Dana Carvey Fought for the Dirtiest Church Lady Sketch
Like many successes, comedy or otherwise, many people took a bow for Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady. Dana Carvey gets most of the credit, of course, performing a version of the character on his SNL audition tape. “Remember when your family would miss church for a couple Sundays, and then you’d show up sort of embarrassed and have to make an excuse?” Carvey told David Letterman about coming up with the bit. “The church ladies would be there — they were the people that just never left the church. They were waiting out in front; they like lived there.”
Original SNL writer Rosie Shuster recently told Cracked about her contributions to the character, including coming up with the talk-show format. “We wanted to put her in a setting that allowed her to interact with whoever the guest was that week,” she said. “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.”
As for the Church Lady’s look? Shuster claims she came up with the idea to play it relatively straight — “Don’t put her in drag” — although a new biography of Lorne Michaels gives the producer credit for the character’s appearance. Michaels personally selected Church Lady’s conservative purple dress, according to Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. “Lorne’s instincts were to make sure it stayed real,” Carvey said in the book.
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Carvey and Michaels were in lockstep regarding almost every aspect of the character, but the two butted heads over one particularly racy Church Lady sketch.
In this edition of Church Chat, Enid Strict is joined by NFL Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Walter Payton. The sexually repressed Church Lady is beside herself discussing the “sweaty men” who play the game, introducing Montana and Payton as “large, tight-buttocked men.”
The Church Lady practically perspires as she fantasizes about the center snapping the ball to Montana, his hands “nestled near his bulbous naughty place.” She wriggles in her chair when Payton reveals that “I try to penetrate any opening I can find.” That’s just the start — the sketch practically drips with football-themed innuendo.
Although SNL has done raunchier sketches over the years, Michaels didn’t like the vibe of Montana fondling the Church Lady’s flanks. Annoyed, he moved the sketch near the end of the show. Carvey, usually a go-along-to-get-along type of guy, fought back. “I can’t believe I did this, but I snapped at Lorne and said, ‘I’m just trying to make the show a hit again.’”
In the wake of Michaels’ failure to revive the show in his first season back at SNL, that one had to hurt. But he didn’t budge, relegating the unusually sexual Church Lady sketch to the end of the show.
Carvey had the last laugh, though. Determined to show Michaels he was right, he put everything he had into the sketch and the crowd went bonkers despite the late hour. “This old sound guy came up afterward,” Carvey remembered. “‘I never seen the needles peak like that, kid.’”
