the show while Louis CK served as head writer.
The show's cast consisted heavily of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
and Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
alumni including Dana Carvey, Steve Carell
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office...
, Bill Chott
Bill Chott
Bill Chott is an American actor and comedian.- Early life :During his school years, Chott appeared in numerous plays and musicals. As a graduate of Ritenour High School he was inducted into the school's hall of fame for his tremendous success...
, Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
, Elon Gold
Elon Gold
Elon Gold is an American comedian, television actor, writer and producer. He starred in the television series Stacked. He also starred in the short-lived sitcom In-Laws...
, Chris McKinney, Heather Morgan
Heather Morgan
Heather Morgan is an American actor and comedian. She was a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, writing and performing such notable skits as and , the latter being called "one of the two or three funniest things on the show" by writer and producer Robert Smigel...
, Peggy Shay, Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.-Early life:...
, and James Stephens III. The writing team also included many future talents such as Charlie Kaufman
Charlie Kaufman
Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. His film work includes Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York...
, Louis C.K.
Louis C.K.
Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...
, Jon Glaser
Jon Glaser
Jonathan Daniel "Jon" Glaser is an American actor, comedian and television writer based out of New York City. A graduate of the University of Michigan where he performed in the sketch comedy troupes Comedy Company and Just Kidding with Jon Hein, he is a five-time Emmy nominee with the writing...
, Dino Stamatopoulos
Dino Stamatopoulos
Dino Stamatopoulos is an American television comedy writer, actor and producer who has worked on Mr. Show, TV Funhouse, Mad TV, The Dana Carvey Show, Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien...
, Spike Feresten
Spike Feresten
Spike Feresten is an American television writer, screenwriter and television personality.-Origins and early career:Feresten was born September 3, 1964 in Fall River and raised in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he attended public schools. Feresten then attended Berklee College of Music in...
, Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
, Steve Carell
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office...
and Robert Carlock
Robert Carlock
Robert Carlock is an American television producer and screenwriter most widely known for his work as a writer for several NBC television comedies, particularly his work with Tina Fey as show runners for 30 Rock.-Early years:...
.
The Dana Carvey Show aired for only seven of the 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
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office...
and Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
, two comedians who would go on to have critical success many years later. In addition, The Dana Carvey Show served as a launchpad for Smigel's popular series of TV Funhouse
TV Funhouse
Saturday TV Funhouse is the title of a recurring skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel as well as a short-lived spinoff series TV Funhouse that ran on Comedy Central...
cartoons.
Development
Hot off his departure from Saturday Night Live, the popular Dana Carvey appeared in some films throughout the early 1990s. He also worked on two of his own comedy films that ultimately went undeveloped. Carvey soon became disillusioned with the film industry due to the lack of control he previously had in sketch comedy. He was advised to work in television and by 1996 was preparing his own program for ABC.Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel
Robert Smigel is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.-Early life:...
turned down an offer to rejoin SNL as a producer, favoring the challenge of working with Carvey on primetime. Smigel and Carvey were given SNLs audition tapes which led them to hire Bill Chott and Jon Glaser. They were also joined by Louis C.K.
Louis C.K.
Louis Szekely , known professionally as Louis C.K., is a stand-up comedian, television and film writer, actor, producer, and director...
who worked with Smigel on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
. Steve Carell, who would go on to major success, was hired through Smigel and Carvey's auditions in which Smigel recalls seeing future SNL alumni Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan is an American comedian who is best known for his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and currently known for playing the role of Tracy Jordan on the NBC series 30 Rock.-Early life:...
, Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon
James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC...
and Ana Gasteyer
Ana Gasteyer
Ana Kristina Gasteyer is an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best known for her comedic roles when she was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2002.-Early life:...
; however, The Dana Carvey Show had but a small cast to fill. Smigel particularly cast Stephen Colbert whom he'd met years prior and 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."
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
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
, however, causing Carvey to commute several hours to the studio during a brutal winter. As such, 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 development, Smigel and Carvey focused on being different from SNL. The sketches would often be "reductionist bits" in attempt to feel more "presentational" like Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
. This would sometimes frustrate writers whose ideas, while creative, were sometimes rejected because they didn't fit the show's approach. Smigel has expressed satisfaction, however, in the outcome of working under such restrictions and believes the show would've 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
The Ambiguously Gay Duo
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...
. 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 SNLs TV Funhouse
TV Funhouse
Saturday TV Funhouse is the title of a recurring skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel as well as a short-lived spinoff series TV Funhouse that ran on Comedy Central...
.
Smigel noted that the show had many options in terms of networks. Cable was present, and due to its lackluster status, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
would have guaranteed several more episodes than what the series ended up receiving. However, the duo was "overly tempted" by the reigning profile of ABC and its primetime offer. The network originally planned in airing 10 episodes and did not interfere with the show's creativity, simply wanting a good lead-in to NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
.
The Dana Carvey Show also attempted to put The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
on television with Stephen Colbert reporting as an anchor in deadpan
Deadpan
Deadpan is a form of comic delivery in which humor is presented without a change in emotion or body language, usually speaking in a casual, monotone, solemn, blunt, disgusted or matter-of-fact voice and expressing an unflappably calm, archly insincere or artificially grave demeanor...
style. This material long predated his time on The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
and The Colbert Report. However, the sketches went unaired and have since been subject to rights issues.
Format
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 ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, 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."
Carvey also recreated some of the characters he developed on Saturday Night Live, including his signature Church Lady
The Church Lady
The Church Lady was a recurring character in a series of sketches on the American television show Saturday Night Live from 1986 to 1990, with later appearances in 1996, 2000, and 2011...
, and parodied the news of the day, as well as the media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, commercialism
Commercialism
Commercialism, in its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it primarily refers to the tendency within open-market capitalism to turn everything into objects, images, and services sold for the purpose of generating profit...
, and other sketch comedy shows. One particularly memorable sketch, "Skinheads From Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
," involved a pair of white power skinheads
Nazi-Skinheads
White power skinheads are a white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations....
dressed in plaid, sitting on a porch, whittling, and conversing alternately about their racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
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.")
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
After Dark, featured an edited montage of wild animals mating, and performing other actions that would be considered obscene
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
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
The Ambiguously Gay Duo
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...
, featuring the voices of Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...
and Steve Carell
Steve Carell
Steven John "Steve" Carell is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office...
, became well known on SNL
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
after Carvey's show was canceled. Additionally, a sketch used in the unaired eighth episode about Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
prerecording the announcement of Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
's death was used verbatim when Carvey hosted Saturday Night Live on October 26, 1996.
History
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:- "The Taco BellTaco BellTaco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
Dana Carvey Show" - "The Mug Root BeerMug Root BeerMug Root Beer is a brand name of root beer made by the Pepsi company.Mug was first produced by the Belfast Beverage Company in San Francisco, California during the early 1950s. Its name was changed to Mug Old Fashioned Root Beer. In the late 1960s, Sugar Free Mug was introduced...
Dana Carvey Show" - "The Mountain DewMountain DewMountain Dew is a citrus-flavored carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was...
Dana Carvey Show" - "The Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show"
- "The PepsiPepsiPepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
Dana Carvey Show" - "The Szechuan Dynasty Dana Carvey Show"
This was an homage to the classic television shows that Dana Carvey grew up watching, 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 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.
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
. Shortly after the show's debut, however, PepsiCo announced that its units Taco Bell and Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....
had pulled advertising which would have cost $600,000 per episode. A spokesperson for the latter told Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
that the company didn't "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. The sixth sponsor was a famous Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
-area Chinese restaurant
American Chinese cuisine
American Chinese cuisine refers to the style of food served by many Chinese restaurants in the United States. This type of cooking typically caters to Western tastes, and differs significantly from the original Chinese cuisine.-History:...
chain while the final episode had no presenting sponsor.
Cancellation and beyond
Due to the controversial content and declining ratings, the show was canceled prematurely of its planned ten episodes. Smigel and Carvey recalled wanting a parental warning for the show but were not granted it because of advertisers. However, the duo consider the program not very racy for today's standards, stating, "If you take out the teatsBreastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
and a few things, maybe the Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew is a citrus-flavored carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was...
—mostly, it was clean and silly and abstract." and regarding Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
, 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
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
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."
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
Stephen Colbert (character)
The Reverend / Sir / Dr. / Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A., brain-child of Google, is the persona of political satirist Stephen Colbert, as portrayed on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. Described as a "well-intentioned, poorly informed high-status idiot", the character is a self-obsessed right-wing...
, 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."
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
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
, specifically corporate shows, where he was in high demand and turned down many gigs. His family moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
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 led straight to Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
's Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
where its co-creator, Madeleine Smithberg, was a fan of their nauseated waiters skit. 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 unaired by ABC) are available on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
, Joost
Joost
Joost is an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis . During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.Joost began development in 2006...
and at no charge on Hulu
Hulu
Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...
, Crackle
Crackle
Crackle is a digital network and studio, featuring commercially supported streaming video content in Flash Video format. It is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and its content consists primarily of Sony's library of films and television shows...
, and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. 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.
In addition, a 2-disc DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
set of the show was released in May 2009 by Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory
Shout! Factory is an entertainment company founded in 2003 that was started by Richard Foos , Bob Emmer and Garson Foos initially as a specialty music label...
. This includes 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.
Critical reception and retrospect
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 MooreMichael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's short-lived NBC (and briefly, Fox) series TV Nation
TV Nation
Production on the pilot episode of TV Nation began in January 1993. Moore initially turned to friends and colleagues in many production areas, while also making a point to ensure the show's employees were unionized. For the show's title sequence, graphic designer Chris Harvey put together the...
." 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."
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."
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
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." 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." CHUD.com also commended the show's writing and gave an 8/10 rating.