Original subtitles

♪

♪

(man imitating wind blowing)

You know, then there's just sort of tumbleweeds.

"Sir, do you mind if I ask you

what went on here?"

(imitating wind blowing)

"There was a TV show,

last Sunday last.

The circus left the town."

(imitating wind blowing)

For subtitling services, contatct: waqas.zahoor89@gmail.com

Yeah, I remember The Dana Carvey Show.

What's your memory right now

of The Dana Carvey Show?

Oh, it's the same I always have, uh...

a failure.

Hopefully I'll watch this show

and I'll look at the clips

and they'll make me laugh,

and for a day I'll feel good about it.

(laughing)

Then back to...

Then back to abject regret.

(laughing)

I don't know why you're laughing.

♪

We--this is as I remember it,

and I can't say

this is actually the truth or it happened,

or it may have nothing to do

with anything that happened.

Put--put that disclaimer

in front of everything I say.

Um...

♪

Nietzsche once said...

"I...

gotta do something about this syphilis..."

♪

"...'cause I'm goin' crazy."

And I think that's what we were trying to say,

is that...

aren't we all crazy?

♪

I'm sorry, what was the question?

♪

(laughing)

♪

All right, so before we get to the show,

what's your first memory

from growing up of being funny?

Well, since we have time, Josh,

thanks for asking that.

♪

I was a quintessential baby boomer

raised in California,

middle-class suburb,

and I was eight.

The Beatles were being interviewed

and I heard their voices.

How do you write songs?

(laughing)

Well, it just depends.

Sometimes you write them on old pianos

and anything that's lying around.

And I was walking around

talking like this all the time.

You know, I don't know how perfect I had it,

but I basically-- that was the first time

I altered my voice,

was just a generalized Beatle voice.

That was a big deal.

And then I kind of developed

a little--a style of my own.

- Curious? - Mm-hm.

All right, that's lunch!

And I'd love to be at a restaurant

with a typical news anchorman ordering dinner for his wife,

and it would go a little something like this.

The waitress comes up, "May we take your order, sir?"

You certainly may,

and a surprise coming out of my wife today.

She'll have her steak medium rare

and a cup of black coffee

instead of the traditional cream and sugar.

(laughing)

I didn't realize I was preparing myself

to be a stand-up.

You can see Dana Carvey live

in Old Sacramento at Laughs Unlimited.

He's really a talented young guy.

That's a must.

We'll all have to go see him.

I'm going to college,

and then I saw a thing in the paper that said,

"Local comedians play comedy showcase."

And I'm in this little--this little dive,

and I took a napkin out

and I started writing down my bits.

Then a guy came up

who blew the roof off the place,

and I put--I took the napkin

and put it back in my pocket.

I go, "Maybe I'm not good enough to do this."

(crowd laughing)

It was Robin Williams.

That was the first night I did it.

Guy who ran the showcase

couldn't believe it was my first time.

(laughter)

And he talked in sound effects.

Did your dad make noises when he talked?

He'd go, "Kids, hey."

(whistling)

You wanna go to the store,

pick up some milk, and bring it back home, huh?

(laughter)

And that was the most profound moment,

was that first night,

because it's so exhilarating for me,

like, I felt like I was home,

like, wow, this is awesome.

This is my impression

of a very pretentious rock star.

♪

I think all of us at one time in our lives

wanted to be a rock star.

♪

All you have to do is flare your nostrils,

look like you're about to vomit.

Everything you say is suddenly terribly important.

Doesn't have to make any literal sense.

So there I am, Saturday Night Live,

and Lorne Michaels walks in,

and then I see the head of the network,

Brandon Tartikoff,

so it was, like, so much fuckin' pressure.

♪ My lady, she went downtown ♪

♪

♪ She bought some broccoli ♪

♪

♪ She brought it home ♪

♪ She's chopping broccoli ♪

♪

♪ Choppin' broccoli ♪

♪

♪ Choppin' broccoli ♪

♪

♪ She's choppin' broccoli ♪

♪ She's choppin' broccoli ♪

♪

♪ She's chopping broccoli ♪

♪

♪ She's chop--uh! ♪

♪

♪ She's choppin' broccoli-hey-hey-hey ♪

♪ Hee ♪

(applause)

♪

It's Saturday Night Live

with Dana Carvey.

- I'm Hans. - And I am Franz.

And we just want to pump you up.

Now please welcome the most excellent

Dana Carvey, ladies and gentlemen.

(crowd cheering)

Who was behind the wheel

of our Lincoln Town Car

when we drove into the Crazy 8 Motel?

Could it be...

Satan?

You like the pepper?

Yeah.

Because all the stuff I was doing

on the show had so much success...

Schwing!

...I almost had too much heat on me.

It was almost distortive.

Our next guest starred in

the blockbuster film Wayne's World.

Please welcome the man who put the "uckle"

in "chuckle," Dana Carvey!

Dana Carvey!

Say hello to Dana Carvey.

Dana!

(crowd cheering)

♪

I was such an SNL nerd when I was a kid,

uh, you know, in my teens.

I lived in New York,

and Saturday Night Live,

as big as it was in the country in the '70s,

it was even bigger if you lived in New York.

It meant everything.

I went to high school and I was a smartass,

and I wanted to be funny for a living,

but then I still went and became a dentist,

uh, or tried to,

because my father had a great practice.

He developed the tooth bonding technique,

which was a series of accidents.

You know, somebody had developed this material

that was designed for--

This is gonna be a big part of the special.

Fortunately, I just sucked at biology

and organic chemistry,

and then I remember just thinking about

how much I loved the Saturday Night Live cast,

and suddenly it just occurred to me

that I love them so much,

and they make me so happy,

I guess it is worth doing for a living.

That was really my dream,

like, could I be a part of that show.

How was your week?

Real good, real good.

Good, any heart attacks?

- I had one. - Had a couple.

Da Bears.

(applause)

I wrote those Super Fans Chicago "Da Bears" sketches

with Bob Odenkirk,

and for some reason, Jim Downey,

the head writer,

liked my Chicago accent.

Really makes you want to shed the tears.

The tears.

So he insisted that I be put in sketch.

Choking!

He's choking, he's choking.

I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it.

(grunting)

(laughter and applause)

Robert Smigel, in my opinion,

is the single greatest

sketch comedy writer of all time.

Good to have you here, Triumph.

Very good to have you.

Great to be here.

Also, most people do not know this.

Robert Smigel is the guy

behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

Pay no attention to the Jewish hand.

(laughter)

He was the first person

that I could think of a sketch,

work with him a little bit on the sketch,

go home, come back,

and the sketch is actually better

and a lot better.

My name is Carsenio

and this is going to be a party.

(applause)

You are correct, sir, yes.

So we worked together on a lot of stuff.

Oh my God!

(shouting)

Robert Smigel and I

had a great partnership on SNL.

We had a really similar sensibility.

And that's the way it was,

and we liked it.

Yeah!

Dana just dominated.

But as Commander in Chief,

I am ever cognizant of my authority

to launch a full-scale orgy of death

there on the desert sand.

It was exhilarating when someone would give me

a great line, you know,

and I could say their line,

and then I'd be out there getting a huge laugh.

Jack-o-lantern-gee-gi- jummy-jummy-jammy-mayhem!

You're insane, John.

Wrong!

He was just a star overnight.

(applause and whistling)

I was in high school in '96,

and Dana Carvey was our hero.

I mean, I skipped school to see Wayne's World.

He was a massive, massive star.

Put it this way, when I left Saturday Night Live,

it was like a little blog post

that was this big, you know?

And I'd been there eight years.

When he left it, he was on the cover

of Rolling Stone.

When I left SNL,

no one had ever been on SNL that long.

I'm just trying to figure out what to do next, you know?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the man

who is just a heartbeat away

from taking over this show,

Dana Carvey--Dana!

Dana was offered David Letterman's time slot

when Letterman left,

and that was the first notion

I sort of started to have

about working with Dana in another venue.

That was a really tough decision

'cause I thought I'd really love that job,

but I had two little kids at that point

and I thought it seemed like

such a big leap, you know?

'Cause it's, like, 200 hours

of television a year.

I just didn't think it played into

a daddy kind of situation.

Are they worried about your future career?

People on the street have been stopping me,

"What are you" -- really, like, in tears,

gettin'--"What are you gonna do, man?

What are you gonna do?"

So after thinking about it for a couple weeks,

I kind of decided that

it would be fun to do sketch comedy again,

but with more creative freedom.

So I called Robert.

"Yeah, would you-- think maybe we should

try to do something somewhere."

It's not just gonna be an SNL clone,

we're gonna really try and do inventive things.

And I immediately wanted to do that job.

So that's the genesis.

Dana Carvey, ladies and gentlemen.

Always a pleasure.

What I wanted to do was...

I have this expression,

"the rebels with sweaters"

are the ones that I always look up to,

like Letterman and Larry David

and Jerry.

Steve Martin, too.

Did I have this on the whole time?

Well, I must have looked like an idiot up here.

(laughter)

They didn't advertise

that they were reinventing anything,

just sort of snuck up on you

and appeared to be doing what everyone was doing,

but they did it completely differently.

I wanted to do that with a sketch show.

Start from scratch

and create something brand new

that would work in a time period

where sketch comedy hadn't worked in years.

The primetime audience.

♪

When we first started developing the show,

I went round and round, where are we gonna bring it?

We met with NBC and CBS and ABC.

They came in,

Smigel came in,

Dana came in,

everybody laughs,

has one of those amazing meetings,

and Dana, I thought, was a prime time favorite

that the audience would love to see him do

his most wonderful characters.

He was at the top of the game.

I mean, the guy did it all,

but I just loved those impressions.

It was a time where situation comedy

was starting to feel a little soft on networks.

Tuesday, Jesse's the underdog

in a canine competition,

so he gets some tips from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

This is a ball, that is the basket.

Full House, Tuesday.

The same-old, same-old thing

was just getting tough,

that we need an idea, we need something big.

We gotta go out strong,

we gotta show people we're bold,

not the same old show that they've seen all the time.

We gotta make noise.

Dana was the most conservative about, like,

well, maybe if we want to do something

with a late night sensibility,

why don't we do it on HBO?

But my manager and Robert Smigel

thought that, no, I have a certain crossover appeal,

and I'll be frustrated on HBO

with that small audience,

so I should be on network.

HBO's great.

You can have a lot of creative freedom,

you can swear, but I'm gonna give you

a Home Improvement lead-in.

That's the best lead-in in television.

It can really just take off and be a big-ass deal.

ABC was the number one network,

and we were gonna follow the number one show,

and any kind of counterargument we made

after that was considered overthinking.

And so we went with ABC.

Yep, we went with ABC.

You gotta be nuts, too,

and you're gonna need a crew as nuts as you are.

♪

Who do you got in mind?

♪

You guys have sold the show,

you and Dana, biggest network,

and you've gotta put your team together,

so let's pretend this is Ocean's Eleven

and you're assembling your team.

I wish I had used Ocean's Eleven as a model

since they were so successful,

you know?

Instead, I just sort of randomly chose people

based on their talent.

(laughing)

Now I know where I went wrong.

♪

Big news from Brown's Chicken.

We now have cholesterol free batter

so our chicken is cooked completely...

cholesterol free.

I think up until that point,

my television experience

consisted of a triple cheeseburger commercial.

That was...

that was--that was something

I was really, really famous for

and excited about.

And I remember my agent told me

if it doesn't happen for you soon,

it's not going to happen.

I was like, "Wow.

Thanks.

Thanks for the support."

Man...

Buongiorno,

I am Fabio.

(laughter)

And I would like to make you

my very special lady tonight.

(laughter)

I had visited Second City

to scout talent,

and Steve Carell was somebody

I'd heard about for years.

I knew that he was, like,

considered legendary at Second City.

And then I'll take their head

and I'll tilt it

so it's facing into mine,

and you can tell how much oxygen

is getting to the brain

because the eyes start to dilate

and roll to the side of the head,

and...

I'm sorry, this is boring you.

(laughing)

(applause)

And then they die, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(laughter)

And I had never seen him

because in the year we went, we were told

this guy Steve Carell's not here tonight,

and there was an understudy.

And we watched the show,

and the understudy just killed it

in the improv set.

And at the end of the night,

I said, "I really like the understudy."

♪

It was Colbert.

Colbert was Carell's understudy.

But they were absolute nobodies,

and I want to emphasize that.

I mean, these guys were nothin'.

(laughing)

It's absolutely true.

I was, I don't know,

I don't--uh, unemployed

in Chicago?

Uh, absolutely no prospects of getting a job?

♪

My wife, she was out of a job,

I was out of a job,

and we had a brand new baby.

And so I remember...

my mom asking, "How are you doing?"

And I said, "Mom, I know, she doesn't have a job

and I don't have a job, and we got a new baby

and I don't know why but I'm not worried."

And there was a long pause,

and my mom said,

"I don't know why either."

And then suddenly

I had this ice chip in my heart

which has never really gone away.

And so I was like, "I gotta get a job,

I gotta get a job."

When he understudied for me,

I did a scene in the show

where I had to play the baritone horn,

and I grew up playing the baritone horn.

He never--he'd never played

a brass instrument in his life.

Skipped work, I called in sick,

I just played 24 hours a day.

I would go to sleep with it with me

and I'd wake up, my lips were just, like, purple.

They were bruised and inverted

from having to blow for six days.

For some reason he wasn't available to audition.

At the last minute,

he heard that I was looking for him.

Hi, I'm Stephen Colbert.

All he sent us was some crazy video

of himself holding up his little daughter.

Hey, everybody!

I'm Baby,

and I'm one of Stephen Colbert's characters.

Yeah, every week I'm gonna tell you a little bit

about what it's like being a baby.

So, these two guys walk into a bar, okay?

And one of 'em starts wiping my ass

with a moist towelette.

Boy, does that feel good, who's with me?

And she had such a load in her pants.

Her diaper was so full...

- And look... - ...that it was leaking up

the back of her onesie.

And he was telling us how much

he needed to support her.

I promised myself I wouldn't do this.

It's not fair,

and...

I don't know how we're gonna feed her

or clothe or give her what--

you know, what we had.

Why--why am I an actor?

My brothers are lawyers.

There's summer camp and...

their own car.

Kids have their own car.

I don't have a car.

Their kids have cars,

and they're so old.

Oh, you don't need to hear this.

Not your problem.

And I think that's actually what got me the callback.

No, it didn't.

No, that was quite disturbing.

♪

The finalists came out to LA,

and we were at Igby's,

the club where I was discovered

by Lorne Michaels.

And everyone got up

in front of a quasi little audience, and...

Whenever I see Steve at an audition,

I'm like, well, that's it,

I'm not gonna beat Stephen Colbert out.

When I found out that Carell was auditioning,

I was like, "Well, that's it.

I'll never get the job now,"

because, I mean, I'd hire Carell.

Carell, when he first came in the room,

he just is too nervous.

I generally did not audition very well,

and I never got called for SNL,

which is something I'd always wanted.

So in my mind it was sort a big last shot.

And I was so, so nervous.

I think they wanted an impression,

and I don't do impressions,

but there were ABC people there,

there were the producers and there was Dana,

and so I did the Pope,

who at the time--I think it was John Paul II,

who talked like this.

Uh, my audition was just him saying things like,

"I do not understand what I am saying,

but I learned to speak English phonetically."

And Robert Smigel really thought that was funny.

I can't believe he dropped into our lap.

He was just, out of everybody who auditioned,

he was just, like, that guy's gonna be on the show.

Like, there was no question.

I was walking off the stage and Dana came up

and put his arm around me and said,

"I think you should feel pretty good about that."

And I was like, "Oh my gosh,

let's not--I hope that means what he think--

I think that meant."

Oh, and before-- so I...

so I came out of the audition

and I was feeling...

pretty good,

and Stephen was after me,

and I didn't, you know, tell him that it--

you know, I just-- I didn't talk about it.

But we were chat-- we were chatting

and I didn't realize he was kind of preparing

and getting ready to go on.

And I'm doing the rundown in my head of everything,

I'm doing, like, the nine things I'm about to do,

and I'm running through it in my head,

and Carell walks up to me and he goes,

"How's Evie?"

"How's Evie doing?"

"I just--Nancy, we just,

we miss so seeing you guys out there."

It was like I was trying to, like,

remember the combination to a safe

and he's going,

"4, 28, 7, 6, 3.14," like that.

And I was like, "So, anyway,"

and I was just talking to him about stuff.

- And he said: - "Please!

Please, I'm about to go on.

Please go away."

(laughing)

"God, please go away."

I didn't know what else to say.

♪

I remember flying back from Los Angeles to Chicago

to await my fate,

and I landed back in Chicago

and it's wintertime in Chicago,

and I'm back in the apartment,

and Ev--and I know that Carell gets the gig.

Carell gets hired, like, on a Friday.

And I'm like, "Well, that's it.

There it is."

Robert hadn't put out any other calls yet.

You know, I was the first person he called,

and I was, you know, asking him

who else he's going to hire,

and I remember him saying,

"Well, we want to hire Colbert."

And then he said, "You want to call him?"

♪

And I called Stephen in Chicago and I said,

"How do you feel about moving to New York

and doing the show together?"

Madeline was asleep in her, like, bassinet

in the corner of the living room of our apartment,

and I was like, "That's great," 'cause the baby's asleep.

I'm like, "Oh, wow, that's so fantastic.

Okay, hold on one second."

Like, "Are you there?

We said we want to hire you."

Like, "I know, hold on one second."

So I went out of the living room

into the back bedroom, closed the door,

into the bathroom, closed the door,

into the shower and closed the door

and yelled at the top of my lungs.

(screaming)

Yay!

And then I was off the next day,

off to New York the next day

with a gig.

And everything was gonna be okay.

A network gig,

and I was on it.

We were on it.

I couldn't believe,

it was like the gig of gigs.

It was such a big deal.

There was such anticipation

of what this show was gonna be like,

because, well,

ABC was putting it on prime time.

What a mistake.

(laughing)

Welcome back to the show.

Thank you very much for being here.

Tell me all about your new show.

What is this, The Dana Carvey Show?

So once we had our core people,

we had about two months to get the show on the air.

We had to put the team together.

It started with me and Smigel, and that was it.

So the first piece was the head writer.

He told me, like, to have a guy

who was only, like, 29 at the time

as the head writer.

Completely unknown.

His name was Louis C. K.

Robert had worked with him

on Conan.

You guys are dog experts.

One problem that a lot of people have

is dogs that go to the bathroom in the house.

That's very common, what she's trying to say is,

"I made you something!

Look, it's a present!

It's all I have to give

to show you that I love you."

Sometimes the dog is doing it for a different reason.

Sometimes he's saying, "I'm angry!

Where were you?

I was all alone,

and I have nothing else to do but this for you!

I love you!"

It started with Louis and Dino Stamatopoulos.

They created the Conan show with Conan and I,

and they're both brilliant guys.

For a lot of people, it was their first...

their first job, their first break, you know?

We hired Robert Carlock, who has since become

one of the most talented showrunners on television.

Oh my goodness, thank you.

Back then, he was just a kid out of college,

and he really was funny,

and inexpensive.

I showed up all bright eyed and bushy tailed,

and, uh, terrified,

and I think the fact that they'd completely forgotten

that I was coming

meant that I just sort of sat outside

the locked door for hours.

Who else did we hire?

We hired Bill Chott.

He did a really, really funny impression

of Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden...

Bang, zoom!

(laughter)

...famous character from The Honeymooners,

uh, taking a shit.

(grunting)

(laughter)

Ah!

(laughter)

Hm!

(laughter)

I had used this exact same impression

on my Saturday Night Live audition

and tanked it.

I might have been laughing even harder

just imagining Lorne Michaels watching this

and probably being repulsed.

The other cast member was Heather Morgan,

who was very different than what we envisioned.

Oh, one time I spent the night

at my best friend Beatrice's house,

but we slept in a van 'cause her mother's boyfriend

was gonna kill us,

but then the next morning when we woke up,

he had slept it off, so we got a pizza.

But she just had this intensity,

she kind of fit with the whole sensibility.

At the audition, I was, like, the only girl

with a gigantic cage

that I kept moving along,

and I think everybody thought,

"She's crazy.

She's out of her mind," you know?

Oh, hi Jack!

(laughter)

Jack, Stacy, how are ya?

(laughter)

Yeah, yeah, I'm in the pen again, yeah.

And of course we hired Charlie Kaufman.

Charlie Kaufman for

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Thanks to the Academy.

Twenty-nine seconds, twenty-seven seconds.

Um, that's really intimidating, um...

Charlie Kaufman hadn't written any famous movies

up to that point,

but he was a really inventive writer.

I felt like we gotta-- gotta give this guy a shot.

And that was the team that was being put together.

♪

We had some great people that we didn't cast.

Ana Gasteyer, Lewis Black,

Tracy Morgan, Jimmy Fallon.

I very distinctly remember

all the women in the casting department

fawning over this 20-year-old skinny guy

with a guitar.

Louis basically hated him,

and was instantly jealous

and just didn't want him around.

I think I actually said I will quit the show...

- What? - ...if you hire that kid.

You had all your hair,

you were, you know, in shape,

you were a young kid,

and I was already kind of

just, like, sweaty and balding,

and I was depressed,

and it was pure jealousy,

and in my head, I knew it, like,

"This is really (bleep) up to be doing this,

because this kid is really talented,

but I don't want to look at him every day

'cause it'll make me upset about myself."

Amongst that staff,

Robert had definitely put together

not only incredibly talented comedy writers,

but comedy writers who were a bit renegade,

who were not mainstream,

who were not known for just taking all your notes

and putting them into the script.

We had hired badass nerd pirates

to blow up television.

This show would represent anarchy.

This was blowing up the system.

And now for something completely different.

(explosion)

That was one of the hooks we had that was like,

it's gonna be like Monty Python a little.

Presentational in that Monty Python way, you know?

And we kick off this evening

with a look at the cinema.

That's the thing I aspired to.

To me, that's the best stuff,

when I don't quite know why it's funny,

and it gets funnier over time, and...

This is an ex-parrot.

This is often the most fun part,

the few months before the show is actually on the air

and you're just coming up with ideas,

and everything is possible.

Ideas could come from anything.

It could be, like, people are sittin' around

eatin' cereal, and then somethin' made somebody laugh,

so they do it.

It was completely collaborative in a way.

Whoever had the best idea,

"What'd you say, what did he say?"

♪

So we had a month to go

till we're airing on ABC.

We weren't gonna be on live,

so we could record some sketches

before the premiere.

And we didn't really have our own studios.

We were just in a studio on the weekends.

We just frantically started writing, taping,

just trying to pull the show together,

just "I guess we're gonna do this," you know,

'cause at some point, you gotta shoot somethin'.

Quiet on the set, roll tape.

And now, Waiters who are Nauseated by Food.

(laughter)

Good evening, my name is Roger,

this is my back waiter, Stuart,

and we'll be serving you this evening.

I had a bit that I would do literal--

I was a waiter for many years,

and I literally would do this bit

for the other waiters.

(laughter)

Our soup today is a creamy fish chowder

with chunks of potatoes, corn...

(laughter)

...and scallops.

(laughter)

I was hungover so many times for lunch

that I--I couldn't even read the specials card

without getting nauseous,

so I would do bits

for the other waiters,

and so that was my bit,

waiters who are nauseated with food.

That's not complicated.

Carell had a thing that he did,

totally independent, as a podiatrist

who is nauseated by feet,

though neither one of them was called that.

Robert insisted that we call the sketches

"Waiters who are Nauseated by Food"

because I learned from Robert,

why are you hiding your joke from the audience?

Tell them what the joke is.

Today's seafood is...

(laughter)

Today's seafood is flounder.

Stephen, he didn't know

what the menu was going to be,

so I said, "Let me write the menu,"

so he would be reading for the first time.

(laughter)

We have a milk-fed veal

with a, uh, a mint jelly that...

(gags)

...that comes--that comes with asparagus tips

and an olive caper sauce.

(laughter)

Stephen Colbert and I have

sort of different dry heaves.

Mine was kind of like a...

(grunts)

(exhales)

Aw...

And Stephen's was kind of like a...

(trembling grunt)

(laughing)

(grunting)

We also have a cobb salad

with a warm bacon cream dressing.

Uh, our final special is...

(laughter)

(exhales)

Our final special is chick...

(laughter)

I can't.

...chicken.

(laughter)

♪

Well, hello!

Carell and I were so excited.

We were office mates, you know?

And we were like, "I can't believe...

like, what we got to work on today."

We wrote a sketch and flew to Florida

to shoot half of it.

At Rockefeller, we got this horse to skydive.

We're not quite sure of the benefit to humans,

but look at that.

Really magnificent.

It's like, yay, this is show business,

this is the real deal.

All of our offices were all lined up,

you know, it was, like, me and Dino,

Louis, Dana and Robert,

and across the way Carell and Colbert.

I think there were some non-creative producers

on the other side of the hallway,

and it was always completely different

over on their end.

On our end, we would be laughing,

eating candy,

running up and down doing bits.

Here we are in my office,

a-a-a-a...

ah!

Ah!

That was my first job,

so it was a really big deal.

- Ah! - But it was a...

super loose atmosphere.

My name is...

I was never told that there was anything

that I couldn't do,

which is why some people,

and I'm not naming names,

would get high around the offices.

Disappointment and dismay

upon the discovery that a bowl,

belonging to area residents

Mike Cudahy and "Thatches" Moynihan,

was cashed.

The bowl,

described as "a big fat bowl,"

was not expected to be cashed until much later

as it had just been packed.

And ABC, I'm sure,

thought they were getting Church Lady

and all of Dana's classic characters

that are perfect for prime time,

and they ended up getting,

you know, weirder stuff,

shall we say.

Germans Who Say Nice Things.

You are the world's greatest grandpa!

Let's all pile into the minivan

and go get some frozen yogurt!

It's all--

I can't believe I'm even talking about this

in a documentary.

Like, "Tell me...

tell me the genesis

of 'Germans Who Say Nice Things.'

What was in your mind?

How did you-- how did you create..."

So, I'm sure I thought of it

five minutes before an audition

and went, "Okay, maybe that--

it's loud and maybe it'll get their attention."

That cloud looks like a pony!

Dana really liked--

Dana really liked that,

and so he was like,

"Can we do that together?"

It was a pleasure babysitting Kevin!

Every time he screamed,

I tried to at least match him.

Let's make snow angels!

And I went as hard as I could.

He always had this other gear.

You are not getting older, you are getting better!

We were tossed into a very funny fire

because Dana was such a star.

Leftover Beatle Memories.

I remember my first Snickers bar in America.

You know, I bit into it,

and there was these peanuts in it.

I couldn't bloody believe it.

Dana's one of the great impressionists,

the hook-finder of all hook-finders.

His impression was not like Impressiatron 5000.

It wasn't picture perfect, but it was--

the hook was so deep that it didn't matter.

It was like there was a little man on the other end

feeding peanuts into the candy bar I was eating.

And I called John over.

I said, "John, look at this, it's all packed with peanuts.

What's all that, right?"

And I didn't do impressions.

Thank God my wife wasn't there yet

because I remember staying up all night long

with tapes and a mirror next to the TV.

Yeah, I was frustrated sometimes, you know.

I wrote this little skiffle song, you know, once

called "Me and My Squid," and it went...

♪ Squiddy, squiddy, squiddy ♪

♪ Love my little squiddy ♪

♪ Squiddy, squiddy, squiddy ♪

♪ Rock and roll ♪

And I took it to John and Paul and they said,

"The Beatles don't do songs about mollusks."

And then six months later, Paul comes back

with "Octopus's Garden," I mean,

there was a lot of crap like that.

I didn't know the team was that brilliant

until it sort of evolved.

New wonders await us in our...

Technofuture!

These are guys that I really respected,

so, you know how when you just want somebody

to think that you deserve to exist in their world?

♪

Welcome to Burger World, can I help you?

Uh, yes, um...

We'd like, um, three large double cheeseburgers.

(laughing)

Three large fries and an apple pie and...

"Stupid Pranksters,"

these two guys stage pranks

that ended up hurting themselves in some way.

That was just spending a day

with one of your idols.

Yeah, I was super nervous,

trying to be in a scene with him

without thinking, "Oh, my gosh,

I'm in a scene with Dana Carvey."

Here's a 20.

Okay, I'll be right back with your change and your food.

- Okay. - We'll wait right here.

♪

Take off!

♪

And I think Robert Smigel plays the guy

just looking like, "Where did they go?"

(laughing)

Did you see that? Did you see his face?

Carell's commitment was beyond 1000 percent

because the veins were--

I thought he was gonna have an aneurysm.

We screwed him, man! We screwed him!

Oh, I would actually get super bloodshot eyes.

Was he impressed by it?

- He was very impressed. - Yeah.

ABC, I don't know if they knew what they were getting into,

but the train was leaving the station,

and, you know, it was a little bit like...

just what is this show gonna become?

Here at our DNA center,

Rockefeller scientists are genetically engineering

the growth of human ears and other appendages

on the bodies of field mice.

It was all so freewheeling.

We didn't pause to think about anything too long,

which I think was smart.

You know, what is this sensibility

that we're putting together here?

They tore out our hearts!

So we're tearing out their hearts,

and we're gonna eat 'em!

And what does it mean on prime time on ABC?

Come on, who wants some?

It's good, spicy, Mexican heart.

I couldn't believe they gave us

all this talent and money

to do the show we wanted to do.

(laughing)

You know, and Dana actually had the idea

of what if the show has a sponsor every week?

Lawrence Phillips scores the game's opening touchdown.

The way bowl games had bastardized their names

by, you know, it's the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Getting real sponsors to pay extra money

to have their name attached to the title of the show.

Their own nostalgia,

part of it for these old variety shows.

I grew up with Flip Wilson and Carol Burnett.

"Chevrolet presents Red Skelton."

The new Red Skelton Show,

presented by PET Evaporated Milk.

Something that would semi-mock the idea

of commercials, so we actually got

Taco Bell to agree to sponsor us,

and it was the Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show.

It's the Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show!

People were very positive.

Everybody on the crew,

like the makeup guys, the prop guys,

they had worked on the original "Saturday Night Live,"

so they were like, "We haven't seen

something like this in a long time."

The show is March 12th, Tuesday, what time did we say?

9:30, right after "Home Improvement."

Check it out, it'll be the weirdest thing ever

in prime time, that's all I can say.

I have a feeling it's gonna be a great success.

- Dana, thank you very much. - Thank you, David.

You really had high hopes for this show,

and you really felt like this is gonna be

a groundbreaking show.

This is gonna be it.

♪

(applause)

A few weeks later we heard

Disney had bought ABC.

♪

♪ A whole new world ♪

And we were like, "That's not good, right?"

And, no, we were assured,

"No, no, no, they know, they know, they know."

And then I remember Dana seeing, like,

a centerfold of "TV Guide"

like a month before the show came out,

and it was a big ad for ABC's midseason shows.

Right in the center of the ad,

around all the other ABC stars on the new shows,

was, on one side, Dana like this

wearing a blazer and T-shirt under it

that had been dyed pink,

and then next to him,

Photoshopped together,

was Kermit the Frog.

I remember he came at me in Carell's office one day

and he opened up "People Magazine"

and he flipped it open to that two-page spread.

He's going... like that,

and Kermit's on the other side of this page going...

like that, and we're like, "Hey, that's great!"

We don't see anything wrong with it.

And Dana goes, "Who's that asshole?"

Pointing at himself.

He goes, "Who is this asshole?

I can't do that show.

What--they think it's this?

And they don't know what's coming."

The decision on what to do on the premiere came.

Our first sketch out of the box

was me, Louis, and Robert.

One of them was a Bill Clinton cold opening

where he's had hormonal treatment

and he can breastfeed,

and they wanted to go with that.

And I have to admit, my instincts were,

"I don't know, for the first show,

why don't we do the Oliver Stone

Revolutionary War one?"

Flash to that.

Washington didn't have

a documented coke problem.

This is really...

an amalgam of several people.

Sometimes you have to put aside

specific facts

to get to a greater truth.

Hancock, it's after 4:00.

I remember Smigel and Louis debating

whether or not they should start out

with the Clinton breastfeeding.

Is it too much?

Dana was much more,

"Let's really think about what's the best stuff,"

and I was just like, "Ah, it's all good."

When the first sketch came in, I said,

"April Fools is right around the corner.

This is gonna go great, right?

What's the joke?" And he said,

"Oh, no, that's what they want to do."

And that started what I think I'll call

the longest creative discussion

over a piece of content

that I'd ever been involved with ever.

♪

I remember the fights over the first sketch.

Those were happening the week of air.

We were proceeding with making the prosthetic

of multiple nipples.

I guess I asked

silly questions like,

"Why do we need the additional nipples?

Can't we use his nipples

and go for the joke that way?"

No, that's not funny.

And there were puppeteers

with bulbs of milk actually making them squirt.

Very important. You wouldn't want to fake that.

It's not funny if there's not actual milk

coming out of the president's breasts.

Why would that be funny?

One of the makeup guys

was complaining about the effect.

He's like, "This is never gonna make it on TV anyway.

Why are we doing 15 tests on this?"

I remember very heated discussions with Robert

about not putting that first sketch on

and Robert sticking to his guns.

♪

Taco Bell thought it was really funny.

They had no problem

with their name being associated

with Bill Clinton breastfeeding kittens.

We had that conversation

that networks are supposed to have

which is the, "Well, do you let

the creative people do what they do for a living,

or do you tell them,

as the network because you're paying the bills,

'No, we are not doing that'?"

We hope that the audience embraces it

and is ready for this kind of thing.

This show is for those sleepy little baby boomers

who have little kids now and can't stay up

who really want counterculture humor.

Well, you've got it now, mister!

Thank you!

There was a sort of feeling of,

"No, we're right, and you're wrong,

and you'll see after we do this

that people are gonna love this,

and this is the right way to go."

Ladies and gentlemen,

the President of the United States.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

As you know, it's an election year.

Now, my wife Hillary Clinton's been the subject

of numerous accusations.

Accusations which I believe are unfair.

But screw it, she's history, I can't afford her.

I've placed Hillary Clinton under house arrest.

(groaning)

Now, some of you may think this is cruel,

but I'm not a cruel man.

I'm the caring, nurturing president.

And without Hillary, I can be both father

and mother to our nation.

And this isn't just talk.

I've taken this a step further.

With the employment of estrogen hormonal therapy,

I have developed the ability to breastfeed.

♪

The night of the premiere,

we watched it like at a restaurant bar

with the cast and crew,

and they're showing it like a film premiere.

"We're the greatest ever!"

All happy, singing and dancing.

I'm doing square dancing with Steve Carell.

I didn't know there was any scuttlebutt

in terms of the choice to lead off with it.

I thought it was hilarious.

Dana, he said,

"Hey, guys, if you guys have got any vices,

if you like, go to like,

massage parlor stroke joints,

you've got a mistress, anything like that,

get it out of your system tonight

because you're gonna be so famous in one week

that you can't walk down the streets of New York."

And we're like, "Wow!"

And I remember Robert and Louis

just hugging and crying and stuff,

just that the kind of show they wanted to do.

Louis was like, "You know what I really like

about this breastfeeding thing?

It's like we've drawn a line in the sand

right away.

You're either with us or you're not with us."

And I'm like, "Yeah, you're right."

It was... the absolute last thing we should've done

was draw a line in the sand.

Let's just take a look here.

Let me open up my shirt so you can see

what I'm talking about.

There it is.

There, hungry little baby.

There you go.

(laughter)

Just...

(applause)

We did start with that,

and when you see it in context,

it's just grotesque, you know,

for a prime time audience with kids.

I will feed the world.

That's right, come on in here.

I can feed babies

as well as puppies and kitties.

But it just became this thing,

like, "Oh, my God."

And of course, Smigel, who never met an animal

that he didn't want to put in a sketch,

he's just shoving creatures at me, more and more.

It's just like a metaphor to me when I watch that.

Hey, I got--here's something

to make the sketch more offensive.

That's good stuff.

That's all right.

And kitties too.

Clinton not only had working teats,

he also had an ass shaped like a duck.

I've had myself surgically fitted

with a hen's ass.

He had a duck ass,

and his chair was a nest.

I can give presidential warmth

to these hatching eggs right here.

ABC had paid extra to get

these minute-by-minute Nielsen ratings.

And I'm kind of obsessed with minute-by-minutes

because it's truly the audience

telling you what they think with their thumbs.

Somewhere in the first three minutes of the show,

we had this huge "Home Improvement" audience

that we inherited, and it was an insane drop-off.

People ran for their remotes.

(screaming)

We just went...

"Pull up, pull up! I can't!"

And they actually could tell you about individual states.

It was like, "How's Florida?"

"Florida's gone!"

"Texas?"

"Lights out, nothing, nothing!"

Something like six million people

deserted the show within the first,

I don't know, five minutes.

♪

In retrospect, it's kind of remarkable

that we got so many people

to do the same thing all over the country

at exactly the same time.

I think that might be the legacy of the show

is just six million people... like that.

♪

I bought a VCR

just for the Dana Carvey show.

You just kind of knew, like, "Wow, this speaks so to me,

and my taste is so marginal

that there's no way it's gonna last."

And so, you had to tape it,

you know, before it disappears.

The next day,

it felt like we had killed the show

and dug an impossible hole to dig out of.

For 25 years, I was a television critic

for the Los Angeles Times.

I didn't like the first show.

I love risk-taking

because if you never take any risks,

you'll never be great, but you take risks,

you're always going to fall on your face.

The show was really critically savaged.

The one thing I do remember,

the USA Today cover

using the phrase "Dirty Dana."

All of a sudden there was this outrage.

They kind of painted us as a cheap, stupid show,

showing breastfeeding,

and like a risque, dumb show.

It was just like somebody ripping out his schlong

or something and saying, "Isn't this funny?"

Yeah, the bullets were coming at me.

I remember it hurt me a lot.

You feel hated and like a loser,

and you just feel-- it's this dark pain,

and you just feel like, you know, "Why?"

All people wanted to see was Dana Carvey

doing an impression of Bill Clinton.

That's all he had to do

was an impression of Bill Clinton.

But not enough!

Not enough!

We had to be rebels in sweaters.

Later on "Nightline,"

Dana Carvey talks about his cancelled television show.

We got so much hate mail,

and one guy wrote,

"I'm a conservative,

and I would never vote for Bill Clinton,

but you do not disparage

the presidency of the United States."

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, "Holy shit."

And I read letters, like,

hand-written letters by people.

There was no email then.

You got hand-written letters

from old ladies saying,

"You hurt my feelings."

And...

I mean, I had one letter that I did open.

It just said, "Dear Human Scum."

I didn't read the rest.

Stephen and I somehow got our hands

on some fan letters,

and there was, you know,

a really thin stack of fan mail.

There might've been ten letters.

And then I was reading one

that went on about how much they loved the show,

and in particular, Steve Carell.

I was like, "Oh, my gosh."

Wow, to be singled out.

And then I looked at the handwriting,

and I was like, "Wait a second.

I know this hand--

this is really familiar handwriting."

And I remember that night, I called my mom,

I said, "Hi, Mom, how'd you like the show?"

"Oh, honey, it was so good."

"Hey...

do you--do you know someone

named Constance Koch?"

And she--and there was a pause.

She was like, "Um...

why do you ask?"

Come on!

One of the ten letters that we received,

and the only letter that singled me out,

was from my mother.

Wow, wow.

I think the network was completely shell-shocked.

I think the sponsors were shell-shocked.

I think it was suggested rather firmly

that I respond

because there was phone calls and backlash

and people were worried about advertisers.

Taco Bell got a million letters

and they announced,

"We are no longer associated

with the Dana Carvey Show."

Taco Bell withdrew its sponsorship,

which was like cutting the umbilical cord.

And I remember writing,

"Some will accuse Taco Bell of timidity.

On the contrary, they should be lauded

for their good taste in changing their minds

after looking at the limp tamale

they were sponsoring

and correctly judging it

to be an artistic Chernobyl."

(explosion)

Here's the thing:

We never intended for Taco Bell

to be the only sponsor for eight shows.

We were going to alternate.

That was what was gonna make it fresh and funny every week.

And, unfortunately,

Taco Bell made such a big grandstanding move

of, um...

By the way, their food is really shitty.

I shouldn't say that because I've avoided their food.

I've never tried it. Is it good?

Not bad?

Maybe it's all right.

Maybe I should try it.

Let's just go with, "It sucks."

From the ABC Broadcast Center in New York,

it's the Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show!

♪

♪ It's a beautiful root beer day ♪

♪ The folks at Mug Root Beer have agreed to stay ♪

♪ And we're happy to pay ♪

♪ But there are certain words

that Dana better not say ♪

♪ And he'd better not breastfeed any puppies today ♪

♪ Or we sure as hell will be on our way ♪

♪ So be careful, you little punk ♪

♪ Dana Carvey ♪

(applause)

For the second show,

the message got to me somehow

that I needed to address the controversy

that was the Clinton teats.

I'm gonna...

No, no, no, no!

This here, no!

Baby here, no!

He did it in a way that was sort of like,

jokey anyway,

so it wasn't like a full-on apology.

We were so on the defensive

from the first moment.

You know, from the third minute, let's say.

GTN, the Gentle Television Network.

The Gentle News came from notes that the network

had given us about like toning down the show

and us saying, "Well,

isn't the news a lot more dangerous?

Let's see how soft and gentle we can make the news."

Good evening.

Everything is just fine overall.

Things are just fine.

Tonight's top story:

Today, China threatened to launch more missiles

toward the coast of Taiwan,

regardless of American intervention.

Bill?

- Thanks, Sonny. - Thank you.

I believe that we should be able to guarantee

our children freedom

from Uzi-toting gang members,

prostitution, crack cocaine, and hate crimes

in our institutions of learning.

Well said, Bill. Well said.

I expect writers to be nuts,

but they're rejecting your opinion because,

"Well, look at the nightly news, it's just crazy."

That's ridiculous. It's not a conversation.

It's got nothing to do with it.

Yes, awful things happen, but that's not a justification

for you going way off the reservation with a sketch.

Finally with an update

on the Menendez Brothers verdict

is correspondent Bob Ross.

Okay, let's just, uh,

add a little bit of titanium white to that.

Here they are.

They killed their parents, but they're--

they're friendly folk.

(laughing)

That thing was fucking bananas.

This would not be called

Disney-friendly television.

Not even a little.

I don't know how we could've changed at that point

because the sensibility of the team was set.

I think everyone was on board with that.

Let's just keep doing it.

So we were like, "Okay."

- No change in course? - No, absolutely not.

It was just like Smigel had this idea of what it was.

You know, before I knew it,

we were Ambiguously...

What's that sketch called?

The Ambiguously Gay Duo!

Dino Stamatopoulos came up to me one day

and pitched a cartoon.

He was like, "Let's do a parody

of 'Wallace and Gromit, '

but beneath the surface,

it's obvious that they're...

having sex with each other."

♪

Like, even I could see that that was too dirty.

I was like, "What about...

playing off Batman and Robin's sexuality?"

Superhero duo where everyone,

all the bad guys, are always suspecting

that they're gay and debating about it.

You know, this goes back to the '50s

when comic books were under assault

by the government.

Batman and Robin were "pushing a gay agenda."

I had worked with Robert on a couple of projects,

and he called and said

that he had this script.

I've read funny stuff before,

but I'd never--

I'd never laughed out loud at a script.

We took a lot of inspiration

from superhero series of the '60s.

There were these crazy conversations.

It was him convincing me

that, yes, he could have a bulge that big

that went down to the middle of his thigh.

And yes, the back of the trunks

could be riding up the crack of his ass.

Yeah, just two dudes fighting crime

with some rock-hard dicks.

It just--we all got more and more excited

about what this thing could possibly be.

The first thing I ever recorded,

it was the announcer, "This week's episode:

It Takes Two To Tango."

And once we get this formula

into the water supply,

Metroville will be mine!

Not even that insufferable duo,

Ace and Gary, can stop me.

What's with those two?

Do they have a gay thing or what?

I think so.

What--you're crazy.

I kinda see it.

Tracked on 24th and Monroe.

We're counting on you.

We won't let you down, commissioner.

I knew Colbert would be the perfect voice

of a typical '60s cartoon superhero.

Robert's like, "Could you just work out

like what the voice might be like?"

So we started going... (clearing throat)

"Hello, friend of friends," you know.

"Grab onto my belt buckle with your teeth."

And that Steve with his high voice would be

a hilarious, Robin kind of sidekick.

"Gee, Ace, let's go get 'em!

Let's stick it in and then pull it out!"

Or whatever the line was.

Can we stop him, Ace?

If we work together, friend of friends.

Let's go!

Robert said that they should have

a Batmobile type car

and it should look like a dick.

The network asked,

"How much of a penis will the penis car look like?

And are you suggesting that the wheels

will be attached to the testicles?"

The standards people were really worried about that.

Not only it's gonna be offensive to gays,

it's gonna be too sexually explicit.

So it looked like a dick and balls,

and then it kinda only worked in my head

if it looked flesh color.

Network color changes

They said,

"You can't paint it flesh-colored."

Even though the cel paint was called "flesh,"

Robert said, "No, no, no, no, just--

if anyone asks you, it's peach."

(explosion)

Not so fast, Bighead.

(zapping)

Good work, Gary.

They're finished now.

(laughter, applause)

What's everybody looking at?

Nothing.

Get them!

♪

Can you imagine being, you know, 35 years old,

and I'm getting to do stuff

that I literally spent time in the principal's office

when I was in grade school drawing.

What do we do, Ace?

We'll pull through, friend.

(groaning)

Now what are you looking at?

- Nothing! - Nothing!

The Ambiguously Gay Duo!

Carell and I were just giddy.

Like, you know, as Dana says,

"They were nobodies."

But we're-- "Hey, we're somebodies now."

Like, this is exciting.

Dana was a little more open-eyed about this.

Well, thanks for coming to our meager little show.

I want to thank Pepsi, pretty good stuff.

That's some weird, wild stuff, huh?

The show was really hard work.

It was emotionally difficult

because it was--there were so many problems with it.

Everyone hated us.

Having the family in Greenwich, Connecticut,

while I was in New York most of the time

was not the--

Amongst the pantheon of bad decisions,

that's just one of them.

Of course, he had the immediate pressure

of the network, and somebody from the network

moved into the building, like,

they moved in down the hall, they're like,

"Uh, I'd like to see those sketches please."

There are now just people around from ABC

sort of babysitting us,

and there was a few arguments with them,

and the noose was tightening.

Dana, to me, always was--

his comedy was so safe, it was for everybody.

Church Lady could get out there and be a little naughty,

but it was the most wonderful kind

of acceptable naughty in the world.

It's not that I didn't want to do my old impressions,

it's just that we had so many other cool,

weird things to do that were new,

and I think that I get bored very easily.

I mean, the reason I abstract things,

that Hans and Franz went from,

"You're a girly man, let me tell you,"

I got really bored, then it was like,

"You're a loser."

Same thing with George Bush.

He was just talking like this,

but I got really bored, then it became like this.

So, you know, I always needed fresh things.

But I totally get why ABC would go,

"Well, he was quite a success on 'Saturday Night Live'

with them there characters of his.

Maybe he'll bring a few over to ours,

and then we'll get the money that they got."

I don't know, they just wanted to make it more friendly.

Hello, I'm Stu Harberger,

Executive Vice President

in charge of entertainment for ABC.

We're all very excited about welcoming Daner Carvey

to the ABC family...

Robert's creation of the network executive

was absolutely based on

network executives at the time

looking for more like Church Lady pieces.

ABC's with Disney now,

and our high-powered Disney lawyers

have managed to secure the right

to not only the Top Ten list,

but also the Church Lady.

(cheering, applause)

The wisdom was you want to see Dana

do one of his big characters

that people are tuning in to see,

and--and they did.

Church Lady's top ten new titles

for Princess Diana.

Number 8: Her Royal Whoreness.

Number 7: Lady Di-ing to Get Laid.

I don't know if ABC really understood

how subversive the Church Lady was.

And the number one new name for Princess Diana:

Slut Slut Slut.

(cheering, applause)

♪

I'm not saying that's revenge.

It probably was more

what he was intending to do anyway.

Internally at ABC,

my bosses matter, advertisers matter.

When they say, "You know, we think you're kind of crazy,"

you kind of lose their confidence.

This week, in the interest of ratings

and garnering younger viewers,

we have decided to broadcast live

from the Wild World Adventure Theme Park...

If there is no line,

you have to just create one.

You have to arbitrarily say,

"Okay, I'm gonna make a line now.

We're not going over it.

Go back to the room and write something else."

And, oh, my God, ahh!

Oh, knock it off, George!

For us, if we changed it too much,

then it wouldn't be what we wanted to do.

There was like a doubling-down effort

to see, like, how over the line

or across the line can we get.

The nominees for Best Foreign Language

Animated Short Subject are:

I was Gregory Peck for...

possibly the most racist sketch

ever committed to tape.

Saj Patel for--

I win! I win!

I'm the winner! I'm the winner!

Phone-shatteringly...

I want to thank Ching Chong,

Ning Nong, Ning Tong, and Rex Harrison.

...inescapable...

I'm a winner!

...career-endingly racist now.

At the time, it was just good, clean fun.

I played Gregory Peck.

I want to be on record as saying

I played Gregory Peck.

Man, he put the pedal down

and went for it.

And now, Skinheads from Maine.

(laughter)

Nice breeze tonight.

Yup.

(laughter)

Never cared much for the Negros.

No, me neither.

Okay, that one was just bold-faced edgy.

We're on a porch and we've got skinheads,

and we're supposed to be hateful skinheads,

but at the same time, super folksy.

Nice sunset we're having.

Yup.

Yeah, the weather is the only thing

the Jews don't control.

(laughter)

That's a mind-blowing sketch

where you watch it and you go,

"Oh, my God,

I didn't know I needed this."

At the time, I was writing for Seinfeld,

working seven days a week, don't really have any time off,

but somehow I see this show on ABC,

this--this Dana Carvey Show.

It wasn't until there was one sketch,

Grandma the Clown.

It's time for Grandma the Clown!

(clown laughing)

(honking)

(laughter)

Oh, the days are rushing by, children.

It'll be over before you know it.

(honking)

For me, anybody who says the show

was too mainstream, I'm like,

"Have you seen Grandma the Clown?

Because there's nothing in there for anybody."

There wasn't even a cast member in there.

We just had this old lady in clown makeup.

(honking)

The audience just-- there's just--

you can just hear the tenor of the kinda laughter,

kinda shock, kinda "What?!"

You know, that was just a little too dark for them.

What--are you kidding me?

The viewers have no clue why that's funny.

Every inch of it was hilarious to me.

♪

(laughter)

♪

Just long pauses which, for the inside group,

it's, you know, it's like experimental music

where you go, "My God, that's great,"

then you play it on the top 40

and it's noise to other people.

(laughter)

♪

And I fall on the floor laughing

and I hadn't seen that before,

not since at least the days of maybe Monty Python,

that I went, "I have to go work for that show."

Now I'm working on the number one show

on television at that moment.

No soup for you!

(laughter)

But I'm like, "I have to go work for that show."

Could you scratch my ankle, dear?

It is a beacon, it's a lighthouse of comedy

calling all comedy writers, going, "Come to us,

this is a place where you can have fun."

I think about a week later, CA called up and said,

"They're bringing you on."

I remember talking to the ABC executive

and her immediately telling me the problems with the show

and, "Thank God you guys are here."

And I was very confused about what--

you know, why she said that,

and, uh, you know, I called my agent up and I say,

"I just had a kind of a weird conversation

with the executive,"

and he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I pitched you

as the guys to come and fix the show,"

and I said, "Well, no.

We're not fixing-- it's not broken.

We're gonna do whatever Louis and Smigel want us to do,

including get coffee for Grandma the Clown.

Whatever they want."

And the agent went, "Oh no."

I know Smigel and Louis weren't talk--

they could care less about what the network wants.

"Who cares what they want?

This is what we're doing.

They were dumb enough to let us in the studio

and give us a budget.

Watch out, here we go.

We're gonna blast you."

I trust you're all enjoying The Dana Carvey Show.

We recognize that on certain nights,

say Thursday night,

you, the viewer, tend to prefer watching

non-American BC fare.

Well, we think we've come up with a new show

that solves this problem.

Hey, you guys, Seinfeld's gonna be on in a second.

- Ooh! - Neat, let's watch!

Yes, I love that Seinfeld.

And they watch TV and the camera's behind the couch

and it slowly pushes in past them

and it's just an entire episode of Seinfeld.

Medium turkey chili.

(laughter)

Medium crab bisque.

Of course, ABC hated that.

So you can enjoy the hilarious Jerry and his cast,

except with our commercials.

And look for our special episode in January

where you can watch FOX's coverage of the Super Bowl

right here on ABC.

♪

Make fun of us all you want, that's what we're here for.

We'll just take you off the air if we don't like it.

That's correct.

This is like talking to the captain of the Titanic.

"When they said icebergs were in the area,

what made you keep going forward?"

"Well, it's a long story, but I never--

I always liked ice as a kid."

♪

♪ If only we drank Diet Mug Root Beer ♪

I do remember that call.

I don't know which sales executive it was

who said, "What are you doing with this?

This is a family brand."

I said, "Yeah, I know, I know, but they kinda know

that there was gonna be some edgy stuff

and we won't do that anymore.

I'm sorry, we'll be more careful later."

The Mountain Dew Dana Carvey Show

will return after this message.

When Mountain Dew was a sponsor...

♪ I'm citric acid ♪

♪ I'm high fructose corn syrup ♪

♪ I'm sodium benzoate ♪

...that was the one time that I can remember

where we actually implied that there was something

unappealing about the actual product.

What does that look like?

(laughter)

This, I think, crossed a line for Dana,

I think it crossed a line for ABC.

The network seemed kinda tortured,

but around episode 5 or 6,

we really started to gain some momentum.

We hit our stride.

(cheering)

It was a show that did have some loyal, zealous fans.

(cheering)

For the people who loved the show,

they were possessed by it.

Thank you very, very much!

New York!

I got a lot of letters, really angry mail,

taking me apart limb from limb,

attacking me on a personal level

in a way I had attacked The Dana Carvey Show.

But among these letters was one that really stood out,

really stood out.

This is what they wrote:

"You are the worst critic in America.

Anything slightly outside the mainstream

probably makes you realize how fat you are getting,

how little hair you have left,

or how sad and disappointed you have become in life.

How does it feel to know you will never again

have sex with a woman under the age of 45?"

Who would write something like that?

That--that's fucked up, man.

I mean, that's not cool to do to somebody,

but we were not cool.

We were angry

and we wrote him a letter.

♪

Cracked a Budweiser and my buddy sits down

at the word processor

and we just start rolling

and it was like, boom.

We were young and very enthusiastic

about things that broke the molds.

We called everything back there that we thought was cool,

we called it "punk rock."

And this was punk rock television,

and it was reviewed very poorly

by a man that we didn't take too kindly to

because we took it personally.

We had it in an envelope going to the LA Times

within 15 minutes, max.

And now 21 years later, I'm talking to you, dude.

- That's weird. - That letter

really attacked me personally,

attacked my intelligence,

attacked my right to breathe the same air

as everyone else,

and I looked at that and I just knew

that I had to come back and look at the show a second time.

And lo and behold,

instead of being a validation for my first review,

it just knocked me out.

We started to get some good reviews

and people would circle back around,

go, "Wait a minute."

The Los Angeles Times

and at least a couple other papers

contradicted their first reviews

where they panned the show

with incredibly effusive reviews.

(makes dolphin noises)

It was just so hilarious.

I laughed so hard that it brought on my asthma,

I started wheezing.

The Taftmatic Drow-Z-Boy.

Stop moving and start living.

I mean, every show deserves the right

to find itself.

This audience is so nice!

(cheering, applause)

♪

You know who loved the show was Seinfeld,

and that meant so much to me.

"That's the funniest show on TV!

What's the problem?", you know?

He was so excited about it.

You hear something like that from a guy you respect that much

and it's very hard to...

to not keep going, you know?

But ultimately, there was one problem.

(laughs)

♪

I had never watched Home Improvement.

When I heard about the time slot,

I thought, oh, well, maybe it'll be compatible

because Tim Allen's kind of a man's man kind of guy

and, uh, seemed like maybe he's a hip comedian.

He had been busted for cocaine or something.

I don't know, is Home Improvement

a little racy maybe, right?

I get your point now, Tim.

- You respect me. - Huh?

(laughter)

I hadn't watched it until about four shows in.

I just stopped everything at 9 o'clock on a Tuesday

and watched it

and just watched in horror,

just... not believing

what we had foisted on this audience.

ABC Tuesday, a parent's worst fear: losing a child.

I don't wanna die, Dad.

You never know whose family it will happen to.

An episode so powerful, it hits home.

We'll beat this thing, no matter what it is, you know?

I'm not letting anything happen to you.

A special Home Improvement

followed by The Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show.

(laughter)

(snickering)

(hoarse laughter)

♪

What can you say; I mean, that just says it all.

That just says it all, what were we doing?

It was being marketed as this kind of fun show,

and I think people were like, "What the fuck is this?"

And I thought about what we had put on television

following this family-oriented show

that I now realized was successful

because kids and parents could watch it together.

You know, and then our show would start

and kids and parents...

would, you know, run for their lives.

That whole show was just, like,

"Fuck you, Dad!"

(laughing)

"I'm not Home Improvement, all right?

Fuck you, I like Grandma the Clown, all right?"

"You might not get it

but that's because that's your deal, all right?

That's you, that's on you!"

And my dad, of course, is like,

"I don't like Home Improvement either.

Why are you yelling at me?"

We lost a sponsor every week.

Sponsors were bailing out like crazy.

"What do you mean Procter & Gamble's

not gonna be on the show?

Get outta here, ah, fuck you," you know?

"Who is it, Colgate?

Well, we don't need you anyway," you know?

You know, when you bite the hand that feeds you that hard,

there's a good chance you're not gonna get fed again.

The only way you're staying on the air

is to make somebody money.

You gotta make somebody money.

♪

I knew before anyone officially told me

that, you know, it wasn't gonna happen.

I mean, how could I not know?

We had a small Chinese restaurant as our last sponsor.

♪ Dana Carvey has a hell of a show ♪

♪ And at Szechuan Dynasty you can order to go ♪

As the show rolled on,

it became harder and harder to find legitimate sponsors,

which is, I think, why Szechuan Dynasty was sponsor.

Szechuan Dynasty was where we were ordering lunch.

Oh, we'd eat there all the time.

So I don't know if we actually got money from them.

And remember, Szechuan Dynasty

whenever you want Chinese food in Manhattan.

Thank you, goodnight!

(cheering, applause)

I was pretty sure that wasn't a creative decision entirely.

Um, yeah, that wasn't a good sign, I guess.

Excuse me, sir, but it seems

that something is troubling you.

I remember the thing that bummed me out the most

was when Carell and Colbert, toward the end, said,

"We just wanna do this."

Like, "We want this to be our career."

Maybe the Wizard can help you!

He's going to help me and Toto get home!

- And get me a brain. - And me a heart!

And me the nerve!

The idea that anything could wrong with this show

made no sense to us.

Look at all these talented people.

- Look at our star. - What do you need?

An ass.

A what?

An ass, I don't have an ass!

You want to see?

(laughter)

No ass, only skin, right there.

But I will tell you the moment I was sure

that we would be cancelled--

and this is for everyone out there

who works on a television show--

when you go to the snack drawer

and there's nothing in there,

when for the entire production

it's been packed with snacks

that just keep you in your office

so you're always writing,

when you open that drawer and there's nothing in there--

I looked in and I think with Dino Stamatopoulos,

and he was like, "Yeah, we're cancelled."

I remember seeing one of our producers

lying on a couch

and for some reason that made me feel

really sick to my stomach.

This is a guy I'd never seen sit

and he had his hand over his head like that,

and I don't know why I thought,

"Oh, no."

You see, Dana was seeing all that stuff

because he would come in and he's like,

"Guys, I'm so sorry that I've ruined your career."

That's what he would say to me and Carell, more than once.

"I'm so sorry I've ruined your career."

♪

I could feel the stress, like, very quickly.

And I remember, uh, calling Lorne Michaels

because I just explained to him, I was like,

"I never quite understood what you had to deal with."

Everybody second-guesses the boss.

I realize now what it's like to run one of these sketch shows.

It's really hard to make people happy.

Really hard.

(applause)

I think we all rallied to do the last show.

♪

I think our best episode, number 8.

(cheering, applause)

Like, we were like, "Let's just put whatever

and we're gonna go out with a bang."

Probably some people were thinking,

"Maybe this is the homerun, the Hail Mary

that will get us more episodes."

Thank you, thank you so much.

This, this is our season finale.

We don't have a lot of time because we got a lot

of great stuff we wanna show you.

I just want to do one quick thing.

This is my impression of Katharine Hepburn

trying to start her car, ready?

(imitates starter motor with Katharine Hepburn inflection)

Watch this!

Thank you!

Everyone was really committed to the tone

of what that show was and could be

and everybody loved it and loved each other,

but wanted it to be great.

All right, who are we up to?

We're still on presidents.

Uh, Gerald Ford.

Oh, Ford's in good shape, he plays golf.

Just covering our bases, Tom.

- You never know. - I was in a room with Robert

watching the feed from the CBS News desk

and Dan Rather is giving Ronald Reagan's obituary.

The cause of death is vague and he's doing multiple takes.

Gerald Ford dead today at age 83.

Okay, and, uh, one for next year, please.

All right.

(laughter)

Gerald Ford dead today at age 84.

So then we realize, "No, this guy

is actually just pre-taping explanations for Reagan's death

so that when he goes on vacation,

he gets to be the one to break the news to America.

And then I just instantly thought of,

"Well, he's gotta do, like, all these different versions

for, like, various deaths."

Gerald Ford dead today from an overdose of crack cocaine.

And Colbert immediately started riffing

hilarious scenarios.

Stunning news from Michigan

as former president Gerald Ford

was chopped into little bits

by the propeller of a commuter plane.

Like, you would really want to have included that.

You can't just say he died.

Then we brought in Louis,

who came up with specific touches.

Gerald Ford was eaten by wolves.

He was delicious.

Gerald Ford is dead today and I'm gay.

Now wait a minute, that--

What, what, that'd be a huge story.

Ford dying and you coming out?

But I'm not gay.

Yeah, today you're not gay,

then one day, you know, you wake up, you like men,

Gerald Ford dies, and we're screwed.

And it's maybe the funniest sketch

I've ever been a part of writing.

We now rejoin the one-man show Mark Twain Tonight

as performed by STOMP.

♪

Ultimately you care about the ratings of the network.

♪

So once you have that responsibility,

in the end, if you're any good at it,

you will make the tough call and put on your president's cap

and take off your creative, nurturer, supporter guy cap.

(exclaiming)

(explosion)

♪

(cheering, applause)

I was taught by one of my key mentors

and he said an awful but one hundred percent right thing,

"When you're dealing with your producers,

you say, 'I love you, I love you, I love you,

I hate you, you're cancelled.'"

And they just literally said to us,

"We just can't afford to keep you on

after Home Improvement."

So I did take it off the air for its final episode

and I put on a special Coach or something.

Hayden still can't become a dad.

Have you considered a sperm donor?

- So he recruits the best. - You're gonna have

Troy Aikman's baby!

Coach, Tuesday.

Sorry.

So they actually didn't even run the 8th show.

I thought, "Oh God, the VCR didn't work right."

That's what I honestly thought.

I thought I had programmed it wrong.

So I have a tape with fucking Coach on it.

And then because it was '96, I watched Coach and just...

I sat and watched Coach and I was like,

"Dauber steps in it again."

(laughs)

I mean, I just felt like, uh, we blew it

and I blew it

and, you know, I love Dana and that was very frustrating.

Somehow, because my name was on it

and this was my big career thing,

he felt responsible,

and I thought, "No, no, not at all."

♪

We did the show as a team.

♪

The whole experience of the show

was kinda like the final sketch of "Stupid Pranksters."

And now it's time to announce the winning numbers

for today's Mega Jackpot.

- We won! - We won!

- We won! - We won!

(exclaiming)

My pleasure to present you with this check

for $16 million.

Oh, uh... could you just hold that check

just for a second because we're gonna...

go to the... bathroom.

- That's right. - Because we gotta go.

Where these guys are sabotaging themselves

the whole time and just giddy about it

and clueless about it.

(laughing, exclaiming)

We're throwing the party, we're kinda throwing the party.

(gasping, laughing)

We're kinda laughing, we're not laughing so much.

We're kinda quiet, but sorta happy.

And then we realize what we've done.

♪

After the show got cancelled, I had to drive back

because I was living in Greenwich, Connecticut.

It was more snow than any time in the history of New York.

♪

And finally I got back and I'm tucking in my 6-year-old

and he says very quietly,

"Didn't see you a long time, Dad."

Just like that.

So it's like-- cuts you in half.

"Didn't see you a long time, Dad"?

What the fuck, he was keeping track?

So I said, "Well, story time's over.

I don't like your attitude."

(laughter)

♪

The aftermath was, um...

I mean, here you are, not working again.

And so, of course, you'll never work again

because when you are working, you'll always work,

and when you're not working, you'll never work again.

The wrap party was sort of where it sank in

because there was just this sort of funereal feel to that.

It took a little while to penetrate my brain

but I remember leaving that wrap party pretty late

and having one of those New York interactions

where a guy kind of politely tries to mug you,

and I remember just saying, like,

"I just got fired" and then walking away.

And was like, "Well, that's the last time that's gonna work."

It's very lonely and sad,

you know, when they just throw the sets out.

They put it out on the street in the dumpster.

I walked by two days later

and I was kinda down in Manhattan,

and I look down and just laying on the street

was this section of the Clinton teats

taunting me.

I was very confident in the '90s.

I had had, you know, a lot of success

writing for SNL, and then it was only after

The Dana Carvey Show got cancelled

that suddenly the stakes became very stressful for me.

Like, what am I gonna do, am I gonna be blamed for this?

What's my next thing?

And I was able to call Lorne Michaels that summer.

That, you know, that saved me.

♪

I'm in my apartment in New York,

I thought everything was over and done with,

and I'm going to get popcorn for Saturday Night Live

like I always do and have done since I was a kid.

- ♪ TV Funhouse ♪ - Come back here with my show!

And I hear my own voice on Saturday Night Live.

Can Ace and Gary escape the deadly pool?

Are they gay?

Tune in next week.

Same ambiguous time--

And I personally was able to give them work on SNL.

Then Steve and Stephen kept doing it for years and years.

It started on Dana Carvey Show

and then wound up on Saturday Night Live.

So it is true what they say about, you know,

when one door closes, another one opens.

It was a little bit of a lifeboat in 1996

when they got to be Ace and Gary on SNL,

but by the time I was asking them in 2008,

it was clearly a favor at that point.

Our four final specials--

- I can't. - Chicken.

(retching)

Some producer at The Daily Show

loved that sketch

and recommended Stephen off of it.

They said, "Well, what would we have known you from?"

I said, The Dana Carvey Show.

"What, like what from The Dana Carvey Show?"

and I said, "Um, 'Oliver Stone in Nixon's.'"

"Hmm, I don't."

"'Skinheads from Maine'"?

"Hm."

"I was in 'Waiter Naus--'"

"Yes, you're hired."

I was there for a while and then Carell

was now out in the wilderness without a job.

And I said, "You gotta hire this Carell guy.

He was the other waiter in 'Waiters Nauseated by Food.'"

They're like, "Get him on the phone!"

Tonight's topic: Islam versus Christianity,

which is right?

- Islam. - Christianity.

Islam!

So that sketch, that one sketch,

is responsible for both of our careers, really.

That sketch is it.

(laughing)

Now if people had told me in 1996

that in ten years those guys would be dominating comedy,

I would have said, "Hm, five years."

That's how highly I thought of them.

After working with them, I just knew they'd hit.

I remember the takeaway as being gratefulness

that it even happened.

I think it gave us both confidence.

I can do it, Stephen can do it,

we can be part of something like this.

Maybe this isn't the one that's going to stick,

but to this day,

I point to Robert and to Dana

as the main factors

for what happened with the rest of my career.

They absolutely put me on the map.

I mean that's why I'd do anything for those guys.

Honestly, that was a huge, huge thing for me,

and I'm--I will do for either of them--

I will shovel their driveway

and run away without being paid.

(laughter)

♪

I definitely only feel really good about it.

I don't feel any regrets or sadness or whatever.

I loved the sensibility of the show.

You know, it represented me

in a more complete way than even Saturday Night Live.

(cheering, applause)

After the show ended...

Thank you.

...I went back to stand-up,

which was incredibly lucrative,

super creative.

That's the thing I love to do

and it's allowed me to be a present father.

I had a blast raising my two sons.

So then I'm back on Saturday Night Live

and Dana's invited to host

and he wanted to do the Brokaw sketch

because that was cut from our last show

and nobody got to see it.

Gerald Ford was mauled senselessly by a circus lion

in a convenience store.

And it murdered harder

than anything we had done on the show.

Stunning news from Yorba Linda today

as Richard Nixon's corpse climbed out of its grave

and strangled Gerald Ford to death.

I'm absolutely proud of, uh, of the show.

I mean, the hardest thing to pull off with a TV show

is to end it on one's own terms,

and I do think, in reference to this show,

in a sort of perverse way, it did.

I mean, Robert and Dana and Louis and the rest of us,

whether we didn't know what was happening or not,

they did the show that they wanted to do.

Honestly, I think that's the only way

you find something new

and find something inventive

is if you take a chance.

To be bold about it

and to commit yourself to something.

It's not always gonna work,

but the bolder you make your choices,

the greater the upside.

♪

Everybody who worked on that show was unafraid.

These guys are all fearless.

And we saw that there.

Guys like us, we're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol.

We go straight from the gut, right, sir?

That's where the truth lies.

But it's not just about a product,

it's not just about a television show,

it's about relationships that you're having,

it's about creating something together with passion

and excitement and fun, you know?

I miss that kind of stuff,

because one thing I liked about The Dana Carvey Show

was that it wasn't cynical.

It was absurd, it was bizarre at times,

it was nonsensical at times,

but it didn't have an axe to grind.

That's something that really appealed to me,

is sometimes silly just for the sake of silly

is all you need and all you want.

(cheering, applause)

♪

It's just a television show.

That's all it is.

That made history.

Everyone put it aside,

suddenly someone comes back and says,

"Has anyone seen this trash?

It's not so trashy after all.

Let's call Hulu!"

♪

(as Donald Trump) A total disaster.

Many people-- excuse me--

Dana Carvey Show, total disaster, total disaster.

Celebrity Apprentice, our ratings are so huge, fantastic.

That show, not so good, not so good, okay?

Okay, okay, okay.

We'd like to thank the many people

who made this very long documentary possible.

Uh, first, uh, the producers of The Dana Carvey Show

for fucking up so badly.

It was an honor following Tool Time on ABC!

You know, I never cared about the show.

Never meant a thing to me.

And I tell people everywhere I go,

all around the world, all the symposiums,

about The Dana Carvey Show.

I say, "It never mattered a whit to me."

"Go to bed, old man!"

(laughter)

"I'm gonna stay up and watch The Dana Carvey Show,

brought to you by, like, fucksticks

or whatever the fuck."

What we were trying to achieve

through a subversive, uh,

Weltanschauung

was to challenge the Zeitgeist

of the...

Lebensraum.

(laughter)

And there, then I said, isn't that special?

Where's everybody going?

Look at me.

Aren't I a peach?

A funny little clown in the light,

dancing away into the dark years.

It was a pleasure making America laugh

on primetime!

Hulu

is a groundbreaking network!

(laughter)

And of course, we'd like to thank

the entire Hulu audience.

(clears throat)

Eh, Sharon Harding of Columbia, Missouri,

Bruce and Katherine Summers of Elmont, New York,

Melissa Campos of Chandler, Arizona--

she's actually on the free trial for Handmaid's Tale

but fingers crossed--

uh, Paula and Howard Kirsch of Coral Springs, Florida.

Unfortunately, we're short on time

so I can't read all 12,

but thank you, viewers of Hulu.

♪

(laughter)

♪

♪