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Some believe the program was doomed from the first sketch on the first episode. Coming after the family-friendly ''[[Home Improvement]]'', the sketch featured Carvey as [[President Bill Clinton]], showing what a compassionate person he was 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. Needless to say, this raised a few eyebrows. Carvey recreated some of the characters that he developed on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' and parodied the news of the day, as well as the [[Mass media|media]], [[politics]], [[commercialism]], and other sketch comedy shows. The show's humor varied between crude and sophisticated, making it difficult to find a broad-based audience. One particularly memorable sketch, "Skinheads From [[Maine]]," involved a pair of [[Nazi-Skinheads|white power skinheads]] dressed in plaid, sitting on a porch, whittling, and conversing about their [[Racism|racist]] beliefs in a thick mock northeastern accent.
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 [[obscenity|obscene]] if shown being done by their human counterparts. It was a parody of adult-based, late-night cable programming.
At about the same time, ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' was aired on ABC with a similar comic tone, but in the guise of a conventional sitcom, and did much better in the [[Nielsen Ratings|ratings]]. Typically, [[prime time]] sketch shows are not well received by network audiences, as numerous other such shows have failed. But this one, which highlighted Smigel's love-it-or-hate-it brand of [[absurdism|absurdist]] humor, was an even greater challenge for audiences.
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 ''[[Saturday Night Live|SNL]]'' after Carvey's show was cancelled.
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