What happened to Garth Algar?
That’s right. What happened to Mike Myers’ best bud in 90s mega-comedies Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World 2?
Well the career of Dana Carvey, as he is better known, did not quite match the heights of Myers’ Austin Powers or Shrek phemonema. After their stints together on SNL (Saturday Night Live), Dana did get his own show in 1996, which some wacko-production team decided to call The Dana Carvey Show - where do they pluck these crazy titles from?
A year later in 1997, Carvey (now 54) was the unfortunate recipient of a botched heart operation for a blocked artery – the surgeons operated on the wrong artery – oops, am sure that happens all the time? The malpractice cost Carvey another 4 operations to correct the problem; he was awaded $7.5m as compensation – which he gave to charity – nice bloke.
After the surgery saga, he took a few years off TV and media limelight to focus on his growing family. Yet in 2000 he got back into films with a small role in Little Nicky (not seen it, no intention), and even reprised his Garth Algar character alongside Myers’ Wayne for a mini-video at one of those MTV award shows last year.
A potential late career highlight was in 2006 when he was referenced by Papa Bush at Gerald Ford’s funeral (the man who slipped into the American Presidency after Nixon’s resignation) - the reference was phrased during an epilogue by George Bush Snr. doing an impression of Dana Carvey doing an impression of George Bush Snr
…it’s nice to see the Bush comedy gene is in full working order. Nothing like a comedy Bush.
Anyway, that last paragraph kind of disgressed towards the end there…so Dana Carvey, yes, well done on Wayne’s World, being rated Comedy Central’s 90th best stand up comedian of all-time and the heart surgery.
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Tags: dana carvey, garth algar, george bush snr., gerald ford, mike myers, SNL, wayne campbell, wayne's world
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