The 20th Anniversary of Wayne’s World: Which Totally Sucks After 20 years… NOT!
VHS and my grandparents’ basement.
Weird way to start off an essay? Sure, but it’s what comes to mind when I think of Wayne’s World. See, my aunt Jen is only about six years older than me, so whenever I went to my grandparents’ house, I was treated to some cool new movie she had gotten on VHS: the various Chris Farley/David Spade team-ups, Richard Linklater’s Dazed And Confused and, of course, Wayne’s World.
Am I saying that Wayne’s World is a feat of filmmaking greater than Dazed And Confused? Hell no. But in the cultural landscape of early 90’s comedy, it certainly stands out as one of the best and more importantly, an influence on my sense of humor.
As maligned and lampooned as Generation X was (and still is), the writers, directors and showrunners (okay, maybe not all of them) of the early 90s made large strides in comedy, bringing us out of the slapstick of summer camp titty movies. Self-aware, irreverent humor became the norm, even in kids shows like Pete & Pete.
But how do you take a three minute skit about two dickheads in a basement and turn it into the second feature film to represent the SNL brand? How the hell do you make an already great Queen song so popular?
Hire the lady that directed The Decline Of Western Civilization, of course.
With a script by star Mike Myers (with SNL writers Bonnie and Terry Turner), Penelope Spheeris crafted a sly, self-referential comedy amidst the haze of sphincter jokes and late 80’s cock rock. Naturally the film starts just like any Wayne’s World skit but what it does after is what makes it worth revisiting after all these years: allowing the characters to break the fourth wall, recite monologues about homoerotic sex-fueled murder, parody asides and satirical subtitles.
The scene that truly kicks the film off for me is the introduction of Ed O’Neill’s Glen, the manager of the unfortunately fictional Stan Mikita’s Donuts. It wasn’t enough to introduce the sullen Glen but to allow him to address the camera about killing a man “in the heat of passion” really sets the tone for the rest of the film.
Ed O’Neill is just a part of a really fantastic supporting cast. You get a great oily villain in Rob Lowe, great That Guy spots from Kurt Fuller, Mike Hagerty and Brian Doyle Murray and of course cameos from Meat Loaf, Robert Patrick, Alice Cooper and Chicago Blackhawks legend/ donut entrepreneur Stan Mikita. The small amount of cameos is really a strong point (something that really weighed down the sequel), allowing a lot of great character actors to have enough screen time to make some memorable moments. Even if those moments are brief, no one’s screen time is wasted.
Obviously we have our leads in Mike Myers and Dana Carvey but by 1992, they’d been doing these characters for almost five years, so why should we expect anything different? The script, however, builds on these characters and fleshes out some of their traits from the show, particularly Garth’s neurosis. For the sidekick on the couch, Garth’s character is explored well and played with such well-crafted subtlety by Dana Carvey. He puts in some great comedic work in the film and it’s a shame to know that shortly after he’d be seeing his labor of love solo show dive-bomb, only to fade into obscurity. Granted, maybe it’s better to fade into obscurity than to complete destroy your career with sequel after sequel after sequel like his Wayne’s World co-star. But now’s not the time to run an analysis of Mike Myers’ career against Dana Carvey’s career.
Surely I’m being a Wayne’s World apologist, right? I mean, am I really sitting here giving you 1000+ words about why an SNL movie is an important part of 90’s comedy? Is this not just Lorne Michaels’ attempt at cashing in on a popular sketch just to ultimately date himself in a long line of failures?
But what stops Wayne’s World from being dated?
Go back to the story. Ultimately, it’s about corporate media trying to exploit the youth generation. The set up of the movie is simply that an arcade maven wants to reach the stoners and slackers any way he can, even if it means funding a public access show based around debating who’s a bigger babe. Surely he knew a few years later he’d be chasing after the next bit of bullshit that he could use as a commercial. It doesn’t matter that they were going after dudes in acid-washed jeans who were way too into Aerosmith. How is that any different than today?
Like mash-ups? Sprite had a mash-up contest to promote the 2007 NBA All-Star Game. Internet memes? Keyboard Cat for Wonderful Pistachios, Rebecca Black for Kohl’s, Chuck Norris reading his own facts for Blizzard. And I bet you’re really interested in what Sears Hardware has to say on their Twitter feed.
Somewhere along the line, when Mike Myers sat down with the Turners to write this film, he knew that he’d have to stop lampooning these slice-of-life metalheads and start going after the people that want to exploit them. That’s where the jokes truly are: Who’s more pathetic?
Wayne’s World knew it didn’t have to be slapstick. It knew didn’t have to be gross-out humor (a lesson Mike Myers should have never forgotten). It didn’t need fucks, shit and nude scenes. It’s a comedy lover’s comedy. It’s what the people involved learned every day they stepped foot into Second City or improvOlympics or Rockefeller Plaza: take the skills that you have, be funny and be smart with them.
It’s what’s kept me coming back all these years. It’s not Paddy Cheyefsky. It’s Mike Myers. Good Mike Myers. It’s absurd, it’s intelligent and it’s dumb at the same time. And it’s what I want in a comedy. It’s why the tape that VHS would probably snap in two if I tried to play it right now.
“This man has no penis.”
Dave Losso is a genius that lives in Chicago and is the creator of various comic books including the irreverent children’s series The Great Sandwich Detective. He’s currently writing the digital comic series Kill The Wonderhawks for Paper + Plastick Records and has many on the way including Fuck You: A Parkour Story. When he’s not writing, he’s posting doodles on his blog. He likes food, fireworks and Huey Lewis & The News.
