Customer Reviews

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Dana Carvey

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Dana Carvey is one of the funniest and most talented comedians to have ever appeared on SNL. Although his film career did not truly take off, like many other SNL alumni to follow, he is among the finest when it comes to comedic material and timing.

Best known for his impressions, his "Best of" DVD is loaded with them. George Bush, Regis, Jimmy Stewart, Ross Perot, George Michael, Johnny Carson, etc... Some of our old favorites are also revisited: The Church Lady, Garth Algar, Hans and a Grumpy Old Man. Whichever is your favorite, you will enjoy them all. This is some of the best material Saturday Night Live has to offer, courtesy of their best impressionist to date.

Also included on the DVD you will find Carvey's original SNL audition tape footage and appearances on Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien.

In my opinion, out of the three SNl Best Of's that i have watched so far (Will Ferrell volumes 1 and 2, and Chris Farley) this is the funniest and best yet. Dana Carvey is a brilliant impressionist and is able to transform his own natural voice into anything he wants to. Whether it be The Church Lady, Hans, Garth, George Bush...etc. The other two Best Of's that i watched actually left out some of the more funnier sketches. I believe the sketches compiled into this DVD are the funniest Dana Carvey did. Also, the extras are great too. You can watch Dana's original audition for SNL, watch many outtakes, a sketch that was actually completely cut from the actual show, and his appearances on Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. Highly recommended for Dana Carvey fans, SNL fans, or just comedian fans in general...Expect to be laughing to the point of tears in this great DVD!

Well, any SNL or Dana fan will be very disappointed in this DVD.

The Church Lady and the Church Chat bits. One of his classic characters right? NOT one entire sketch. They cut up several of them. Just ruined the whole thing.

Wayne's World, cut up.

Other sketches cut up.

This has been done on several of the SNL Best Of DVD's.

Very disappointing, a let down.

The multi-talented comedian Dana Carvey gets his due here, and rightly so. During his seven-year stay (1986-1993), Carvey run the gamut from hilarious impersonations (Jimmy Stewart, George Bush, Sr., Ross Perot, Mickey Rooney) to memorable characters (Church Lady, The Pepper Guy, Massive Headwound Harry) to classic sketches (Church Lady, Hans & Franz, Wayne's World). A stand-up comedy veteran even before he arrived on SNL, there was almost nothing Carvey couldn't do on the show. And when he did leave, he took a trunk load of his material with him, leaving a gaping hole in the show's comedy format.
It was SNL's loss.
Happily, this collection really showcases some of Carvey's best work on the show. And as the Church Lady might say: "Well, Isn't THAT special??"

This has some of the greatest sketches that Dana Carvey had to offer during his time with SNL. I honestly beleive that alot of the DVDs miss out on the truely funny moments on some of their cast members, and place in some of the okay scenes. All of the funny ones that I remember from watching many moons ago they are all here and just as funny as I remember. If you loved Carvey on SNL, then this is a definite must have for your collection.

Along with Mike Myers, Dana Carvey helped to create some of the most memorable characters on SNL during the 90's (Wayne and Garth, Hanz & Franz, Church Lady, etc.) This video shows some of the best moments from his wonderful career on that show, which (unfortunately) overshadowed his attempts to break out of his SNL shell with flops like his short-lived talk show and movies like Master Of Disguise. But despite his recent failings, we can always go back and revisit his best moments with this video.

I used to be a fan of SNL mainly because of Dana Carvey. I was looking forward to this DVD, but was very disappointed by the selection. This is definitely not the best of Dana Carvey on SNL! Dana used to be laugh-out-loud funny, but there is not much of that on this DVD.

It is possible that for others the selections on this DVD are exactly what they hoped to see. That is always the danger with this type of "best of" compilations. The DVD is inexpensive, so if you are a fan of Dana, it is still a worthwhile purchase. And there are some good moments.

I call this the second generation SNL funny people, and I'm collecting them too. Dana and Mike Myers were the leaders of the pack, but brought some more subtle humor to couple with the gut busting laughter they generated.

Most of your favorites will appear, even some you forgot about like: "you like-a de' pepper?" An uproarious sketch I forgot all about. It's on of those sketches even they can't stop laughing at.

And, that is why you don't edit the sketch down to SECONDS long in some cases. SNL is funny because we love to watch the actors feed off of each other. Seeing a few minutes of Church Lady is like seeing none of it once I get mad at the TV for cutting the sketch short. And, some of them are literally seconds long. We need to see the whole sketch to watch all of the subtle looks and expressions that happened on the show then. At points I feel like I bought a DVD that is an infomercial for another seperate real DVD I can't buy. I'm not showing this to a room full of ADD patients, I am sitting back on my couch trying to enjoy Dana Carvey change the face of comedy and save SNL from near insignificance...following the years when Joe Piscopo was the anchor of the cast AKA the funniest of the non-funny. Don't play any of the sketch if you plan to edit out any of it, please!

You decide for yourself, knowing the above, if you think it is worth it. I am a massive Dana Carvey fan and would probably pay to see him read from the phonebook so it was worth it to me. But I am left with a sour taste in my mouth from the editing.

I bought this because I look back at those years of SNL with happy memories that I still remember to this day. Dana Carvey's bit of the Church Lady is what I really wanted to see again. This DVD has the skit of Church Lady that I remember the most. The one with Sean Penn when he was married to Madonna and being offered ten million dracmas for the dancing woman skit. Kinda wish that the whole DVD was about Church Lady but it has many skits of his that I forgot about. If you loved Dana Carvey, then get this DVD. It will make you laugh and smile.