After watching Hulu's documentary on weWork, I watched one on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show. It was a textbook example of a show that was on the wrong network at the wrong time and thus was probably doomed right from the start.
In the mid-90s, Dana Carvey left Saturday Night Live and along with writer Robert Smigel (who is also the guy behind Triumph the insult comic dog) decided to launch a new sketch show. After talking with networks like CBS and HBO, ABC made what was seemingly the best offer by promising the time slot after Home Improvement, which at the time was the #1 show on TV.
Where the title comes from is that besides Carvey and Smigel, the show recruited a bunch of people who went on to become stars in the next century. Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell were brought in to write and perform along with Carvey. It also brought in as writers Charlie Kaufmann of Being John Malkovich fame and the now-disgraced Louis CK.
With all that comic talent, how did it only wind up getting 7 episodes shown? Because it turned out it was on the wrong network at the wrong time. First off it premiered in March, which is not necessarily the best time. And by the time it started to air, Disney had bought ABC. In a TV Guide ad for the network, they pasted Carvey with Kermit the Frog, despite that the two shows were completely different animals.
On Family Guy there was a bit about network ads where there's a cheery, light-hearted ad for a comedy and then a deep-voiced, darker ad for a drama. This actually happened on ABC only it was an ad for one of those "Very Special Episodes" of Home Improvement where Jonathan Taylor Thomas might have cancer and then you have the wacky sketch comedy of The Dana Carvey Show. It really illustrates how the two shows did not go together because the subversive humor of the show didn't mesh with the audience. The first sketch they did was this pretty weird one about Bill Clinton taking hormones so he could nurse various animals and for some reason he had a chicken butt to lay eggs. The network monitored the ratings minute-by-minute and found most of the Home Improvement audience had abandoned the show before the first sketch ended.
And while Republicans like to think "cancel culture" is a new thing, there was pressure on Taco Bell, the show's sponsor, to abandon the show--which they did, though the show hadn't really planned for one sponsor through its run in the first place. It was also savaged by critics and pretty much on the verge of cancellation before the second episode.
It goes to show that the "best" offer is sometimes not the best offer. In a later time slot like SNL or on a smaller network like HBO or Comedy Central, the show probably would have stuck around longer. In prime-time, following a fairly conservative show like Home Improvement, it didn't really have much chance.
And this happens with books too. If the wrong reader reads your book, they won't like it and probably give you a bad review. I've had that happen plenty of times. I think Offutt has also had that happen. Or there are plenty of other examples where someone gets published with a publisher that turns out to be a scam or just not very good.
So much of success, especially in the entertainment business, is based on luck--being in the right place at the right time.
A couple of Fun Facts: while The Dana Carvey Show failed, one sketch in particular involving Colbert and Carell as waiters who get sick reading off the names of food items got them hired on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, which led to bigger things for both of them. Another sketch, the animated "Ambiguously Gay Duo" based on the old Batman comics/TV show, wound up being revived by Robert Smigel on SNL.
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