Too Funny To Fail

It’s a film for believers, made with affection and with the assertion that the show was truly underappreciated in its time.

Too Funny to Fail succeeds in being funny about failure.

As sweetheart hagiographies go, the doc is joyous and funny. No one seems bitter or cynical, and the movie is less an excavation and more just a sublime collection of hilarious people speaking thoughtfully about silly clips from 20 years ago.

[A] hilariously fond remembrance. [16-29 Oct 2017, p.15]

If you’re a comedy nerd or happened to read GQ’s oral history of The Dana Carvey Show a few years ago — you’re not going to learn anything terribly new. But if you know very little about the button-pushing ABC sketch-comedy series built around the former Saturday Night Live MVP and featuring a murderers’ row of writing and performing talent, the 90-minute film will be a revelation. And no matter which category you fall into, you’ll probably be entertained regardless, because it’s funny to listen to very funny people talk about making a piece of television that was an immediate, abject failure with the mainstream public.