sign in sign up
<<
Home , Coneheads, Saturday Night Live

Every issue, this new chapter will look into cinema’s recent past to find a modern classic that gripped its audience in original and often unforeseen ways. Speaking to people who worked on the production, editor Joshua Bullock asks what keeps us watching and what the film’s legacy is in the context of cinema. First up. It’s 1992, the year of Aladdin, The Bodyguard and Unforgiven. But we are in Aurora, Illinois…

When I was a suburban kid growing up in the Carvey claims Garth came from a version of early Nineties outside London, the headbanger his own brother, Brad. He was a very matter- WAYNE’S WORLD culture of Wayne and Garth’s Middle America of-fact, practical kid whose delivery gave didn’t hold many reference points. However, Wayne’s sidekick his distinctive cadence, the odd their desire to have fun, disrespect authority emphatic rise in a phrase and its soft tailing-off: and escape into silly yet imaginative adventures “Excuse me, I’d like to get by nowww.” The duo made absolute sense. Wayne’s World articulated had become a regular slot on Night Live Words Joshua Bullock a seemingly logical worldview to me, one that and a couple of years later they had their chance Illustration India Windsor-Clive condemned bogus corporates and lame artists. to take it to the big screen. Which saw hanging out with mates and partying Myers’ instruction to Carvey had been simple as life’s paramount obligations. from the start: Garth worships Wayne. Like Though Garth and Wayne lived at their Garth, I found it hard not to do the same. Wayne parents’ houses, those parents were nowhere to isn’t a looker or a tough guy, but he is a leading be seen. The duo were off the chain, with an man, right down to his Converse All Stars. awesomely car (which pops up in Grand Utterly charismatic, Wayne is the best possible Theft Auto), a cable show that gave them purpose, poster boy for what cool should look like to a and a network of hilarious enablers ready to kid growing up: someone with an investment pitch in with cameos. There wasn’t a spliff in in the deeper joys and karmic principles of life, sight – the comedy wasn’t herbal just a higher who is no version of himself for others’ benefit class of infantile. and who is fundamentally kind and loving in all would do early Wayne he does, even the mockery. impressions at parties growing up in Of course, Wayne gets out of his depth when Scarborough, . Myers describes success and money come knocking and proclaim Wayne’s World as, “the suburban adolescent his genius. Who can blame him for being a North American heavy metal experience”. little overreaching and pompous in the new Scarborough as a suburb of Toronto was his paradigm. All the same, he’s never far away from version of the film’s Aurora – itself a suburb undercutting the sanctimony and commerciality of . thrust upon him by TV executive Benjamin Myers was a cast member of Saturday () and the show’s first sponsor, Noah’s Night Live from 1989. He had performed earlier Arcade. The power of Mike Myers’ performance incarnations of Wayne Campbell in TV skits (as with Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin in The for Canada’s CBC network and asked Dana Naked Gun) is that you’re never sure whether Carvey, another SNL staffer, to be his sidekick. Wayne’s repeat offence and stupidity is intended:

244 245 Cassandra: I don’t believe I’ve ever had executive Benjamin Kane, who has a penthouse Led Zeppelin didn’t write tunes everybody French champagne before. babe lair stacked with pick-up self-help books. liked. They left that to the Bee Gees. Benjamin Kane: Oh, actually all He’s handsome and fl uent in Cantonese, with Perhaps Wayne’s World sits historically at champagne is French, it’s named after smooth skin and a well-pressed trouser selection. a fi lmic crossroads. It lays the groundwork the region. Otherwise it’s sparkling white He’s not just trying to steal Wayne’s show, but his for future oddball comedies like the Farrelly wine. Americans of course don’t recognise girl too. He’s the blandest form of reptile, which brothers’ (Dumb and Dumber) and ’s the convention, so it becomes that thing is to say, watching the fi lm twenty-four years fi l m s ( Clerks, Dogma) while drawing on the of calling all of their sparkling white on, that he seems incredibly Rob Lowe. Wayne surreal set pieces, punning and pop references of ‘champagne’, even though by defi nition and Benjamin fi ght the classic battle of looks Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker fare from the Eighties they’re not. versus personality. Luckily, the lady in question is (Airplane!, The Naked Gun). Wayne Campbell: Ah , it’s a lot like Cassandra – an Asian Joan Jett kick-ass rockstar It’s also diffi cult to say that Wayne’s World is : The Next Generation. In many who ‘can really wail’. Played by Tia Carrere, who really like any other fi lm, even Mike Myers’ later ways it’s superior – but will never be as performed all of her own songs, Cassandra is the work. The comic bromance in fi lm lore was recognised as the original. lady worthy of Wayne’s quest and the very least well-established before Wayne’s World: Laurel and Wayne and Garth may be fools but they are he deserves. Hardy, Lemmon and Matthau, Wilder and Pryor, not idiots. They cleave to the rebellious standards Wayne Campbell: Cassandra. She’s a fox. but Wayne and Garth are the bridge over to a of the rock gods they worship – even if Alice In French, she would be called ‘la renarde’ future of Jay and Silent Bob, Harry and Lloyd, Cooper turns out to be a boring mayoral politics and she would be hunted with only her Tatum and Hill. Their interplay also updated the geek when they meet him backstage at a show. cunning to protect her. shtick and the coming-of-age comic conventions Delusional without being deluded, the duo are Even for a youngster who found romantic of 1980s John Hughes fi lms like Ferris Bueller’s aware that life’s trajectory may well never take interludes in any genre the cue to go out for Day Off and The Breakfast Club, breaking down them away from their average existence. They more Doritos, the outcome here mattered. the fourth wall and making everything sillier in can accept that possibility because they turn It’s a great love story, not overwrought or faux true style. an everyday world into one of their own profound, but warm, based on jokes and music. The freeform, freewheeling idiocy of Wayne’s surreal imagining: Rather than glam courting and half-fi nished World is of course rooted in its amateurish soul. Garth Algar: Sometimes I wish I could sentences, Wayne hitches his Y-Fronts up his butt At its heart this is a sketch made 3D. But the boldly go where no man has gone before... cheeks to make her laugh. triumph of the project as a fi lm, not just a couple but I’ll probably stay in Aurora. “Wayne and Garth make everything fun. of great characters lurching from set piece to As metallers, the fi lm’s producer Lorne They ritualise everything,” says . set piece, is that the story arc is believable and Michaels (creator of Saturday Night Live) needed Throughout the fi lm Wayne and Garth talk to we feel greater philosophies in confl ict and a a director who had empathy with Wayne and the camera and their explanation of the story deeper question being played out in suburban Garth’s world of ripped jeans, garage bands and as it unfolds drives the narrative and the comedy. picaresque: do nice guys come last? Can local go Flying Vs. They hired , who had Garth Algar: We’re looking down big time? The answer is that if Wayne and Garth recently shot a documentary called The Decline of on Wayne’s basement. Only that’s not don’t get the ending they deserve, they’ll just do Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. Wayne’s basement. Isn’t that weird? it again until they do. Filming took place in July and August Wayne Campbell: Yeah, that’s 1991, before the new series of Saturday Night weird, man, that’s weird… Garth! Wayne’s World is released to MUBI subscribers as one Live started. There were just over thirty days That was a Haiku! of thirty fi lms on the platform this August. of fi lming, an incredibly short time to make a In Wayne’s World sometimes a joke falling picture. Wayne’s World was made for 14 million fl at can be funny because it seems to be so in dollars by Paramount, pocket change in the the room and of the moment. The fi lm’s self- business. With expectations of its commercial referencing and in-joke camaraderie wraps it in success modest, there was a freedom on set and a pop cultural irony that even includes Meatloaf in the edit that meant risks were taken. The fi lm playing a bouncer called Tiny at the guys’ would go on to gross 180 million favourite club, The Gas Works. dollars internationally. Wayne: Hey, Tiny, who’s playing today? The screenplay had been honed in dozens of Tiny: Jolly Green Giants and the rewrites between Myers and husband-and-wife Shitty Beatles. writing duo Terry and Bonnie Turner (Saturday Wayne: Shitty Beatles? Are they any Night Live, , 3rd Rock from the Sun). good? Spheeris’ high-octane, fast-take direction suited Tiny: They suck. the spontaneity of sketch like Carvey Wayne: Then it’s not just a clever name. and Myers. Looking back now, technicians Like all true fools reaching as far back as King on the fi lm speak about how Myers was the Lear’s, Garth speaks hard truths to the imperfect lightning rod for the freewheeling production; power he adores and with a clearer insight into keeping energy levels up, impersonating other others’ motives than the trusting and impulsive cast and crew, cracking up the set in character so Wayne. it became hard to tell where Wayne stopped Garth Algar: Do you ever get the feeling and Mike began. Benjamin’s just using us? Wayne’s World isn’t just about Wayne and Wayne Campbell: Good call. It’s like he Garth. Rob Lowe is excellent as the oily fi lm wants us to be liked by everyone. I mean

246 247