Spade, who was encouraged by friends to follow a career in comedy not long after college. His stepfather's suicide, followed closely by his best friend's death in a motorcycle crash, propelled him into comedy full time.
With the help of friend and fellow comedian
Dennis Miller, he joined
Saturday Night Live in 1990 as a regular cast member and writer. Here he made popular his well-known
sarcastic, smart aleck
character in a number of
sketches, some of which include: a
flight attendant who bids an unpleasant "Buh-Bye" to each passenger as they disembark; a receptionist for
Dick Clark who, as a matter of policy, asks even the most recognizable face "And you are?"; and, most famously, the bitingly
sarcastic Hollywood Minute reporter who assaults
celebrities with a series of
one-liners. Other characters include Christy Henderson from the
Gap Girls, and Karl from the Karl's Video sketches. He has also done impressions of famous celebrities, such as
Brad Pitt and
Michael J. Fox. According to interviews with Spade, most of the material that he wrote early on was given to
Dana Carvey to perform on the show. Due to his relatively low work rate, he was in danger of being fired as a performer, until the
Hollywood Minute segment secured his position.
Though most of the cast left in 1995, Spade stayed on the following year to help in the transition with the new cast. He then quit in 1996, citing "burnout" as the reason. Said Spade, "When I leave, it will be to ease the pressure, not to be a movie star. You can't stay there forever--it kills you inside. It ages you in dog years. It's a tough place." He returned to host an episode in 1998 and another in 2005.
Spade's attempt at a film career was met with mixed success, movies such as
Joe Dirt and
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star were critical and financial failures. He worked with fellow
Saturday Night Live cast member
Chris Farley in the movies
Tommy Boy and
Black Sheep, in an attempt to form a modern-day Laurel and Hardy. The two were planning a third movie together, but things came to a tragic end when Farley died of a drug overdose at the age of 33. Spade did not attend Farley's funeral because he "could not be in a room where Chris was in a box."
Although he received several offers to star in his own TV shows, he turned them down and joined the ensemble cast of
Steven Levitan's office sitcom
Just Shoot Me!, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003. He played to type as a sarcastic receptionist
Dennis Finch, which earned him several
Emmy and
Golden Globe nominations.
Spade hosted both the
Teen Choice Awards and
SpikeTV's Video Game Awards in 2003. He voiced characters on several
episodes of
Beavis and Butt-head, and produced his own TV series
Sammy in 2000. From 2002 to 2006, Spade regularly appeared in
commercials for
Capital One, with
Nate Torrence where he plays the employee of a fictional rival company whose policy toward honoring
credit card rewards (and just about everything else) is "always no." In 2004, he joined the cast of
8 Simple Rules, following the untimely death of the sitcom's star,
John Ritter.
On
September 5, 2003, Spade received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located at 7018 Hollywood Blvd. He was recently the host of a new Comedy Central show,
The Showbiz Show with David Spade, which began in September 2005. On the show, Spade makes fun of Hollywood and celebrities in a manner similar to his old "Hollywood Minute" segment on SNL.
The Showbiz Show with David Spade was canceled in
October 2007 after three seasons.
Along with actors
Elijah Wood and
Gary Oldman, Spade is one of the voice talents for the sixth and 7th installment of the
platform game series
Spyro, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. He provides the voice for Spyro's dragonfly companion,
Sparx. Spade refused to reprise the role of Sparx in its sequel,
The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, and was replaced with
Billy West.
Currently, he stars as Russell in the
CBS comedy,
Rules of Engagement.
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