Carvey's initial outing featured a production number (complete with dancing taco and dancing mission bell) in which a chorus line dressed in Taco Bell uniforms presented "shameless whore" Carvey with an oversized check. Twice during the show, Carvey as a taco-chowing President Clinton was superimposed over an actual Taco Bell commercial (that one where Shaquille O'Neal loads up on four-alarm tacos before game time and lives to tell about it).

The tone of all of this was surprisingly, satisfyingly, nasty. It was Taco Bell, not the elfin, always likable Carvey -- the Teflon comic -- who came off looking greedy and, er, whorish. If Taco Bell's ad guys went into this expecting the chain to receive a sort of hipness-dividend from being a good sport, well, wouldn't you like to know what went on in the boardroom on the morning after?

Carvey's first show also featured a hilarious spoof of "A-Beatles-C" and its "Beatles Anthology" (Carvey's McCartney-as-babbling-fool was priceless) and a full-bore assault on NBC's attempts to claim the work of its former stars as "intellectual property." Carvey not only flaunted the Church Lady (from "SNL"), he also brought back Larry "Bud" Melman and the original "Top Ten List" logo from NBC's "Late Night with David Letterman," both of which Letterman has been prohibited from using.

Carvey performed all of this with a twinkle in his eye -- sort of like a mad butcher (think of Michael Palin on "Monty Python's Flying Circus"). Whether he can keep wringing laughs from the Republican presidential contender freak show (he and his repertory company did dead-on impersonations of Bob Dole, Steve Forbes, Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan) as the primary season winds down, or parcel out enough new characters to stave off repetition is still an open question. (A bad sign: The filmed bits about a couple of stupid pranksters were tired and charmless the first time around, yet Carvey seems intent on making them recurring characters.)

Still, if the ratings are good, it'll be interesting to see if Disney can take the heat for nine more weeks, can grin and bear Carvey's provocative insolence. If Carvey succeeds, it may be an indication that Mickey won't interfere with "NYPD Blue's'' cuss words and butt-shots -- or try to turn ABC into the sappiest place on Earth.

This Just In: PepsiCo has announced that its units Taco Bell and Pizza Hut have pulled advertising from "The Dana Carvey Show." As part of a sponsorship package, various PepsiCo companies would have paid $600,000 per episode to have their name attached to Carvey's in the title. A Pizza Hut spokesperson told Variety that the company doesn't "feel comfortable" with the show based on the premiere episode's content. Pepsi-Cola and sister company Mug Root Beer (which is slated to append its name to Carvey's for the March 19 episode) will remain on board as sponsors. An ABC spokesperson told Variety that some sketches in the March 12 premiere "went too far." Well, isn't that special...