Dana Carvey Show, The – Nostalgia Central

1 9 9 6 (USA)
8 (7) x 30 minute episodes

Dana Carvey is probably better known outside America as gentle Garth Algar, one half of the overage-teenager tandem in Wayne’s World.

But, as yet another Saturday Night Live alumnus, Carvey ploughed a comic trough for years in the US in various other guises, including, very briefly, as the host of his own network sketch series on ABC.

The plan was that each week, a different sponsor would present the show, beginning with the Tex-Mex fast-food eatery chain, Taco Bell.

But after a series of risqué sketches – ranging from dubious drolleries about an estrogen-enhanced Bill President Clinton suckling puppies and a (toy) baby at his chest full of fake nipples to the actual sponsor itself – Taco Bell cancelled all its future advertising.

It probably didn’t help that the show had opened with a chorus of Taco Bell flunkeys singing “We paid him [Carvey] a fortune to use our name, ‘cause he’s a shameless whore”.

When Pizza Hut followed suit, and a Mountain Dew commercial was followed by three minutes of jokes about how the beverage looked like piss, it was clear that Carvey’s latest creation was on the skids.

Less than two months later, with audiences slipping too, the show was cancelled.

ABC only aired seven of the eight episodes which had been taped.

Carvey’s regular ensemble on the show included Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Heather Morgan and Robert Smigel.

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