Too Funny to Fail Pt 02
Hulu's 'Too Funny To Fail' Is a Must-Stream For Comedy Nerds
Photo: Hulu
The Dana Carvey Show is a comedy outlier. Briefly airing on ABC in the spring of 1996, the high-profile sketch series has the ignoble distinction of being one of the most notorious failures in TV history, which in hindsight is both surprising and infuriatingly predictable. Surprising because a comedy show from the minds of Carvey, Robert Smigel, Louis C.K., Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Bob Odenkirk, and Charlie Kaufman (among others) should be a sure thing. Predictable because this avant-garde series that produced bitingly original counter-culture humor was airing after Home Improvement, the king of safe, traditional family sitcoms and hilarious male grunts. Even the funniest square peg can't make a round hole chuckle.
"We're putting on a show that hasn't been seen on prime time in many years," Carvey said, addressing the audience during the premiere episode. "We hope that the audience embraces it and is ready for this kind of thing."
They weren't.
Now streaming on Hulu, Too Funny To Fail is one of the most entertaining comedy documentaries in recent history. Written and directed by Josh Greenbaum (who was also behind the inventive Hulu docBecoming Bond) the film features Carvey, Carell, Colbert, Smigel, and more reminiscing about the wonderful, absurd slice of comedy life that was The Taco Bell/Mountain Dew/Mug Root Beer/Szechuan Dynasty Dana Carvey Show. After his stint onSNL and the world-wide success of Wayne's World, Carvey was one of the most sought after stars in Hollywood; he even famously turned down the job as host of Late Night (which would eventually go to Conan O'Brien). The prospect of a Dana Carvey prime time sketch series was too lucrative for ABC to ignore. But little did they know they weren't getting the same "Church Lady" Dana Carvey mainstream audiences fell in love with on Saturday Night Live, a fact the show made abundantly clear during the first sketch of the premiere episode.
Wanting to showcase its rebellious nature, the show's first sketch was the now infamous "Bill Clinton Breastfeeding Babies, Puppies, and Kittens" bit, which resulted in the series losing around six million (that's right, million) viewers they inherited from Home Improvement in the first five minutes and Taco Bell pulling its sponsorship.
"In retrospect, it's kind of remarkable that we got so many people to do the same thing all over the country at the same time," writer Robert Carlock says in the doc.
Too Funny To Fail features a trove of new information and delightful anecdotes from the stars and writers, including a genuinely touching story within a story about the enduring friendship between Steve Carell and Steven Colbert. Director Josh Greenbaum adds a number of subtle comedic touches that inject a palpable enthusiasm to the storytelling, which in turn makes Too Funny To Fail so much damn fun to watch. Greenbaum's admiration for the subject matter is obvious and his knack for enthralling, unconventional storytelling enhances the viewing experience. He's also adept at adding nuance to the complexities of the question of success vs. failure.
The Dana Carvey Show, objectively, was a spectacular failure in the way people wearing expensive suits who routinely use phrases like "allocation rate" quantify these sorts of things. But to me, a comedy nerd from a small town who has vivid memories of watching this glorious trainwreck live, it was a beacon of inspiration and originality. These renegade comedy nerds infiltrated the status quo and snuck some of the weirdest, most inventive comedy ever created onto network television. If an enduring legacy of devotion from legions of comedy nerds translates to failure, then we should all aspire to be failures.
Perhaps that will be the lasting legacy of The Dana Carvey Show,a seminal viewing experience for some, but an unmitigated disaster to most. Sometimes genius is ignored; other times it only gets to air seven episodes before being replaced by a rerun of Coach. Regardless, Josh Greenbaum's documentary is the epitome of the term must-stream for anyone who grew up desperately trying to fight off sleep so they could hear "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night." Even if you don't know know your Dana Carvey from your Phil Hartman, Too Funny to Fail is an entertaining look back at one of the most ambitious shows in TV history.
Both Too Funny To Fail and all eight episodes of The Dana Carvey Show are now streaming on Hulu.
Stream Too Funny to Fail on Hulu
Source: https://decider.com/2017/10/21/hulus-too-funny-to-fail-is-a-must-stream-for-comedy-nerds/
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