dana carvey

The Dana Carvey Show is one of my favorite sketch comedy shows of all-time. It was massively creative, probably well ahead of its time, hell on advertisers, and some of it was funnier than SCTV in its glory days. So of course it didn't last that long.

Now Carvey and Spike Feresten have announced that they're joining forces to do a new sketch show for FOX. It doesn't have a name yet, but both FOX and ABC were interested in it. They went with FOX because they'll probably be more friendly to a weird sketch show like this (and also let's not forget that The Dana Carvey Show was on ABC). Carvey and Feresten will write and star in the show. The pilot will be filmed in February.

Feresten was a writer on Carvey's old show? For some reason I didn't know that. That makes me want to see this new show even more. Both of these guys should be on TV again. (You can watch all 8 episodes of The Dana Carvey Show at SlashControl.)

Thursday's return of 30 Rock afforded a pretty fun segue into The Jay Leno Show. 30 Rock has always been a little self-aware, and here they took that to the next level. During the closing credits, Jack (Alec Baldwin) said to Liz (Tina Fey), "Step into the light, Lemon. There's nothing wrong with being fun and popular and just giving people what they want." He then turns directly to the camera and adds: "Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Leno."

Unfortunately, when we cut to The Jay Leno Show, his dancing girls (an homage to Jenna's video in 30 Rock) were better at looking good in their tight shorts than they were at dancing. Then, after Leno came out, we got to overhear a woman wanting to get something signed. "Can I leave it?"

I did enjoy the smooth transition into the show. It creates a sense of synergy on the network where you feel like all these shows are one big happy family. Except for Southland. But I guess there's always that one relative nobody wants around ... Hey, I just wrote a Jay Leno joke!

This is an interesting find: the Saturday Night Live audition tapes for Phil Hartman, John Belushi, Will Ferrell, and Dana Carvey. Below is Hartman's audition, and after the jump Carvey's two audition bits (Choppin' Broccoli!).

This installment of Sketch Comedy Saturday is less about you pining for new episodes of Saturday Night Live and more about me having an excuse to use this old image of Stephen Colbert with a puppy. It makes me sick, it's so adorable. Unfortunately, The Dana Carvey Show wasn't just twenty-some minutes of Mr. Colbert nonchalantly holding baby animals, but it was still a pretty funny program.

Radner. Louis-Dreyfus. Poehler. Fey. Shannon.

Suffice it to say, the number of women who became famous on Saturday Night Live before graduating to solo success is few and far between. Sure, Gilda Radner can be considered a pioneer in the art of sketch comedy. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus undoubtedly honed her comedic skills before becoming a sitcom icon on Seinfeld. And, yes, Tina Fey can easily be considered a heroine to comedy nerds everywhere who have witnessed her climb from Weekend Update anchor to Mean Girls scribe to single-handedly decimating the vice presidential chances of one certain gun-wieldin', six-pack-totin' Alaskan governor.

But, sadly, the number of men who left Studio 8 for the superstardom of Planet Hollywood (not the theme restaurant) easily outnumbers the ladies. For every Amy Poehler, there's a Will Ferrell. And a Bill Murray. And a Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler (although, to be fair, there's also a David Gary Kroeger, A. Whitney Brown, and Charles Rocket for every Melanie Hutsell, too). (And for the record, no, you shouldn't recognize those names.)

• NBC has U.S. Open golf all night until 10pm.
• At 8, FOX has a new Cops.
• TCM has A Face in the Crowd at 8.
• At 8:30, ESPN2 has the Meijer 300 NASCAR race.
• At 9, FOX has a new America's Most Wanted.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• Food Network has Unwrapped: Disney World Resort, followed by Amusement Park Eats.
• Nickelodeon has a new Dance on Sunset at 9.
• Cartoon Network has two new episodes of Naruto starting at 9.
• Also at 9: BBC America has a new Robin Hood, then a new Graham Norton Show.
• At 10, HBO has the special Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies.

Check your local TV listings for more.

As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 20-11, we here at TV Squad are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the Saturday Night Live cast members from 1975-1985 that made it to the big time. This week, we focus on the SNL casts from 1986 to 2006.

Aside from the first season of Lorne Michaels' return to the show he created and the 1994-95 season, this period was a very successful one for SNL, introducing a slew of characters and sketches that fans of the show still talk about today. It also produced a good number of Not Ready for Prime-Time Players who went on to bigger things in television and the movies (and some theater as well). Sometimes those bigger things were movies or television shows based on characters developed on SNL.

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"Pope in America: Blessed Week Ever": As promised... Popewatch! The Pope is in America and the media has been going absolutely nuts. Their fawning descriptions of Pope Benedict have been appropriately Pope-ish. The intensity of this coverage confused Jon though, as he was still under the impression that the Jews ran the media. I think my favorite part of that JNN clip was the crawl along the bottom. "Weather: Chilly, wear a jacket.... Eat up! You're skin and bones.... Next door neighbor a doctor... A doctor!.... Oil $110 a barrel, but for you $90.... Rachel Weisz: She's a Jew you know..."

As most of you already know, Late Night with Conan O'Brien will be coming at ya from San Francisco for a full week starting this Monday, April 30.

There's a pretty cool list of guests lined up for the week, including Dana Carvey, Chris Isaak and Will Arnett. Of course, we'll also have to tolerate Robin Williams on May 2 (and he's listed as the only guest for that night, which is even more disturbing). Unless Williams miraculously figures out the difference between comedic improv and annoying self-indulgence before he appears on the show I'll be telling my Tivo to skip that episode.

Although I was only five or six when the very short-lived series One of the Boys aired, I think I actually remember it. At least, I remember Mickey Rooney being in it. I had no idea who the rest of the cast was, and neither would anyone else until years later.

The show centered on Rooney, who moved in with his college-age grandson (played by Dana Carvey) and his roommate, played by Nathan Lane. Meg Ryan also starred in the series, which, according to IMDb, ran for a whopping eight episodes.

Wait a second. Is this Blue Thunder, the short-lived 80s action-adventure series starring James Farantino and Dana Carvey? And it's coming to DVD in August? Yikes. Hey, I'm a big fan of short-lived, obscure TV shows from the 80s, but I can think of about 50 or 60 other shows I would like to see on DVD before this one.

But it's an interesting 80s curio nonetheless. Yes, that is the same Dana Carvey from Saturday Night Live. Before he got that gig, he was Clinton Wonderlove (wow, now there's a great character name), the computer whiz sidekick to hero James Farentino's character. And to show just how much of an 80s action show this was, it also starred not only Dick Butkus, but Bubba Smith!

Remember the good ol' days of Saturday Night Live? You can. On your video iPod, or just on your computer. This week, iTunes released all sorts of video clips that span the last 30 years of Saturday Night Live. You can purchase individual sketches, including The Hanukkah Song, Wake Up and Smile, Schwetty Balls, Motivational Speaker, plus a few oldies-but-goodies like Word Association with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor, and King Tut with Steve Martin. There are also all sorts of commercial parodies such as Colon Blow, Oops I Crapped My Pants, and Mom Jeans (what? no Clear Gravy?). You really have to love those sketches, though, because they each cost $2. The collection is by no means complete, but it looks as though SNL is just getting started. For instance, I didn't see any of the Wayne's World or Church Lady sketches available for individual purchase. However, those are included on the "Best Of" compilations that are also available for download, for $10.