Wayne’s World
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Wayne s World is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Penelope Spheeris. It was produced by Lorne Michaels and written by Mike Myers and Bonnie & Terry Turner. Based on the Saturday Night Live sketch Wayne s World, it stars Myers in his feature film debut as Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey as Garth Algar, a pair of rock and heavy metal fans who broadcast a public-access television show. It also features Tia Carrere, Rob Lowe, Lara Flynn Boyle, Brian Doyle-Murray, Chris Farley, Ed O Neill, Ione Skye, Meat Loaf, and Alice Cooper in supporting roles.

Wayne s World was released in the United States on February 14, 1992, by Paramount Pictures. A critical and commercial success, it was the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1992 and remains the highest-grossing film based on a Saturday Night Live sketch. Wayne s World 2 was released the following year.

Plot

In Aurora, Illinois, rock music fans Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar host a public-access television show, Wayne s World, from Wayne s parents basement; a broadcast of Wayne s World catches the attention of television producer Benjamin Kane. While out cruising with friends in Garth s car, the Mirthmobile, Wayne stops to admire a 1964 Fender Stratocaster in a shop window. They later go to a nightclub, where they avoid Wayne s troubled ex-girlfriend Stacy while Wayne falls for Cassandra Wong, vocalist and bassist of the band Crucial Taunt, and impresses her with his Cantonese.

Benjamin meets with Wayne and Garth to convince them to sell him the rights to the show for $5,000 each. Later, Wayne returns to the music store and purchases the Stratocaster with the money. Benjamin attempts to steal Cassandra from Wayne using his wealth and good looks, by distracting Wayne and Garth with all-access tickets to an Alice Cooper concert in Milwaukee while offering to produce a music video for Crucial Taunt. At the concert, Wayne and Garth make the acquaintance of a bodyguard to music producer Frankie Sharp, head of Sharp Records.

While filming the revamped Wayne s World under Benjamin s oversight, Wayne and Garth find it difficult to adjust to the professional studio environment. Their contract obliges them to give a promotional interview to their sponsor, Noah Vanderhoff, who owns a franchise of amusement arcades. After Wayne ridicules Vanderhoff on the show, he is fired, leaving Garth to host the show on his own. This infuriates Garth and jeopardizes their friendship. Jealous of the attention Benjamin is giving Cassandra, Wayne attempts to prevent her from participating in the Crucial Taunt music video shoot, but she breaks up with him for his distrust.

Wayne and Garth reconcile and hatch a scheme to win Cassandra back by getting her a record deal. They plan to ensure that Frankie Sharp hears Crucial Taunt play. While Garth and their friends infiltrate a satellite station with the aid of Benjamin s assistant, Wayne goes to Cassandra s video shoot but embarrasses himself in an attempt to expose Benjamin s ulterior motive. Cassandra initially tells him to go home, but upon realizing that Benjamin is up to no good, she changes her mind and leaves for Aurora with Wayne while he apologizes to her.

The Wayne s World crew hacks into Sharp s satellite television and broadcasts the Crucial Taunt performance from Wayne s basement, where Sharp and Benjamin converge. Unfortunately, Sharp declines to offer Crucial Taunt a record contract. As a result, Cassandra breaks up with Wayne permanently. She and Benjamin depart to a tropical resort. Stacy reveals that she is pregnant with Wayne s child. An electrical fire destroys Wayne s house and kills Garth.

Dissatisfied with this ending, Wayne and Garth turn to the film s audience and halt proceedings; they restart the scene in which Benjamin is unmasked as Old Man Withers in a Scooby-Doo parody ending. Still unsatisfied with this ending, they restart again with a mega happy ending , in which Cassandra successfully signs a record contract and rekindles her relationship with Wayne. Garth begins a relationship with a waitress that he had fantasized over earlier in the movie, while a reformed Benjamin learns that money and good looks do not necessarily bring happiness.

During the credits, Wayne and Garth say they hope the audience didn t think the movie sucked. The duo later predicts the credits will fade to black, which they do.

Cast

  • Mike Myers as Wayne Campbell, host of Wayne s World. Wayne lives with his parents in Aurora, Illinois, and spends his free time partying with his friends in and around the popular rock/metal scene of the early-1990s. His best friend is Garth Algar with whom he hosts their late-night cable-access show broadcasting from the basement of Wayne s parents house.
  • Dana Carvey as Garf Algar, Wayne s best friend, and co-host. Garf is socially awkward and more stereotypically nerdy and introverted than his more outgoing friends. He has a crush on the girl who works at the Donut shop that their group frequents, Stan Mikita s Donuts, but is unable to work up the nerve to talk to her.
  • Tia Carrere as Cassandra Wong, lead vocalist and bassist of the local rock band, Crucial Taunt. She and her band perform gigs around town, notably at a heavy metal bar frequented by Wayne and his friends called The Gasworks. Cassandra is a Cantonese immigrant who claims to have learned English at college and from the Police Academy films.
  • Rob Lowe as Benjamin Kane, a sleazy, Chicago-based television producer. His official title is Regional Programming Director for Oliver Communications. Benjamin is good-looking, well-educated, and highly successful, but cynical, manipulative, and ruthless in his approach to business. Garth believes that if Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he d be Pralines and Dick.
  • Lara Flynn Boyle as Stacy, Wayne s troubled ex-girlfriend. Lacking self-esteem, she does not understand or accept that Wayne has broken up with her and still treats him like they are a couple. Wayne and Garth both refer to her as mental and a psycho hose beast.
  • Brian Doyle-Murray as Noah Vanderhoff, a video arcade magnate, and a prospective client of Benjamin s who is seeking to place him as the primary corporate sponsor of a television show aimed at teens and younger adults.
  • Colleen Camp as Mimi Vanderhoff, Noah s wife.
  • Kurt Fuller as Russell Finley, producer/director of many of the television shows executive produced by Benjamin. Russell has a reputation as something of a hit-maker, having won awards and acclaim for many of the programs he has produced. He is fiercely loyal to Benjamin, believing Benjamin to be his friend.
  • Chris Farley has a cameo as the well-informed security guard at an Alice Cooper concert taking place in Milwaukee.
  • Meat Loaf as Tiny, a doorman/bouncer at the Gasworks with who Wayne and Garth are in. He allows them to skip the line at the door, and informs them about the bands playing and if they re good or not.
  • Frank DiLeo as rock promoter Frankie Mr. Big Sharp. The CEO of Sharp Records, Frank takes a very hands-on approach to his business, driving back and forth across the country to find new acts to sign to his label. He is afraid of flying, and thus takes his stretch limousine everywhere.
  • Ed O Neill as Glen, the darkly disturbed manager at Stan Mikita s Donuts. According to Wayne, he works at the donut shop 24 hours a day . He makes frequent references to death, dying, and killing, and implies that he once murdered someone in the heat of passion.
  • Michael DeLuise as Alan, one of Wayne and Garth s crew.
  • Lee Tergesen as Terry, Wayne and Garth s head cameraman who has a penchant for openly expressing platonic love for his friends through hugging and repeatedly telling them, I love you, man.
  • Dan Bell as Neil, Wayne s and Garth s second cameraman.
  • Sean Gregory Sullivan as Phil, Wayne and Garth s friend who works at an auto repair shop. Wayne describes him as being frequently partied out, a state of heavy intoxication which renders Phil near-catatonic and unable to recall events of the previous evening.
  • Mike Hagerty as Davey, a controller at the Cable 10 television station who Benjamin and Russell ask for help.
  • Frederick Coffin as Officer Koharski. An enthusiastic local beat cop who is kind to Wayne, Garth, and their group.
  • Donna Dixon as Garth s dream woman, who works at Stan Mikita s Donuts.
  • Ione Skye as Elyse, a seemingly casual girlfriend of Benjamin s who introduces him to Wayne s World.
  • Robin Ruzan as a waitress at Stan Mikita s.
  • Charles Noland as Ron Paxton, who tries to market his invention, the Suck Kut, on Wayne and Garth s show.
  • Carmen Filpi as Old Man Withers. He runs a haunted amusement park.
  • Robert Patrick has a cameo as T-1000 (reprising his role from Terminator 2: Judgment Day). He is a police officer who pulls Wayne over while he is speeding on his way to Cassandra.
  • Alice Cooper with Pete Friesen, Derek Sherinian, Stef Burns, and Jimmy DeGrasso as themselves, performing Feed My Frankenstein. Wayne and Garth go to see him backstage at his show, where they receive a lecture on the history of Milwaukee.

Production

Wayne s World was green-lit by Paramount Pictures in 1991. It was the second film based on a Saturday Night Live sketch, following The Blues Brothers in 1980. Producer Lorne Michaels hired Penelope Spheeris to direct, who had directed several music documentaries. Spheeris said, I had been just struggling as a female director in this business for many years. I was 45 years old when I got that job. I just kept hanging in there. And Wayne s World happened, and it sort of flipped my life around.

Spheeris clashed with Myers during filming. She told Entertainment Weekly that Myers 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! She said she attempted to assuage Myers by having her daughter provide him snacks, and on one occasion he stormed off the set, upset that there was no margarine for his bagel. Myers and Spheeris argued over the final cut, causing Myers to prevent Spheeris from directing Wayne s World 2.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album reached number one on the Billboard 200. The album was certified double-Platinum by the RIAA on July 16, 1997.

The studio originally wanted to use a Guns N Roses song for the head banging scene, but Myers demanded Bohemian Rhapsody , even threatening to quit the production unless it was used. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, died of bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS a few months before the film s release. However, Mercury saw the head banging scene before his death, found it hilarious and approved the song for the film s use.

Gary Wright re-recorded Dream Weaver for the film, which is heard whenever Wayne looks at Cassandra.

Tia Carrere sang her own vocals on the songs she performed in the film, as well as cover songs such as Sweet s The Ballroom Blitz , which were included on the film s soundtrack album.

Myers originally wanted Alice Cooper s I m Eighteen and School s Out in the film, but Cooper s manager Shep Gordon convinced him to use Feed My Frankenstein instead. It was Myers first meeting with Gordon and it made such a strong, positive impression on him that they formed a friendship. Myers directed a 2014 documentary about Gordon, titled Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.

Reception

Box office

The film was a box office success, debuting at number one. The film s final domestic gross was $121,697,323, making it the eighth-highest-grossing film of 1992 and the highest-grossing of the 11 films based on Saturday Night Live skits.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10, with the critical consensus stating, An oddball comedy that revels in its silliness and memorable catch phrases, Wayne s World is also fondly regarded because of its endearing characters. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews . Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A− on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and said in his review: I walked into Wayne s World expecting a lot of dumb, vulgar comedy, and I got plenty, but I also found what I didn t expect: a genuinely amusing, sometimes even intelligent, undercurrent. Gene Siskel called the film a very funny and most original comedy with inspired bits of whimsy, and ranked it number eight on his list of the ten best movies of 1992. Desson Howe wrote in The Washington Post that making a movie out of such a teeny sketch is better than you d expect , but criticized the finale as an attempt to lampoon movie endings and a despair-driven inability to end the movie . Filipino columnist Jullie Y. Daza of the Manila Standard stated that I didn t know what the generation gap meant until I saw this silly, nonsensical movie called Wayne s World and I saw how my son went stark raving mad over it.

In popular culture

Filled with pop culture references, the sketches and the film started catchphrases such as Schwing! and Schyea , as well as popularizing That s what she said , Party on! , and the use of … Not! after apparently affirmative sentences to state the contrary, and We’re not worthy! We re not worthy!

The scene in which Wayne, Garth and friends lip-sync to Queen s Bohemian Rhapsody in an AMC Pacer is one of the most well-known scenes in the film. Due to its prominent appearance in Wayne s World, Bohemian Rhapsody single reached #2 in the United States.

The Pacer was produced by American Motors Corporation (AMC) from 1975 to 1980. The car was purposely a second-hand Pacer painted baby blue with flames on the sides and non-matching wheels, which Wayne and Garth dubbed The Mirthmobile . The original car from the film was sold and appeared in a 2015 episode of Pawn Stars. The car was restored to running condition with the original movie props inside the car, but with a functional stereo system added. The Pacer was sold in 2016 for $37,400. Because of The Mirthmobile role, the Pacer is arguably one of the two most famous AMC cars featured in film or TV, the other being Dixie , the Jeep CJ-7 driven by Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard.

Between The Lions, a puppet-based children s television series from 2000-2010, produced a short repeating segment called Gawain s Word, featuring two jousting knights charging at each other, each touting a speech balloon with half of a word which then became their respective names, then demonstrating the word. Though the title of the segment clearly is a parody of the SNL skit, the two knights in the segment speak more characteristically like Bill and Ted from Bill & Ted s Excellent Adventure than Wayne and Garth from Wayne s World.

The cast, crew, and other related musical guests were part of Josh Gad s Reunited Apart web series second season, first available in December 2020.

Awards

American Film Institute recognition:

  • AFI s 100 Years…100 Laughs – Nominated
  • AFI s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes: Schwing! – Nominated We re not worthy. We re not worthy. – Nominated
  • Schwing! – Nominated
  • We re not worthy. We re not worthy. – Nominated
  • AFI s 100 Years…100 Songs: Bohemian Rhapsody – Nominated
  • Bohemian Rhapsody – Nominated

Year 1992
ReleaseDate 1992-02-14
RuntimeMins 94
RuntimeStr 1h 34min
Plot Two slacker friends try to promote their public-access cable show.
Awards Awards, 4 wins & 5 nominations
Directors Penelope Spheeris
Writers Mike Myers, Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner
Stars Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe
Produced by Hawk Koch,Lorne Michaels,Dinah Minot,Barnaby Thompson
Music by J. Peter Robinson
Cinematography by Theo van de Sande
Film Editing by Malcolm Campbell
Casting By Glenn Daniels
Production Design by Gregg Fonseca
Art Direction by Bruce Alan Miller
Set Decoration by Jay Hart
Makeup Department Mel Berns Jr.,Thomas R. Burman,Courtney Carell,Bari Dreiband-Burman,Kathrine Gordon,Marlene Lipman,Barbara Lorenz,Carol Meikle,Audrey L. Anzures,Barry R. Koper
Production Management R. Anthony Brown
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director Michael Scott Bryant,Allan Graf,John Hockridge,Pat Kehoe,Joseph J. Kontra,John G. Scotti,Eric Wall,Christopher Walling
Art Department James Betts,Gae S. Buckley,Robert J. Carlyle,Steve Coia,Kirk Corwin,Elizabeth Flaherty,William G. Hall,Mike Holowach,Robert Lucas,Thomas J. Martinez,Mark Perry,Ray Rarick,Glenn H. Roberts,Doug Sieck,Jim Stubblefield,Lisette Thomas,Peter A. Tullo,Edward L. Turk,Ken White,Jeff Clark,Mark Knapton,Michael Marcus,Gerald Scaife,Gary Stel,Randy Tat
Sound Department Bob Baron,John Benson,Pamela Bentkowski,Carolina Beroza,Simon Coke,Greg Curda,Ken Dufva,David Lee Fein,Allen Hartz,Frank Howard,Joseph A. Ippolito,Michael Magill,Andy Nelson,Tom Nelson,Bob Newlan,Phillip W. Palmer,Steve Pederson,Tom Perry,Thomas W. Small,Beth Sterner,Jerome R. Vitucci,Larry Hopkins,Paul O Bryan
Special Effects by William Dawson,Guy Faria,Tony Vandenecker,Robert Cole
Visual Effects by Don Lee,Gray Marshall
Stunts Michael Adams,Tony Brubaker,Carl Ciarfalio,David Efron,Randy Fife,Allan Graf,John Hateley,Steve Kelso,Hubie Kerns Jr.,Hannah Kozak,Frank Lloyd,Curtis Lupo,Tom Morga,Bernie Pock,Gary Price,Anthony G. Schmidt,Oliver Theess,Webster Whinery,Brian J. Williams,John Ashker,Alisa Christensen,Hannah Kozak,Ray Lykins,Eddie Matthews,Pat Romano,Oliver Theess
Camera and Electrical Department Richard Briere,Derlin Brynford-Jones,Ian Christenberry,Armando Contreras,John Cybulski,James D. Doherty,James Fred Donelson,Jeff Durling,Janet L. Earl,Ken Fisher,Harold Hathaway,David E. Hengstellar,David Hennings,László Horváth,Stephen G. Howard,Steele Hunter,Matthew Johnston,Jono Kouzouyan,Cari Lutz,Peter Mercurio,John Nash,Mike Nash,Larry Potoker,Liz Radley,Brad Rea,Richard Redlin,Scott M. Robinson,Joseph Rodmell,Martin Schaer,Jerry Smith,Robert M. Stevens,Monte Swann,Suzanne Tenner,Henry Tirl,Joseph A. Unsinn,Rick Whitfield,Elizabeth Ziegler,Patric J. Abaravich,Jeffrey P. Ackil,Brian S. Cooper,Ron Kunecke
Casting Department Monty J. Goodson,Barbara Harris
Costume and Wardrobe Department Kimberly Guenther Durkin,Janet Sobel,Pat Tonnema,Zoe Hale
Editorial Department David Bryden,Earl Ghaffari,Brion McIntosh,Theresa Repola Mohammed,Ralph O. Sepulveda Jr.,Ann Trulove
Location Management Burt Aronson,Serena Baker,Ned R. Shapiro
Music Department Maureen Crowe,Arlene Matza-Jackson,Steve Mccroskey,David Campbell,Matt Chamberlain,Kevin Laffey,Marc Miller,James Thatcher
Script and Continuity Department Adell Aldrich
Transportation Department Chuck Alsobrook,James Thornsberry,Manny DeMello
Additional Crew Tony Angellotti,Suzette Boyd,Eryk Casemiro,Vartan Chakarian,Michael Chu,Andrée Corroon,Dan Curry,John Downer,Joan Flannery,Peggy Holmes,Henry Humphreys,Catherine M. Jones,Marion Kidd,Billy Koch,Kim Lavery,Lois Lipfield,Laura Matook,Eric Newman,Don Petrie,Kenneth Roth,Maria C. Roxas,Anna Spheeris,Geoff Suddleson,Debbie Tieman,Lynne White,Wai Ling Wong-Curado,Tony A. Angelo,Greg Ferris,Cory Foster,David J. Garfield,Kara Grall,Jack E. Herman,Ahmed Saker,Brad Stephens
Genres Comedy, Music
Companies Paramount Pictures
Countries USA
Languages English, Cantonese
ContentRating PG-13
ImDbRating 7
ImDbRatingVotes 156772
MetacriticRating 57
Keywords public access,breaking the fourth wall,basement,headbanging,product placement