The Dana Carvey Show

I saw The Dana Carvey Show on TV and I knew immediatly it would be cancelled. It was too pointed and it was going to offend too many people to be on TV. I thought the show was extremely funny, and I also thought it was totally unleashed, unrestrained, in its point of view. It was very sharp, gritty, no-nonsense stuff, with plenty of sharp barbs and dead-on observations. It reminded me of the straight, uncensored political and social humor of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Don Rickles, and even the vulgar physical humor of Charley Callas, when those guys were really at the top of their form. I was so sorry that TV cannot put this kind of great humor on and keep it on. That says a lot about our TV and its limitations, and proves that our TV has not lived up to its potential. The Dana Carvey Show was not tolerable; and we are not as free a people as we think we are.

Dana Carvey is one of our best comics and his shows should not be muted. He is very insightful, and his humor can shake us to the core. Where is an open forum where he can let loose? Long gone, on Chestnut Street.

Dana Carvey tries his hand at network primetime. He's able to use some of his SNL material despite being on a different network. This has the notable appearance of Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert as two of the main players. Along with Robert Smigel, this also has writing from Louis C.K., Bob Odenkirk, and Charlie Kaufman along with others. The best recurring bit is probably Carvey and Carell as stupid pranksters. The most notorious bit has to be its opening bit which can be considered as the bit that shut down the show. It's President Clinton feeding a baby, a dog, and a cat with his rows of tits. It's completely tasteless, shocking, ill-fitting for its place, and ahead of its time. That's the show. It's airing in the wrong place. Some of it is beyond the pale like beheading Princess Di. The First Lady of Dogs is a nothing sketch and can be taken in a really bad way. This pushed the envelope and the envelope pushed back.

I saw THE DANA CARVEY SHOW during its initial run, in a great time slot after ROSEANNE, and I said to myself: "it'll never last -- it's just too damned funny, and prime time TV won't permit that."

And it was, indeed, screamingly funny.

Sadly, I was right.

Its ratings were never the disappointment they claimed in order to justify their canceling it (and replacing it with yet another lame, safe sitcom).

One wonders what ABC thought THE DANA CARVEY SHOW would be.

Some people look at it today and wonder where the "controversy" in the show was. But it's not even that or the topicality.

It was just too funny. And that uniqueness is what got it noticed -- and then canned.

The Dana carvey show....a tear comes to my eye when i think about what it could have been. I'm 20 yrs. old and remember my father telling me about this show and the controversy after the first episode. This is when i started to watch it and every episode was a treat,to get sappy like my grandmothers apple pie. The show was something to look forward to throughout the week and finally get a dose...like a drug. The skits ranged from skinheads of Maine to grandma the clown, from maddone to the wizard of oz missing scene, to hell, the Chinese restaurant being the main sponsor of the show! I want a second dose...but i think it cant be picked up and done again, mainly because after seeing the master of disguise and like most comedians after children they loose their art form and just get plain stupid and uncreative...like Elton john coming out of the closet. PLEASE RELEASE ON DVD...BETA? ill take it on beta for god sake. and I'm not a fanatic, but drew Carey will never be looked at the same way, after he filled in for the best comedy skit show ever. All in the family will make the best sitcom.

When googling the Dana Carvey there's a lot of articles about the demise of the Dana Carvey show was because of the controversial nature of the content, really? I missed the show the first time around and am watching it on Hulu now more than a decade after it's brief run and I've really enjoyed it.

The controversial aspect of the show was more likely the way it pokes fun at the nature of advertising and of real potential sponsors. There's a very "controversial" set of mountain dew that I don't think inspired the good folks at Mountain Dew to sponsor the show.

The show would open each episode with a show sponsor like "the Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show" reminding me of the old black and white Texaco Theatre show where singing Texaco gas attendants would introduce the show each night.

I've read that the "sponsors" of the show had nothing to do with the show and actually requested the Dana Carvey show stop listing them as sponsors.

Maybe I'm a sucker for classic television but I quite like the singing Mountain Dew can as a legitimate homage to television history... but I soon realized it was a satire of commercialism and advertising... oh, well.

The actual content of the show is fast paced, fun, and perhaps ahead of it's time. The pace and format of the show reminds me a lot of the brilliant season 1 of the Chapelle Show