Wonkette Movie Night: Wayne's World
'I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored.'
A stoner movie that is not actually a stoner movie.
Wayne and Garth don’t smoke weed and the closest they come to a cannabis conversation is talk of partying. But they are stoners in every other way. The friends have a silly show on a local cable station in Aurora, Illinois. They film it in the basement of Wayne’s parents’ house with three of their buddies.
With Wayne and Garth often speaking directly to the camera, you get pulled into the film, you are in on the joke. Making fun of early ‘90s consumerism, the movie pulls in stuff from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s too, from the music to the fads to the commercials. While in bed with slick TV producer Benjamin, a young woman flips through TV channels with the clicker.
Bouncing from an ad for The Clapper to one for a Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pet, to one for a local video arcade, she finally lands on Wayne’s World. Benjamin recognizes that his date is also a demographic that he wants to target for advertising and immediately sets out to buy Wayne’s World and monetize it. A money man ready to suck out whatever he can from an artist. The boys will need to do some scheming to save their show from the greed of the entertainment industry.
The group of friends spend their time hanging out in the donut shop or listening to heavy metal in the nightclub, The Gasworks. Wayne and Garth have both fallen in love with beautiful women. Cassandra is a kickass rock & roll chick and is taken by Wayne’s humor and honesty. Shy Garth has his eyes set on his “Dreamwoman” who works at the donut shop.
They cruise in the “Mirthmobile,” a light blue 1976 AMC Pacer with flames painted on the sides. Dropping a Queen cassette in the tape deck they headbang while singing along to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Also how many of us now react upon hearing the song, specially while in the car.
Freddie Mercury was able to see the clip of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” scene before he died. He loved it.
Queen guitarist Brian May:
“I didn’t know Mike Myers but he rang me up out of the blue and said, ‘We’ve done this amazing sequence in our new film — can we have your approval?’”
The guitarist said he was expressly given a clip of the scene to show to his dying friend:
“I took it around to Freddie, who was not in a good state at that time. He was confined to his bed, but I took it round and played it to him.
“He loved it. Strangely enough, the humor in it was quite close to our own. Because we did that kind of thing in the car, bouncing up and down to our own tracks!
“He laughed and laughed. He was very weak, but he just smiled and laughed and said, ‘Yeah, how wonderful is that?’"
It helped kick off a renewed interest in the songs of Queen, and a new generation of listeners helped send “Bohemian Rhapsody” back onto the charts at number two, 17 years after it was first released in 1975.
The relationship between the two main actors of Wayne’s World became strained over creative differences during filming and eventually broke after Dana Carvey felt the character of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers had been taken from his imitation of Lorne Michaels. The two eventually reunited to film a 2021 Super Bowl ad. The friendship between the two returned as time had healed some old wounds.
PARTY ON WONKERS!
Wayne’s World stars Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Tia Carrere, Rob Lowe, Donna Dixon, Lara Flynn Boyle, Brian Doyle-Murray, Kent Fuller, Colleen Camp, and Ed O’Neill. Directed by Penelope Spheeris.
Wayne’s World is available with subscription on Peacock, Paramount+ and Hulu. Free with ads on Pluto TV. $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Les Pyramides d’Égypte (The Egyptian Pyramids) directed by Corentin Charron, Lise Corriol, Olivier Lafay, and Nicolas Mrikhi.
Our next Movie Night selection has been recommended by Marcie, it is Hail, Caesar! and it’s available with subscription on Prime. $3.99 in the usual places.
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𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
In apparently-Mike-Myers-is-a-huge-dick news, numbers 1-4:
1. According to Penelope Spheeris, Mike Myers was "a nightmare" to work with. For example, one day, infuriated that there was no margarine for his bagel, only butter, Myers (who suffers from hypoglycemia) flipped the snack table over in a rage and stormed off into his trailer. To manage Myers's moods, Spheeris put her daughter in charge of making sure he had whatever snack he needed at any given moment. Spheeris also said "He was emotionally needy and got more difficult as the shoot went along. You should have heard him bitching when I was trying to do that 'Bohemian Rhapsody' scene 'I can't move my neck like that! Why do we have to do this so many times? No one is going to laugh at that!'" This is exactly the reason why she preferred not returning to direct Wayne's World 2, stating "I just didn't have a good experience with Mike and I didn't want to do it again."
2. While developing the character, Mike Myers originally didn't want to share the limelight with Dana Carvey. Myers had originally created Wayne as a solo character while performing with Second City. But when Mike joined Saturday Night Live, in order to get the sketch off the ground, he needed to pair up with an already established cast member. So, the character of Garth was added for Saturday Night Live (1975).
3. The character of Garth was barely in the original script. Dana Carvey would add more to his character in the script, only to find that Mike Myers would then take his ideas out. This caused Carvey to quit the movie just weeks before shooting. He had to be convinced to come back. However, Carvey would return only if Mike Myers agreed to two conditions. He wanted free rein to ad-lib on set, and to contribute to the development of his character, which Myers agreed to both.
4. In the scene where Garth dances to "Foxy Lady," Dana Carvey was just supposed to sit down, look over at his crush and then the camera zooms in on his face. But, Dana completely improvised the dancing and lip-syncing. Penelope Spheeris decided it was too funny to not put in the movie, but Mike Myers was extremely upset about Dana's improvisation.
We're between lawyers. Something that would not happen on Wonkette as 50% of the readership is involved in the legal profession