Before SNL
Dana Carvey was born in Missoula, Montana on June 2, 1955. Raised in a middle class family in San Carlos, California, Carvey quickly fell in love with comedy; often times creating impressions of his favorite T.V. show characters. After graduating from high school, Carvey attended San Francisco State University where he majored in Communication Arts. During his time at San Francisco State, Carvey began performing stand-up comedy with impressions and character acting making up the majority of his act.
In 1981, Carvey decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a television actor. Carvey eventually earned a role opposite Mickey Rooney and Nathan Lane on the 1982 sitcom One of the Boys. The show was cancelled after eight months and Carvey decided to try his hand at action with the 1984 TV adaptation of the popular film Blue Thunder. Following its release, Carvey found that he no longer had an desire to continue his Hollywood career and decided to go back to performing stand-up. It was at one of Carvey’s stand-up shows that he was discovered by producer Lorne Michaels who then offered him a job as a repertory cast member on Saturday Night Live.
Studio 8H
Carvey’s SNL career began at a very turbulent time for the show. Lorne had just fired 11 of the 14 cast members from the previous season (season 11) and was in the midst of completely overhauling the SNL staff due to NBC’s disappointment with the show’s poor ratings. Much to Lorne’s delight, Carvey immediately stepped in and began winning over audiences with his fantastic impressions and character acting. Carvey’s most famous impression was of U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
One of Carvey’s most beloved characters and my personal favorite was Church Lady. (Fun Fact: Carvey created Church Lady during his college stand-up career)
However, Carvey’s most famous character was none other than Garth Algar, the lovable metal head opposite Mike Myers’s Wayne Campbell.
Carvey decided to leave SNL in 1993 after seven seasons with the show. He would later go on to host the show four times.
Outside Work
Carvey’s first huge success outside of SNL actually came while was still a cast member. In 1992, Carvey and Mike Myers transformed their hit SNL sketch into a movie entitled Wayne’s World.
Carvey and Myers would go on to release a sequel entitled Wayne’s World 2 in 1993 before the two split and began working on their own various projects. One of Carvey’s most notable projects was his 1996 sketch comedy show on ABC called The Dana Carvey Show. Even though it only lasted eight episodes, the show was responsible for jumpstarting the careers of Steve Carell and Steven Colbert, as well as popularizing Robert Smigel’s cartoon The Ambiguously Gay Duo, which led to the beloved SNL sketch TV Funhouse.
Aside from Wayne’s World and The Dana Carvey Show, Carvey has generally faltered in his non-SNL pursuits. After his operation for a blocked artery in 1997, Carvey began to limit his acting appearances to focus more on his family. Some notable Dana Carvey films include: Trapped in Paradise in 1994, The Road to Wellville also in 1994, Little Nicky in 2000, and The Master of Disguise in 2002.
Opinion
Dana Carvey and the rest of the cast of season 12 essentially saved SNL from being cancelled (NBC executives were planning on doing it at the end of season 11). Often times underrated or labeled as Mike Myers’s sidekick, people seem to forget that Carvey was on SNL for two and a half seasons before Myers was hired. The case can even be made that Carvey was one of the best impressionists in SNL history (Fun Fact: During his SNL career Carvey performed 72 different celebrity impressions). I can only hope that Carvey decides to come back and host again sometime.
