Inside the Immaculate Conception of Dana Carvey’s The Church Lady

Before he pumped us up as one half of Hans and Franz, before he sang about chopping broccoli and before he orbited “Wayne’s World,” Dana Carvey was the Church Lady. 

The perpetually pious Enid Strict debuted on the Season 12 premiere of Saturday Night Live — which, amazingly, also doubled as Carvey’s first episode ever — as the host of a cable access show called Church Chat where Carvey, dressed as a good Christian woman in her Sunday best, brought on a cadre of celebrity guests, both real and impersonated, and chided them for their improper behavior.

While the Church Lady was an imitation of a churchgoer Carvey knew growing up, he didn’t shape the character alone, someone else had a hand in it, too. Could it be… Satan?

Nope, it was veteran SNL writer Rosie Shuster who, after being there for SNL’s original run, returned to the writing staff in Season 12 — the dawn of a new buzz-y era for the show. 

I recently chatted with Shuster about how the character reminded her of her hometown of Toronto, why the Church Lady made Charlton Heston so uncomfortable and the reason she never wanted the Church Lady to have big naturals.

When did you see Dana Carvey first do the Church Lady?

The rudimentary character of the Church Lady was on Dana’s audition tape, which was the most brilliant audition tape I’ve ever seen because he did so many fresh characters and really funny impersonations. Back then, the character was called “The Church Lady” and she did say “Well, isn’t that special?,” but beyond that she wasn’t fleshed out at all. There was no costume or anything.

I remarked to Lorne (Michaels) that the Church Lady’s whole thing was shaming people. It reminded me of Toronto, which is very superego-y, very prim-and-proper and very “should-this” and “don’t do that.” It had that vibe. Anyway, I mentioned that to Lorne, and he teamed me up with Dana to develop the Church Lady.

How did you decide to make her the host of a cable access show?

We wanted to put her in a setting that allowed her to interact with whoever the guest was that week. We wanted some neutral, benign, dull setting where she could seem very friendly for two seconds before she’d shred the ego of whoever she was interviewing. It worked because there was always fresh meat to shame. Anytime you can drag shame into comedy, it’s usually gold.

What about her look? 

I said, “Don’t give her big tits. Don’t put her in drag. Just a plain wig is good. Don’t try to get cheap laughs.” I told Dana to play it as straight as he could because the characterization was rich and it didn’t need a funny costume. The laughs weren’t coming from a man playing a woman, they were coming from her mindset.

What stands out about that first time he did the Church Lady?

The first Church Lady did really well. It was supposed to be at the end of the show, but it did so well in dress that Lorne rearranged the board and put it at the beginning. Even then, the Church Lady had some mild sadism to her. Over time, the relish with which she put the knife in grew because it was a big audience pleaser, they ate it up. 

She was also an erotomaniac who projected all her erotomania onto everyone. She was very projecting of her unconscious, which was teeming with dirty things. She always put it on them and never owned it herself.

Who were the most memorable Church Lady guests?

Willie Nelson and Danny DeVito were fun to play with. You could always see how the host’s sense of humor was with the church lady. Burt Reynolds, for example, at the writers’ meeting, he said to us “Have fun with me, I’m in on the joke, it’s great.” But then the Church Lady mentioned his lifts and his rug, and he said, “Get that out of here!”

One of the most interesting ones was Charlton Heston because he couldn’t laugh at himself. When she put her erotomaniacal projection onto him he was so uncomfortable. He wanted it all rewritten. He really objected to her erotic imagination — talking about his legs and his hairy chest. He was a cupcake she wanted to devour, and he didn’t like that. I think the inherit gayness of it, which nobody ever gave any thought to with the Church Lady, drove him crazy because he was Mr. Macho gun guy.

What was Dana like as a collaborator?

Dana was fun. Toward the end, it was a bit of a grind because we’d be asked to do another one, but if you don’t have the inspiration, it’s not going to feel like the A-material; you’re just grinding out the same kinds of jokes. I don’t like seeing something over and over and over again if you don’t have something really fresh. There were crowd-pleasers and sometimes you wanted to play with that energy, but sometimes it started to feel a little hacky.

Later, Dana wanted to get wilder and wilder with it. She would dance and do physical shtick — she became like Jimmy Fallon wanting to play pickleball. You can always get a laugh from people, but do you want that laugh? 

I didn’t mind if it broke out a little bit, but I thought it got really undisciplined. There were more cheap laughs. I wrote the first 20 of them, but I eventually got burnt out from it. We did one where writers Bonnie and Terry Turner sat in, and then the four of us did them together. After a while, though, I was happy to relinquish it to them.