Greatest out of work actor of the day: Dana Carvey

Now I know what you are thinking.. “This is movie geeks and Dana Carvey was only on SNL and not in many movies and those movies were just long SNL skits.” OK, you got me but wasn’t he great in Wayne’s World? You will always remember him as Garth playing second fiddle to Mike Myers as Wayne. And Trapped in Paradise was a fun movie with Nicholas Cage and Jon Lovitz.

So lets start from the beginning and plagiarize from Wikipedia. Dana was born in Missoula, Montana and moved to the Bay Area in California. He got a drum set young so that explains the Church Lady rockin’ the skins and Garth proclaiming, “I like to play.” His first movie roll was in Halloween II a flick I have not seen … sorry, not a horror fan. He was then in a sitcom with Mickey Rooney, Nathan Lane and Meg Ryan and had a small roll in This is Spinal Tap which now makes me want to go watch that for the fact I don’t remember it was Dana Carvey!

In 1986 he joined SNL and performed some great skits and created some great characters that he will be remembered for for a long long time. We all know The Church Lady, Hans and of course Garth. This is where his career peaked and overshadowed by Mike Myers. I hate to say it but since SNL what has he done? and what has Mike Myers done?!! These two guys were pretty equal in terms of popularity on SNL yet Carvey was always Garth to Myers’ Wayne, always second banana, the sidekick

After SNL Carvey had a show….what? he had a show??! of his own? what?! it was named after him?! That’s right! In 1996 there was The Dana Carvey Show and I do not remember this at all! I wish I could write more about this but i have nothing.

In 1997 a tragedy occurred. He had a botched heart surgery which left him close to death. The surgery was for a blocked artery (I suppose he wasn’t eating well and NOT chopping broccoli). He sued, like you do in America, won and donated the money to charity. He must be doing pretty well if he can donate $7.5 million! I bet it’s from all those Hollywood blockbusters… what? no blockbusters? huh? no movies period?! That’s right, he hasn’t done a movie since 2002 when he was Pistachio Disguisey in The Master of Disguise. I know it was a kids movie and I am not a kid but this thing was bad! It was cheesy with extra cheese. I wish I had something good to say about it. I wish I had an update for you and could mention another movie but according to IMDB.com that was his last movie. Dana Carvey was so great on SNL and at the same time this movie came out his old cohort Mike Myers was raking in the dough making blockbusters left and right.

So at this juncture I think it would be prudent to wish Dana Carvey the best of luck and may he grace the silver screen, or small screen, again some day soon.