from the basement

The show's humor varied between crude and sophisticated. On its premiere after the family-friendly Home Improvement, the first sketch featured Carvey as President Bill Clinton, demonstrating his compassion by having a human baby (which was a doll), several puppies (real ones) and a kitten (also real) suckle milk from his multiple prosthetic nipples. Carvey recreated some of the characters that he developed on Saturday Night Live and parodied the news of the day, as well as the media, politics, commercialism, and other sketch comedy shows. One particularly memorable sketch, "Skinheads From Maine," involved a pair of white power skinheads dressed in plaid, sitting on a porch, whittling, and conversing alternately about their racist beliefs and innocent matters such as the weather in a thick mock Maine accent. ("Nice sunset we're havin'..." "Ayuh, the weather's the only thing the Jews don't control.")
The Dana Carvey Show audience ticket.

Additional post-produced bumper material was often featured between sketches. One such example, Discovery Channel After Dark, featured an edited montage of wild animals mating, and performing other actions that would be considered obscene if shown being done by their human counterparts. It was a parody of adult-based, late-night cable programming.

An animated sketch that first appeared on the show, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," featuring the voices of Colbert and Carell, would become well known on SNL after Carvey's show was cancelled. Additionally, a sketch used in the unaired eighth episode about Tom Brokaw prerecording the announcement of Gerald Ford's death was used verbatim when Carvey hosted Saturday Night Live on October 26, 1996.