Soon thereafter, Spade auditioned for NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and signed up as a writer and performer in April 1990. His gallery of roles included impersonations of Michael J Fox and Tom Petty but is best remembered for his smart and sardonic worldview, put to use on "SNL" in segments like the biting "Hollywood Minute", which won the performer both fans that admired his cheek, and celebrity enemies (most notably "SNL" veteran Eddie Murphy) who didn't enjoy his occasionally below-the-belt barbs. His other mild-looking but similarly nasty professionals have included the condescending head flight attendant who employs the derisive mantra "buh-bye", and an unshakable receptionist who coolly refuses admission to even the most important visitors.
Feature roles resumed for Spade after "SNL" gave him wide visibility: he played a cocaine addict in "Light Sleeper" (1992) and a beleaguered Republican nerd in the unsubtle college-set satire "PCU" (1994). He was one of the high points in the uneven comedy "Coneheads" (1993), effective as a blank-eyed bureaucratic kiss-up. Spade graduated to leads opposite fellow "SNL" performer Chris Farley in "Tommy Boy" (1995) as the right-hand company man who teams up with the title character to save a small town. Spade and Farley--the poor man's Abbott and Costello--reunited in Penelope Spheeris' "Black Sheep" (1996), with Spade as another bureaucrat trying to rein in the Roger Clinton/Billy Carter-like relative of a politician. While making a splash on the big screen, Spade continued his duties on "SNL", writing and hosting a "Spade in America" segment until his amicable 1996 departure.
While he left the show to concentrate on his film career, Spade soon returned to the small screen as Finch, the snide office assistant for a fashion magazine in NBC's "Just Shoot Me". Although he was certainly a performer with a high enough profile to carry his own series, Spade was more comfortable as part of a comedic ensemble, and flourished as the quick with a quip underling who makes up for his lack of official power with manipulation. The time afforded him in the series (as opposed to the brief snippets of character spied in "SNL" sketches) allowed him to fully explore his character, and make the underhanded and arrogant Finch really quite sympathetic and likable. With a cast including George Segal and Wendie Malick in inspired over-the-top comedic turns and Enrico Colantoni and Laura San Giacomo as characters too terminally neurotic to be straight men, "Just Shoot Me" was a certified hit, and afforded Spade the most acclaim and exposure of his career up to that point, leading to more feature film opportunities.
While "Senseless" (1998) proved a critical and box office bust, the then thirtysomething actor did at least learn from the proceedings that moving away from portraying college students was probably a good idea. Spade made his screenwriting debut with the skewed romantic comedy "Lost and Found" (1999), in which he also starred. Chronicling a man who hopes to win the woman of his dreams with a convoluted plot involving kidnapping her dog, the film was similar in scope and tone to fellow "Saturday Night Live" veteran Adam Sandler's big screen hits, but it failed to comparably register with audiences. Spade did find success as an executive producer, working in that capacity on the Arizona-filmed, critically lauded independent "Jerome" (also 1999), an understated tale of disaffected America co-starring Drew Pillsbury and his "Just Shoot Me" co-star Wendie Malick. Additionally, Spade has lent his unmistakable voice to characters in the animated features "The Rugrats Movie" (1998) and "The Emperor's New Groove" (2000) which were both smash hits. He returned to his Arizona roots with his own HBO comedy special "David Spade: Take the Hit" (1998).
Spade starred in and co-wrote his first solo film project in 2001's Adam Sandler-produced comedy "Joe Dirt," playing a mullet-haired, trailer park-bred lovable loser who sets out on a road trip in search of his birth parents. The film was a moderate success and soon, as "Just Shoot Me" was unceremoniously dumped by NBC after five seasons, Spade penned and starred in another lead feature role in "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" (2003), playing a thirtysomething ex-Hollywood kid actor so desperate to keep himself in the entertainment industry game he hires a foster family to help him relive his childhood in hopes of winning a part. The actor next agreed to take on a recurring role on the ABC sit-com "8 Simple Rues..." (2003-2005) as C.J., a Hennessy family relative, following the death of series lead John Ritter. As the voice of the smart alec fly Scuzz, Spade provided many of the bigger laughs in the children's film "Racing Stripes" (2005) along with Steve Harvey. He then signed with Comedy Central to host "The Showbiz Show" a nightly half-hour series spoofing entertainment news shows in the vein of its hit "The Daily Show," which debuts in September 2005.