With 90 minutes of material, Saturday Night Live: The Best of Dana Carvey is the most substantial of the three SNL collections that I've reviewed, and it certainly showcases Carvey's talent for creating different accents and taking on completely different personas. Unlike many of the other SNL actors, who are clearly recognizable as "So-and-so playing such-and-such character," Carvey is chameleon-like, becoming actually quite difficult to identify at times, so well does he reinvent himself for each new character.

This best-of collection includes segments from many of Carvey's famous characters and skits: the Church Lady, Hans and Frans, Wayne's World, Ross Perot, and many others, including several talk-show hosts. Not all of these have aged as well as others; a lot of Carvey's skits parody then-current icons of popular culture and recent news events. Even if you remember the details of the events and people in question, time has sapped some of the humor from their parody.

The best material in The Best of Dana Carvey actually comes toward the middle and end of the collection. For me, the funniest of the whole DVD is the skit in which Carvey plays a television news anchor pre-recording possible headlines. ("Gerald Ford, eaten by wolves.") There's also a great piece with Carvey as a professional psychic on a quiz show, and a funny segment of "Hans and Frans" with Patrick Swayze as a guest. Other standout skits include the Pepper Boy and Massive Headwound Harry (not the person you want to invite to your cocktail party...).

All in all, The Best of Dana Carvey is a solid collection that really shows off the SNL actor's talents; fans of the show and of Carvey in particular will find a lot to appreciate here.

The DVD

Video

The Best of Dana Carvey is presented in its original television aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It looks satisfactory, with a generally clean appearance and reasonably natural-looking colors. Edge enhancement does show up fairly heavily at times, and in general the image is a bit on the blurry side. This isn't material that really demands great image quality, though, so it's acceptable.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 sound offers a satisfactory listening experience. The dialogue is generally clear and understandable, although a bit flat-sounding at times.

Extras

The funniest special features is a four-minute clip of Carvey's SNL audition, in which he runs through a variety of short impressions and mini-skits; it's quite funny. There's also a short "dress sketch," a short piece that was shown at the SNL dress rehearsal but cut for the final show, and a set of outtakes. We also get short segments of Carvey on the Conan and Leno TV shows, and a photo gallery.

Final thoughts

Fans of Saturday Night Live will be pleased with this collection of the best of Dana Carvey's skits; at 90 minutes long, it's nicely substantial, and includes a number of great pieces. It's recommended.