In 1986, Carvey became a household name when he joined the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live. Carvey's SNL impressions and characters included Johnny Carson, Garth Algar (from Wayne's World), President George H. W. Bush, Ross Perot, The Church Lady, Franz (from Hans and Franz), President Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, John McLaughlin, Charles Grodin, and Woody Allen. Carvey left the show in 1993 and has still been able to have a successful career, especially as a stand up comedian. It was as a stand up comedian that prompted Dana Carvey to come to town, "Excellent". Being long time fans of his we couldn't believe it and hoped that meeting him would be possible on his visit.
I was just beginning to feel the full fiery of the flu when Dana Carvey was scheduled to be in town. To make matters worse I couldn't get a hold of Sterling and that meant I would be going solo, if I did choose to go that is. Dana Carvey is one of my favorites and I had been waiting for this for a long time, so I had a hard decision to make. I decided I wasn't about to let the flu stop me from trying and headed out.
When I arrived I was surprised to see fellow autograph collector Newt, which meant I wouldn't be alone for this outing after all. Both of us sat down and watched the venue's back entrance for any indications of Dana's arrival. A limousine pulled up and that sure got our attention. Unfortunately it was only the driver and from what we could tell he was finding out information from the security. The driver got back in and took off down the street.
My autograph instincts led me to believe that the limousine driver was about to pick up Dana and I was fairly certain of the hotel he was heading to. Based on my gut feelings, we ran all the way over to the hotel and were disappointed because there was no limo in sight, crap.
Suddenly the limo turned the corner and started to pull into the hotel. Newt freaked out at this sighting and quickly started making his way to the limo, as did I. As I was following the Newt, from the corner of my eye I spotted Dana Carvey exiting an elevator from the depths of the hotel. I changed directions and notified Newt of the change of plans.
Right when I got to the entrance of the hotel Dana was exiting and I asked him if we could have his autograph. Dana looked over at me and said, "Hey fellas... sure". I whipped out my picture and he began to sign it and said "So how's it going, life treating you well, women treating you good?" Dana was really personable and joked around a little as he signed. After finishing off an autograph for Newt and I, he then hung around and each of us got a picture with him. It was just so cool getting to meet this amazing comedian and actor.
We thanked him for coming over to sign and he said it was his pleasure. Before he sat down into the limo he handed back my blue sharpie and remarked, "That sure is a big sharpie!" He was referring to my extra large sharpie that I had recently bought, I call it the "Big Boy". We thanked him again and he said, "Take care guys, have a nice night". Well Dana because of you we did have a fantastic night. This autograph hunt only took about 15-20 minutes and I was glad because I needed some serious rest to recover from the flu.
