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Dana Carvey: A life in film

Time Out wonders what happened to comedy actor Dana Carvey as his one-time partner Mike Myers releases 'The Love Guru' into UK cinemas

In his unusually warm and thoughtful eulogy to Homer Simpson’s favourite President (Gerald Ford), George H. W. Bush praised the former Commander-in-Chief’s humility in the face of overbearing odds. He recalled how Ford had laughed along with the less-than-flattering impression of him that was being delivered every week on American TVs ‘Saturday Night Live’ by sweaty comedy leviathan Chevy Chase. ‘I'd tell you more about that,’ Bush continued conspiratorially, ‘but as Dana Carvey would say, “Not gonna do it! Wouldn't be prudent!”’

It was a rare public show of tenderness from Bush Snr. – albeit one that managed to shoehorn a none-too-crafty allusion to his own ability to take a joke. But more than that, it illustrated just how deeply ingrained in the American consciousness that fresh-faced, mirth-minstrel Carvey had become. With Mike Myers receiving less-than-sterling notices for his latest celluloid skidmark, ‘The Love Guru’ (‘An oh-my-God-level disaster that’ll make you wonder if Hollywood actually hates us,’ wrote Time Out New York), we take a look back over Carvey’s career and wonder if there's any chance he could come back and save us?

As a child actor, the young Dana Thomas Carvey all but patented the role of ‘Wiseacre Kid’ in a succession of TV movies and sitcom pilots. He made the character so much his own that when Hollywood producers were casting the part of ‘Flippant Bozo #1’ in ‘Halloween II’ there was only one name on the rolodex. That it didn’t cement his place in the tinseltown firmament has more to do with the film’s botched marketing campaign – ‘You’ll barf ‘til you fill your pants!’ – than it did with Carvey’s shrewd performance.

In 1984 he was lured back onto the small screen for the plum role of Clinton Wonderlove in a TV adaptation of rickety Roy Scheider helicopter nonsense ‘Blue Thunder’. As superfluous co-pilot/annoying sidekick/prank monkey, opposite square-jawed nearly-man James Farentino, he was free to interject unscripted funnies and hone his various impressions and comic voices. It lasted all of 11 episodes.

Carvey in 'Trapped in Paradise'

Other short-lived television ventures included a recurring role in ‘Slickers’, a sitcom starring Michael Richards (Kramer from ‘Seinfeld’) as a redneck sheriff, and ‘One of the Boys’ which featured the disparate talents of Meg Ryan, Mickey Rooney and Scatman Crothers. Neither received much attention and, in the case of the former, it is rumoured that many episodes were filmed with the cameras switched off.

But not even these copper-bottomed duds could keep him out of the game for long, and after somehow landing a job on America’s favourite underwhelming comedy juggernaut ‘Saturday Night Live’, his place in the national bosom was assured. It also allowed him to follow in the footsteps of many previous cast members and go on to enjoy a highly lucrative and thoroughly dismal career in motion pictures.

Of course, for every Bill Murray or Eddie Murphy that made the leap to genuine big-screen stardom there are a dozen David Spades, a hundred Chris Farleys and – god help us all – a seemingly endless parade of Joe Piscopos, and Carvey seemed destined to see out his days as a stalwart member of this second category of workaday jesters.

Now being cast by directors hoping to pull in fans of his TV work, he was regularly given free rein to fanny about in the background of such otherwise passable films as Richard Pryor's yuppie-flight comedy ‘Moving’. He might occasionally get the chance to look eminently uncomfortable as the romantic lead in such howlers as '90s coincidence-heavy con-man caper ‘Opportunity Knocks’, but nobody truly expected him to make much of a mark on the silver screen. And it might very well have remained thus but for a chance meeting with a perky Canadian pipsqueak named Mike Myers.

Together they single-handedly revived the fortunes of the ailing ‘SNL’ with the lo-fi exploits of puerile metalheads Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar. One of the rare examples of a much-loved sketch making the successful transition to a feature length movie, Penelope Spheeris’s 1992 film version of ‘Wayne’s World’ remains one of the biggest grossing comedies of all time.Basing the nerdy but loveable character of Garth on his brother Brad (the real life inventor of the Video Toaster, which, disappointingly, turns out not to be what you hoped), Carvey would seem to have finally made the grade, but an innate playfulness appeared to inform his subsequent career choices.

If Myers understood the necessity of taking a few career gambles (imbuing a fierce ogre with a lilting Scottish brogue; trusting American multiplex audiences to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the social topography of the late-sixties West London art scene etc.), then Carvey, it seems, wasn’t above making the odd movie for a bet.

Carvey as Pistachio Disguisey

What else could explain the tortuous Mickey Rourke impression he adopted for the entirety of ‘Trapped in Paradise’ or his decision to fritter away his talents in Alan Parker’s period colonic irrigation laugh riot, ‘The Road to Wellville’?

He was laid low in 1997, undergoing some staggeringly botched heart-surgery during which the sawbones operated on the wrong artery. The situation saw him ensconsed on the comedy subs bench for the next few years.

His most recent role was as the hastily monickered Pistachio Disguisey in the woeful 2002 effort ‘Master of Disguise’. It is a film with an elegiac, almost funereal approach to comedy, as if Carvey is showcasing his array of comedy personas and celebrity impersonations for the very last time… It remains his swansong.

Author: Adam Lee Davies

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User comments on this story

ed said...

he also popped up in LITTLE NICKY... as a basketball ref from hell... turd of a film Posted on Aug 11 2008 11:09

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Colin Davis said...

"Bush jnr. has, as you point out, made himself a big enough target for lampoonery that anyone feeling the need to satirise him need never have to resort to fabrication."
Well said. Thanks for your swift response. Posted on Aug 02 2008 15:50

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Adam Lee Davies said...

You are indeed correct to point out the inaccuracy. Urban legend had it that it the line was delivered by the current White House incumbent. Having gleefully jotted this juicy titbit down, I can assure you I went on to watch the full speech on youtube and, as you say, found no trace of it in W's eloquent eulogy.
A minor search proved it to be have actually been delivered by his father (thus altering the tenor of the comments greatly), but somewhere along the line a couple of wires got crossed and I kept the original line as it was.
Bush jnr. has, as you point out, made himself a big enough target for lampoonery that anyone feeling the need to satirise him need never have to resort to fabrication. That was never the intention.
The piece will be duly ammended at the first possible opportunity.
Apologies for any offence this might have caused.
Adam Lee Davies Posted on Aug 02 2008 15:26

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Colin Davis said...

Adam Lee Davies begins his profile on Dana Carvey by relating an anecdote about the funeral of President Gerald Ford:
<begin quote>
"George W Bush praised the former Commander-in-Chief’s humility in the face of overbearing odds. He recalled how Ford had laughed along with the less-than-flattering impression of him that was being delivered every week on American TVs ‘Saturday Night Live’ by sweaty comedy leviathan Chevy Chase. ‘I'd tell you more about that,’ Bush continued conspiratorially, ‘but as Dana Carvey would say, “Not gonna do it! Wouldn't be prudent!”’
As much as it tells us about Bush’s capacity for performing gormless, adolescent comedy skits to Ford’s grieving, 89-year-old widow, it tells us much more about how deeply ingrained in the American consciousness that fresh-faced, mirth-minstrel Carvey had become.
<end quote>
This anecdote made me curious -- something just didn't sound right. Though the current President clearly has the capacity to make a buffoon of himself, surely his speech at a function like this would be written for him by someone who understood the nature of the occasion, and carefully checked by his staff? Does this mean he decided to ad-lib some adolescent humour on the spur of the moment?
Actually, no. You can find his full speech on YouTube, and, for George W., it's a well-crafted and well-delivered speech that hits exactly the right note. Just one more Google search reveals that the Dana Carvey impression was performed by the president's *father* (George H. W. Bush), an octogenarian who has been out of public office for over 15 years (and was a close friend of the Fords).
So in fact, this anecdote tells us nothing (true) about George W Bush, but much more about the attention to detail and accuracy on the part of the author and subeditors of this piece.
Not as good a story perhaps, but it's important to get it right, no? Posted on Aug 02 2008 14:40

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