Entertainment

The Raunchy, Out-Of-Control 90s Comedy Series Cancelled After One Gloriously Offensive Season

By Robert Scucci
| Published 15 seconds ago

The Dana Carvey Show is a fascinating watch because it was fearlessly ahead of its time, but it’s also so topical that it can really only function as a relic of the past. When it debuted in 1996, it was considered so unhinged and unwholesome that it couldn’t even finish its one-season run before getting pulled from ABC, airing only eight of its planned 10 episodes. Looking back at it today, it plays like pretty standard fare. It’s offensive and edgy, but in that “I can’t believe they got away with this in the 90s” kind of way.

Let me explain. The Dana Carvey Show aired on Thursday nights at 9:30 pm, right after one of the greatest family sitcoms of all time, Home Improvement. Sponsors weren’t comfortable kicking things off with a Mature Audiences disclaimer because they worried it would alienate viewers.

What they didn’t anticipate was that the first sketch of the premiere episode, depicting Bill Clinton breastfeeding a baby doll and several barnyard animals with a chest full of prosthetic nipples, would do all the heavy lifting in scaring away potential audiences and sponsors. Mission accomplished.

Edgy 90s Liberal Boomer Funny, Not Haha Funny

Like most sketch shows that lean hard into topical humor, The Dana Carvey Show lives and dies by the news cycle. Carvey delivers his takes on Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Jay Leno, H. Ross Perot, and a long list of political and celebrity figures. It’s funny in the moment if you’re actively living through the news cycle it’s roasting, but it’s also the kind of humor that doesn’t have much staying power. Tuning into The Dana Carvey Show in 2026 specifically for those sketches can feel underwhelming because topical humor rarely transcends generations the way more evergreen material does.

South Park’s most recent seasons fell into this trap as well, pulling in huge viewership numbers for headline-driven episodes that are met with mixed reviews later. It’s not that the jokes aren’t funny, they just don’t always age gracefully because the context of its humor evaporates over time.

The Dana Carvey Show truly shines when it leans into its more absurd and surreal instincts. Sketches like “Grandma the Clown,” “Waiters Who Are Nauseated by Food,” “Skinheads from Maine,” and “11 O’Clock News That’s Easy to Take” still work because they stand on their own. There’s no need to lampoon whatever dominated the headlines that week in these bits, which is why the comedy still lands decades later. There’s material coming out today with similar sensibilities, and these sketches feel right at home alongside it.

My personal favorite recurring sketch involves two painfully stupid pranksters, portrayed by Dana Carvey and Steve Carell. The pranksters roll up to a drive-thru or a movie ticket counter, pay for a good or service while trying not to laugh, then sprint away giggling like lunatics as if they just pulled off the heist of the century.

As the episodes progress, the bits escalate, culminating in the duo paying a prostitute $300 for a threesome, only to bolt from the room cackling and congratulating themselves for being comedy geniuses. It’s juvenile and ridiculous, but that’s what makes it so funny. It’s two grown men playing a modified version of ding dong ditch and having the time of their lives, and that’s all it ever needs to be.

Sponsors And Time Slot Were The Show’s Undoing

Had The Dana Carvey Show aired at 11:00 pm on a Friday night instead of closing out ABC’s Thursday primetime lineup, its fate might have been very different. Each episode blatantly named its corporate sponsor, as in The Mountain Dew Dana Carvey Show, which made advertisers understandably nervous given the show’s willingness to push buttons. PepsiCo, Inc. sponsored the first five episodes, but its restaurant affiliates, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, were immediately turned off by the series premiere’s opening sketch, reportedly pulling out of a deal that would have brought in roughly $600,000 per episode.

The Dana Carvey Show felt doomed from day one, but I’m glad it still exists on streaming. It helped put Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert on the map, and it introduced Robert Smigel’s Ambiguously Gay Duo, which would later find a permanent home on SNL as a recurring animated segment. For a show that barely survived eight episodes, its comedy tree has surprisingly deep roots.

While I’m usually turned off by hyper-topical humor, I’d still recommend The Dana Carvey Show to any sketch comedy fan with the patience to wait for the truly timeless bits sprinkled throughout its run. And if you’re curious about the chaos behind the scenes, 2017’s Too Funny to Fail is essential viewing. Everybody involved with The Dana Carvey Show speaks fondly about what went into its production, how the sponsors reacted, and how ABC ended up airing The Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show immediately after a heartwarming Home Improvement episode in which Randy faces a cancer scare. It’s one of those rare instances where the humor surrounding a series’ controversies is more memorable than the show itself.