- Release Date: May 12, 2009
- Publisher: Shout Factory
- Price: $17.49 on Amazon.com (Buy It
)
- Rating: Not Rated
- Run Time: 210 minutes
- Special Features: Interview with Dana Carvey and Robert Smigel, Deleted Scenes, Unaired Episode
- Starring: Dana Carvey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Elon Gold, Peggy Shay, Bill Chott, Heather Morgan
- Genre: Sketch Comedy
I had never watched an episode of this short-lived show but I had heard nothing but good things about it and decided to give it a chance. When I found out that Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert were both part of the show’s cast, I watched the set as soon as I could. While the show is incredibly inconsistent (most sketch comedies are), there are also a lot of laugh-out-loud moments that easily make this set worth a blind buy for all comedy fans.
“The Dana Carvey Show” was a throwback to the old sketch/variety shows of the past that unfortunately only lasted seven weeks on ABC (an eighth episode was produced but never seen until this DVD set). Even though the show was cancelled so early, it introduced us to Carell and Colbert and even created “The Ambiguously Gay Duo,” which later became a segment on “Saturday Night Live.”
Colbert and Carell are just as hilarious here as they are on their current shows but they aren’t the only two impressive actors in the cast. Pretty much every member of the cast does a great job. The writing is also very good with risky material that hit a home run far more often than struck out. There are a few sketches that I didn’t think were funny at all but every sketch comedy has a few misses every so often.
The video and audio aren’t particularly impressive but the show is over thirteen years old and not exactly the kind of show you would expect to look phenomenal on DVD. Still, the transfers and audio are as good as they are ever going to be so I can’t really complain too much.
The extras included on this set are pretty good. The unaired episode is arguably the best episode of the series so fans will probably want to pick up this set for that extra alone. The interview with Carvey and Smigel is over twenty minutes long and fairly informative. Finally, there are 12 minutes of deleted scenes which are hit-or-miss but definitely worth watching.
If you are a fan of comedy, “The Dana Carvey Show” is a must-watch. Highly recommended.
