Saturday Night Live

Dana Carvey has struggled with some very serious health problems for years. He had a heart defect which was operated on, the operation was botched badly, and he was caught up in major medical and legal issues for years. Just sayin' - him vanishing from showbiz wasn't entirely his fault.

― She Got the Shakes, Tuesday, October 12, 2010 4:59 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is true, but those health issues started in '97, after the failure of The Dana Carvey Show and Clean Slate, and he's always said that he wanted to focus more on raising his kids than on his career, so I don't think he'd be a ubiquitous star if not for that. that said Dana totally WAS as huge draw during his time on SNL, if we're talking about popularity of cast members as cast members and not their movie careers after SNL.

TS: The Love Guru vs. The Master of Disguise

The Dana Carvey Show was so fucking good

I think it was in that oral history, but i read somewhere that another castmember asked Hartman why he broke up as Frankenstein, and he told them that he recovered from his initial break quickly (pro that he is) but then he thought about the absurdity of Frankenstein cracking up, and THAT is what made him totally lose it.

dana carvey show was pretty great but not as great as you might think considering that writing staff. i know bill hader has wanted to stay away from being an 'impressions' guy (even though he's ridiculously good at it) cuz of carvey's post snl career. how far along are they w/ complete seasons? did they just do the original not ready for prime time players? that original cast's shows were incredible and i know everyone thinks whichever snl they watched when they were 14 is the best era but that late 80s/early 90s snl really does seem like the best era to me.

I'm still sad about him no longer being here, and it was 12 years ago. I loved that guy. xp

i really loved the "bad boys" era, but i was 14 so.

I saw it a few times during the Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo era when I was really young (8 or 9), but yeah. By the time Hartman, Lovitz, Jan Hooks, Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn, et al were on the show, I was about 14 and it really does seem like the show's golden era.

everyone thinks whichever snl they watched when they were 14 is the best era but that late 80s/early 90s snl really does seem like the best era to me.

miller on the desk, hartman/dunn/hooks/lovitz/carvey in the front...myers/rock/sandler/farley/spade actually trying to prove themselves, definitely my favorite time. When I was 14-15 I thought the show on-air was total shit, struggled to get through sketches while excitedly waiting for REM to perform 3 songs from Monster, I think that was the same year Mark McKinney, Janeane Garofalo and Chris Elliott were all just kinda wasted while the fratties ran amok waiting for their next movie deal.

that season was totally underrated imo

Ironically I wonder if the current cast would benefit from a little ambition, seems like they all would be happy making youtubes and getting supporting roles in films, real pragmatic folks never really trying to knock us on our ass.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4155/saturday-night-live-massive-head-wound-harry

still a fave

chris elliott interviewing Jeff "Diarrhea Head" Daniels was classic for all time

Poor Ellen Cleghorne, forgotten by time.

Whiney, have you read Jay Mohr's SNL memoir? Pretty fascinating little apocrypha to the oral history, dude bitches about Ellen Cleghorne and keeps talking about how his Chris Walken imitation didn't get enough play

xpost!

pretty fascinating if you give a rats ass about that pre-ferrell/post-carvey SNL period, I mean

been meaning to. i know the story about how his one sketch that made it to air was totally ripped a sketch off of a Rick Shapiro stand-up bit

Jay Mohr seems completely unlikeable in every way imaginable.

that only helps make it readable, really!

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172683379l/206921.jpg

i think that 94 season everyone bemoans had some great stuff but suffered from coming right after that peak and having such a disjointed cast, like a cross between the last ebersol year w/ all the ringers and the first lorne comeback year.

admittedly I haven't seen it since I was anxiously anticipating the performance of "I Don't Sleep, I Dream"

One of my favorite lines ever on the show was a Church Chat sketch where Phil Hartman was playing Jim Bakker and Jan Hooks played Tammy Faye (so best!) and she was going on about a dream she was having and it ended with "DEMONIC RAISINS I REBUKE YOU!"

It's hard to work that into everyday conversation, but I've managed once or twice.

Oh wow, it somehow managed to stay on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw94TwKqH_c

waiting for REM to perform 3 songs from Monster

aw, that episode was my first exposure to both SNL and REM! and then i made my dad go to the Wherehouse so i could buy the CD!

later i did the same thing when i saw the Cranberries perform "Zombie" but that's a more embarrassing story.

I always thought the '84-'85 season was underrated, despite it mainly being a castful of ringers (Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest). It had what was probably Eddie Murphy's crowning achievement:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10356/saturday-night-live-white-like-me

Ellen Cleghorne was so great, wasn't she?

Def Comedy Jam <3

She was. I didn't even remember her having a WB show after she left SNL. Did anyone watch it?

or whatever that sketch was (Def Surgery Jam?)

No no wait here it is: http://www.hulu.com/watch/2320/saturday-night-live-russell-simmons-def-magic-show

Wow that was, like, 10x funner when I was 13.

P.S. I stubmled across this and it happened to be one of the sketches da croupier v unfortunately had to tolerate to get to his beloved REM performances:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COIEj2v-nik

What the fuck is that shit?

I really hope they found a bunch of old munchkin outfits in a prop closet, and didn't actually have the crew sit around making an elaborate set with costumes so they could tell Janeane Garofalo to get lost for 3 minutes.

And based on the oral history, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the sole intent of the sketch

Ellen Cleghorne was so great, wasn't she?

The fact that Jay Mohr hated her now only makes her more awesome in my eyes.

thought this was the best ep since taylor swift last season tho i was kinda stoned so ymmv

I think Nasim Pedrad is starting to become one of my favorite of the new(er) players. It's a shame Fred Armisen isn't dating her, or else she'd have been promoted to full cast status ahead of Abby Elliott.

being chris elliott's daughter might've helped too, just sayin'

was on (mute) in a bar last night, i see they did a Rent Is Too Damn High guy for what seemed like 20 minutes

one of the best bits!

being chris elliott's daughter might've helped too, just sayin'

the whole 2nd-gen nepotism angle would make more sense if Chris Elliott had been on the show for more than a year. I dunno if the hypothetical children of Tim Kazurinsky have a foot in the door, ya know? I'm sure it didn't hurt, but being attractive and up for impressions probably helped more.

if you think elliott and kazurinsky are comparable then there is nothing more that i can say to you

uh if anything Kazurinsky did more during his SNL stint than Elliott did in his!

also, as far as the abby vs. nasim thing goes, abby's been on longer, don't think people leapfrog their way into the cast (and I think Nasim, who's also attractive and both does impressions and solid character work, is a lock to join soon enough).

super attractive plus longer time on the show

what's the longest someone spent in featured perf purgatory and wasn't just someone who had a spot on update like a. whitney brown or don novello? and kazurinsky did more than elliot the elder during his snl stint.

it is possible that chris elliott, as the son of bob elliott and former writer for david letterman, has quite a few connections and a much better reputation in the comedy world than kazurinsky does. not saying that's the only reason that abby is on the show, but to downplay it is kinda ridic.

ben stiller never made it past featured performer and his parents have way more connections than chris elliot.

If Lorne Michaels was worried about displeasing Chris Elliott I think his season on SNL would have been very different

Dennis Miller makes some joke on the Ben Stiller Show about how Stiller split SNL "after he learned there was no 'I' in team"

you're right. fred armisen's dick is the key player here.

I just learned Armisen used to be married to Sally Timms today!