The Dana Carvey Show - History

History

When The Dana Carvey Show first appeared, it was greeted with above average reviews and a lukewarm response from the audience. Despite the fact that ABC only aired seven episodes of the series, it has maintained a small but loyal following. The first six episodes that aired were officially titled based on the presenting sponsor of the show:

• "The Taco Bell Dana Carvey Show"
• "The Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show"
• "The Mountain Dew Dana Carvey Show"
• "The Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show"
• "The Pepsi Stuff Dana Carvey Show"
• "The Szechuan Dynasty Dana Carvey Show"

This was a homage to the classic television shows that Dana Carvey grew up watching, wherein a variety show would have a single sponsor whose advertising and promotion were integrated with the show.

The show was videotaped at the CBS Broadcast Center at 524 West 57th Street in New York City. As an inside joke to the fact that an ABC television show was being recorded at a rival network, each show's opening announcement stated, "from the ABC Broadcast Center in New York, it's The ________ Dana Carvey Show!" The blank was where the sponsor's name is heard as a man stands at the top of a ladder outside of the Broadcast Center placing the ABC logo over the CBS Eye logo. Dana would then begin the show surrounded by dancers wearing (for example) gigantic Mug Root Beer soda can costumes.

Each of the first five sponsors were products of PepsiCo, Inc.. Shortly after the show's debut, however, PepsiCo announced that its units Taco Bell and Pizza Hut had pulled advertising which would have brought in $600,000 per episode. A spokesperson for the latter told Variety that the company didn't "feel comfortable" with the show based upon the premiere episode's content. An ABC spokesperson also told Variety that some sketches in the premiere "went too far." Nevertheless, Pepsi-Cola and sister company Mug Root Beer remained sponsors. The sixth sponsor was a locally popular Manhattan Chinese restaurant, while the final episode had no presenting sponsor.