Party Off

No, he doesn't.

This past weekend, Dana Carvey hosted SNL, and I was dreading it. I loved Carvey growing up; he was one of the stars of the Saturday Night Live of my generation, and some consider that cast the best of all time. I also loved Carvey's first stand-up special on HBO, and I loved The Dana Carvey Show, which introduced Steve Carell and Steven Colbert to the world and served as a stepping stone for comedy greats like Louis CK, Bob Odenkirk and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.

But then I saw his 2008 special, Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies, and I couldn't stand it. He was still telling Bill Clinton and OJ jokes, and it irritated the hell out of me. It felt like coasting, who wants to watch people they admire half-ass it?

When I saw that Carvey was hosting SNL, I was bummed. I was worried that it was going to be a showcase of Carvey's greatest hits, with Perot awkwardly wedged in to comment on Egypt or something.. Sure enough, the show opened with Wayne's World:





Now, the first time I saw this, I laughed a fair amount, and I didn't think that Myers & Carvey embarrassed themselves. But re-watching it and thinking about it, I was struck by how much that chemistry was just a bit off. Early in the sketch, Carvey high-fives Myers' fist-pump, a neat summary of the sketch: familiar, but off.

Part of me was distracted by Myers and Carvey's history; which this Entertainment Weekly article on Myers discusses.

In 1991, Myers got the green light to bring the much-loved ''Wayne's World'' sketch to the big screen. But what should have been a moment of triumph soon began to sour. According to several accounts, including a Vanity Fair article in 2000, Myers felt threatened by his more famous SNL costar, Dana Carvey, who played Wayne's nerdy sidekick, Garth. ''Mike didn't want Dana in the movie because he felt insecure that someone who had his own creative ideas would get in the way,'' says one source involved in the production.

(Anybody got a link to that Vanity Fair article?)

As time has passed, Carvey and Myers have gone their separate ways, and after Love Guru, I'm pretty sure Myers has lifted the anchor on reality and is currently swimming around inside his own head. Time hasn't been kind to their chemistry, to put it mildly. (During the closing credits, they were standing on different sides of the stage, not even acknowledging each other.)

The Wayne's World sketch was lacking, but the Church Lady sketch was a nightmare. Hell, the Church Lady was tired and beaten into the ground before Carvey left SNL. Adding Justin Bieber (who was born 7 years after the Church Lady debuted OH MY GOD I'M OLD) to the sketch didn't make it work again. Anybody who thought that sketch was good needs to get their head out of their nostalgia.

There was also a brief cameo by Jon Lovitz, and Carvey did Mickey Rooney and Regis Philbin (which was actually relevant, since he retired this week.) It was, in some ways, better than I expected, but I expected something terrible. This was just uninspired. A shame.