Dana Carvey on The Tonight Show


Jay Leno: All right. Despite his cruel and hurtful impression, my first guest is a good friend of the show. And an Emmy-winning performer best known for the many memorable characters he's created on Saturday Night Live. [in weird high-pitched voice] He's really funny too. Please welcome Dana Carvey. Get him in here.
Dana: Hey. Yeah, it was a little mean[high-pitched voice]it was a little mean, wasn't it? Well I don't like to do impressions like to try to sound like you. I was trying to exagerate: [speaking incoherently]See, your wife calls me and tells me it's so accurate. "Like when we're making sweet sweet love--"
Leno: Yeah. [laughs]
Dana: No, I'm kidding. I always thought that eventually--you know, I exaggerage impressions. If you take your voice far enough it goes into that stratosphere. Your voice has a wide range--and Jay, listen to me now--I thought that you'd need an interpreter eventually.
Leno: Really?
Dana: Yeah, you're at the Comedy Store with a friend: [Leno impression] "What's he saying?" "He says he likes your show very much, he thinks you're very funny." [Leno imp.] "What'd he--" "Come to the show, I love you." And that's how I feel about you, Jay.
Leno: Well, thank you.
Dana: I love you, I really do.
Leno: Now you just got back from--
Dana: Yeah.
Leno: Vegas. Now remember we used to call it Las Vegas, but now you're in "Vegas."
Dana: I was at the DI.
Leno: The DI in Vegas.
Dana: Las Vegas, the only place you can get lobster, steak all you can eat for a buck- 99. And it's really good. I saw Sigfried and Roy again. Hans and Franz with a tiger.
Leno: Oh, yeah, they're great.
Dana: [in Hans voice]"Yeah, you know, we have a tiger, we're going to make it dissapear." That's all they do, make things dissapear. [cheering] Thank you. And you feel like an idiot. The thing about Vegas is--well, have you ever been to a strip show? I mean, you guys--
Leno: You know, I've heard men speak of them. I'm really not familiar--
Dana: I was dragged to one. The car pulls up, my friend brings me in there, and I felt so embarrassed. I did. This woman is in front of me suddenly kind of going like this[jumps up and starts dancing around]you know, and I'm just talking to her, going, "So do you go to school, you know, what do you do?" [back up] And it's like, "Yeah, I'm doing three nights a week at the community college." And her crotch is just a g-string crotch dancing in front of my face. [demonstrates with hand] And I'm talking about the 49ers, the crotch is coming at me. I'm like why--it's the same thing I feel about prostitution, which is legal in Nevada.
Leno: Yes, yes.
Dana: Why is that a turn-on, guys? You're paying the woman to act turned on? I mean, it's like, she's faking it. "Oh my god, you're the greatest, oh my god, oh god [looks at watch] you have--19 minutes. This is really good. Oh, I take Visa and MasterCard, you're so good." I mean, who's the idiot going [in goofy voice] "She said I'm good, huh huh.[lauging]" You know what I mean?
Leno: But you know--if you can go the 19 minutes, you're damn good.
Dana: Yeah. [Johhny Carson imp.] "That is a long time."
Leno: I remember one time, I was dragged to one of these shows.
Dana: Oh, you were dragged? Did you have a good time?
Leno: Well, it was odd, because the woman, she's dancing completely naked.
Dana: No g-string?
Leno: Nothing! And then they come to the table and they go, "You know, we do a private show in the back for $50." And I go, "What am I going to see, x-rays now?" The woman is completely naked! What could the private show possibly be? I don't want to get any closer than this!
Dana: No place to go after naked. Look, all I can say is I'm happily married--
Leno: Me, too.
Dana: I met my wife when she was 19. I raised her as one of my own. We're very close.
Leno: She's quit the dancing now?
Dana: She's quit dancing. But we make sweet love. It is beautiful. We have 2 children, we procreated, yay! OK. Do you want to talk about the OJ trial?
Leno: Have you been following that?
DC: You can't not. It's on every second. Charles Grodin's on there [CG imp.] "You know, there was blood in the Bronco, blood in the--" you know. The guy--he's crazy! Every second, you turn him on, "You know, everybody knows he's guilty." I figure he can't win the civil trial because Cochran was that brilliant. I mean, Cochran is a bright guy, and he's so slippery he's mesmerizing to watch. And a guy stands up from the audience and goes, "What about the Bruno Magli shoes?" And Cochran immediately disarms him. [JC imp.] "That's right. That's a good question. You're a good man. I have Bruno Magli. I have shoes. You have shoes. Kato. Timeline. Bloody glove. I know it, you know it, they know it, everybody knows it." And you're like, "He must be innocent. He must be innocent." The guy's incredible. The guy's amazing. So--what else is going on?
JL: People that framed OJ. People have theories. Do you have any theories?
DC: If they framed OJ they're the luckiest conspirators ever. [Holds up hand like phone] "Guess what, we're framing OJ. And when the limo driver came he didn't even answer the door, he was asleep. [both thumbs up] Yeah!" "You know those Italian shoes you make footprints with? He has a pair! Aw, wow! [mimes high fives] I love you, man!" "But you're not going to get my Bud Lite." But enough of that. Let's talk about the election.
JL: You must be kinda sad because you did great stuff for us during the election. Saturday Night Live of course was terriffic. Are you sad now because this is over now? Kind of lost?
DC: Well, a little bit. Ross Perot, to me, is just the funniest guy. I would vote for him just as a comedian. He's going to be back. He's hilarious. Did you see his infomercial? I love his bad metaphors. They're starting to get a little nuts, you know? [RP imp.] "Folks, folks, hear me out. You can not put a porcupine in the barn, light it on fire, and expect to make licorice." [shrugs] What? What? "Folks, you can not squat on a pit bull and expect your underwear to be starched." He's got all his big ideas, and he's comparing--did you see his thing on the economy? "The economy, it's not--folks, it's not like that movie Waterworld, with Kevin Costner. He's trapped on a raft, he needs some water. He pees into a filter contraption and drinks it, yummy yummy. Folks, the world don't work that way. You can't pee into a Mr. Coffee and expect Tasters Choice." See, that's why I miss him.
JL: When we come back--we're gonna take a break, when we come back I understand you'll have a song for us. You're quite the serious lyricist.
DC: I'm gonna do a little music for ya.
JL: Kind of a serious side?
DC: A little serious, yeah.
JL: And we're gonna talk about your show?
DC: Yeah, sure.
JL: We'll talk more with Dana, right after this. [high-pitched voice] We'll be right back.
[commercials]
JL: How's your family doing?
DC: My family's fine. Tom and Dex, three and five. Tom announces when he has a bowel movement now. He's 3. I was watching the Olympics, and right as the race is going to start Tom said, "Uh-oh, poopie's coming." Cute, if you have kids. So, I have a young audience now.
JL: I was gonna ask you about your show. 'Cause I enjoyed your show.
DC: Thank you. It was a little weird for prime-time.
JL: Some of it was so far out, obviously some people didn't get it, and some of it was hysterical.
DC: It was very strange. The thing is, I decided I wanted to do something that made me laugh, but you're with these writers in New York, and you're thinking about stuff, and by the time it goes on the air you think it's nothing, and people go, "Oh my god." You know, the interesting thing is, when you do a TV show like that they give you ratings for every minute.
JL: Minute-by-minute.
DC: Yeah. So I would like to illustrate it. I did it before, but I've been showing this to people to illustrate what network TV is really like.
JL: And this is true.
DC: This is true, and this is the very first sketch I did on my show. Can we show the slide? OK, there I am, very first sketch on the first show. You can see I have 26.5 million viewers at this point. Next slide, please. OK, now there I am, as Bill Clinton, breast feeding, and you can see that I've lost 15 million viewers at this point. This is true. Now, next slide. Now there you can see I'm revealing 8 nipples as Bill Clinton and you can see I'm down to 3.1 million viewers. Final slide, please. Now there I'm breast feeding puppies, kittens, and a baby, and you can see I'm down to minus 7.4 million viewers. That's how they call it.
JL: It's different, isn't it? If you'd done that sketch on SNL, people would've laughed, maybe you'd have gotten one call.
DC: Right, yeah. But people had just watched Home Improvement and they're like, "Oh, my god, get the kids away from the TV, he's breast feeding, oh my god." You know, so that's what happened. But it was fun. It was a fun experiment. But doing that show I nvever saw my family anyway.
JL: It's different, isn't it? If you'd done that sketch on SNL, people would've laughed, you'd maybe have gotten one call.
DC: Right, yeah. But people had just watched Home Improvement and they're like, "Oh my god, get the kids away from the TV, he's breast-feeding. Oh my god." You know, so that's what happend. But it was fun. It was a fun experiment. But doing that show I never saw my family anyway.
JL: It's tough, isn't it?
DC: It's brutal. And when you have kids, you hear stuff around the house like, "Daddy, you don't go, cause if you go I got no daddy." And that was my wife. Which was an interesting--
JL: Now where is she from? She sounds like she has a foreign accent.
DC: Thailand. [laughs] I'm tired of the guys at 7-11's with foreign accents that treat you like you're retarded. I went in there to buy some beer and the guy goes, [incoherent] And I go, "What?" And he just starts talking really loud like I'm an idiot. [Same thing, only louder] "No, you're speaking gibberish, please go away." You want me to do the song now?
JL: Now, what is this song-writing career you're involved in now?
DC: Well, I dabble in the guitar. You know, I'm a Neil Young fan and stuff. So I actually--[looks behind chair] Do we have a guitar?
JL: The guitar is right behind you there.
DC: Oh my god, you brought a guitar. Thanks, Jay.
JL: It just happened to--What a stroke of luck it was there.
DC: This is unbelievable!
JL: Is there any chance we can actually do something?
DC: Uh, well, OK. First of all, guitar players are all very funny because they all have these moves they all do. This is one move they do: After they sing, they look around. Maybe you guys have seen this. Maybe Kevin will relate to this. [singing] "She's my lady, she's my little, little girl." [looks behind him both ways] Now, what are they looking at? The other one I love--now, I don't know if Kevin does this--When you play lead guitar really difficult, you get a pained look on your face to make it look impressive. You know, this goes like, [starts playing and makes twisted face] And you're like, "Wow, it must be hard, he looks like he's in pain." And this one, where they switch chords and look surprised. You know, like [does that] Kevin's laughing. OK. Now, I've been dabbling with the song. I'm not a great lyricist. I'm working on the lyrics. But here we go. This is an original song. I hope you guys like it. As Garth would say, "One, two, three, four."
[singing] You can get a lot of things, whatcha don', satch what you're going, what you're sayin', doin'. You can lamma lamma dim doppa dana, cum a lamma dika daka dum doka dana. You can cuma locka nitegumole, woka loka ticka docka day. C'mon! Everybody! [lyrics that don't match show up on the screen] You can tell me lotta things, whatcha doin', where you goin', whatcha sayin', whatcha doin'. You can lama lama look lika fina, wok a loka--c'mon!--nuna cana bana cuna loka loka bome yaka day. Yoma koka tinka dinka doko duka lay-hay. Whoa, yaka laka, doka doka bungalata, doka doka do lay- hay. [After this I gave up on trying to translate. Sorry.] [Audience starts clapping.] Hey, yeah! Thank you so much. Their clapping really threw me off. Anyway, that will be on Arista Records soon.
JL: Have you met Amber? Is she beautiful?
DC: Uh, yeah. She's a genetic freak.
JL: She's the face of--is it Eve Arden or Elizabeth Arden?
DC: Uh, I don't know. She's on the planet earth to make us feel ugly. Eve Arden? Jay, we're dating ourselves! [as Garth]"She's a fox, man. She looks like Elizabeth Montgomery."
JL: No, she's beautiful!
DC: We're, like--we're old now.
JL: She's beautiful. Two dorky guys and an extremely attractive woman right after this break. Amber Valetta. Dana, thank you very much.
DC: My pleasure. [they shake hands]
JL: Always good. Dana Carvey! Thank you!
[Approx. 13 minutes]
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