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Dana
Carvey
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actor Dana Carvey led a near-monastic existence while
growing up in Montana, not out of choice but because the truly
popular kids were bigger and better-looking. "I was a
fetus in shoes" commented Carvey on his high-school years.
While attending San Francisco State University, Carvey launched
his career as a stand-up comic. The going was rugged for a
while, but by 1981 Carvey had built up enough of a reputation
to earn second billing on the Mickey Rooney TV sitcom One
of the Boys. Though the show was cancelled by mid-1982, Carvey
was now on a roll. In 1984, he showed up as a regular on the
TV police adventure series Blue Thunder, and was spotlighted
in the parody rockumentary film This is Spinal Tap; two years
later he was signed as a regular on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
Carvey's gallery of comic characterizations is too vast to
fully recount here, but his greatest popularity rested on
two recurring characters. As "The Church Lady" (an
amalgam of all the well-meaning pious neighbors Carvey had
known while growing up), Carvey entered the Catchphrase Lexicon
with his oft-repeated "Isn't that special?" and
"Could it be....SATAN?" And as mop-topped teenage
couch potato Garth (again drawn from life--this time based
on Dana's brother Brad), Carvey was teamed with Mike Myers
in a flawless on-going parody of cheap cable-access television.
After a misfire movie vehicle, 1990's Opportunity Knocks,
Carvey became a major box-office commodity by co-starring
with Mike Myers in the megahit Wayne's World (1992). While
the 1993 sequel Wayne's World 2 didn't quite match the take
of the original, Carvey was artistically satisfied that same
year with an Emmy award for his performance as H. Ross Perot
(among others) on TV's Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash.
Undaunted by the lack of response to Opportunity Knocks, Carvey
once again took a stab at solo success with the similarly
panned Clean Slate in 1994. After appearing in a pair of supporting
roles (Trapped in Paradise and The Road to Wellville (both
1994)) and a cameo (1996's The Shot) shortly thereafter, Carvey
disappeared almost entriely from the public eye until resurfacing
in the 1999 Saturday Night Live; Presidential Bash and once
again taking a small role in Adam Sandler's Little Nicky (2000).
Eager to resume his once lucrative career and make a feature
that his children could enjoy, Carvey returned to the silver
screen as an Italian waiter who takes the art of mimicry to
new and uncharted heights in The Master of Disguise (2002).
-- Hal Erickson |
Dana Carvey Fan Message Board
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