Wayne's World
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Penelope Spheeris
Produced by	Hawk Koch Lorne Michaels
Written by	Mike Myers Bonnie Turner Terry Turner
Starring	Mike Myers Dana Carvey Rob Lowe Tia Carrere
Music by	J. Peter Robinson
Cinematography	Theo van de Sande
Editing by	Malcolm Campbell
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	February 14, 1992
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
Gross revenue	$121,697,323 (domestically), $183,097,323 (worldwide)
Followed by	Wayne's World 2

Wayne's World is a 1992 comedy film starring Mike Myers as Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey as Garth Algar, hosts of the Aurora, Illinois-based cable access television show Wayne's World. The film was adapted from a sketch of the same name on NBC's Saturday Night Live.

The film grossed US$121.6 million in its theatrical run, placing it as the tenth highest-grossing film of 1992 and the highest-grossing film ever based on a Saturday Night Live skit. It was directed by Penelope Spheeris, with Myers co-writing the script.

The film also featured Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere, Lara Flynn Boyle, Brian Doyle-Murray, Robert Patrick (spoofing his role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day), Ed O'Neill, Ione Skye, Meat Loaf, and Alice Cooper.

Wayne's World received mostly positive reviews upon release and was commercially successful (unlike many Saturday Night Live-based films). Filmed in just 34 days^[1], it was followed by Wayne's World 2. In 2003, readers of Total Film magazine voted Wayne's World the 41st greatest comedy film of all time.

[edit] Summary

Wayne Campbell (Myers) and Garth Algar (Carvey) are the hosts of Wayne's World, a local Friday late-night cable access program based in Aurora, Illinois, where they ogle pictures of beautiful celebrity women, play air guitar and drums, and interview local people, indirectly making fun of them over the course of the interview. The program is popular with local viewers. One day Benjamin Kane (Lowe), a television station executive, is visiting a girlfriend (Ione Skye) who turns the TV to the show. When she tells him how many people watch the show, he instructs his producer Russell Finley (Kurt Fuller) to find out where the show is taped, telling him they may have an opportunity for a huge sponsorship.

Benjamin shows up next week in Wayne's basement and introduces himself after the show ends. He offers to buy the rights to the show for $10,000 ($5,000 each) and to keep Wayne and Garth on for what he describes as a "huge" salary. Garth then covertly speaks to the audience, sensing he has a bad feeling that Wayne is selling out, but he is too shy to confront Wayne about it. Following the purchase of the show, it is quickly "reinvented", complete with a weekly interview guaranteed to Noah Vanderhoff (Brian Doyle-Murray), the show's sponsor. The first reinvented show is also their last, as Wayne holds up a series of cards with questions on the front and, unknowingly to Vanderhoff, insulting phrases on the back such as "Sphincter Boy" (with an arrow pointing at Vanderhoff), "He blows goats...I have proof" and "This man has no penis", prompting Benjamin to call Wayne up to the control booth and fire him on the spot.

At the same time, Wayne's blossoming relationship with hard rock vocalist and bassist Cassandra (Tia Carrere), the frontwoman of a band named Crucial Taunt, leads to a rift forming between Wayne and Garth. It erupts after Wayne walks out on the show, leaving Garth to a bout of stage fright for the rest of the show. The two separate, but later make up after Wayne breaks up with Cassandra following an argument between them over Benjamin.

While making up with Garth, Wayne remembers a limo belonging to record executive Frankie Sharp (Frank DiLeo) outside a concert of Alice Cooper in Milwaukee. He also remembers that a security guard at the concert said that Sharp would be riding through Chicago later that day and forms a plan with Garth to get her back. With everyone in the donut shop helping, Wayne is able to convince Cassandra, who is at a video shoot directed by Benjamin, to leave the shoot with the band and head back to Aurora with him to perform on the show. Garth, meanwhile, hacks into a satellite system and is able to route the signal from the broadcast into the television set in Sharp's limo. In the meantime, the police keep Benjamin at bay and leave him unable to enter the house until the show's over.

Nearing the end of Cassandra's song, Frankie Sharp and Benjamin enter the basement. Once the song is finished, these endings occur:

• Frankie says to Cassandra that it is the wrong time to sign her band, causing her to become infuriated with Wayne. Wayne is called small-time by Benjamin just before he leaves with Cassandra, and Stacy comes in to announce to Wayne that she is pregnant. Suddenly, an electrical fire starts from the broadcasting equipment and consumes the house. While Wayne walks out of the burned-down house with a dead Garth, Cassandra lies in paradise with Benjamin while he remarks "You didn't really think she'd end up with Wayne, did you?" (The Sad ending)

• Wayne pulls off Benjamin's face, revealing that he's actually Old Man Withers, who then remarks, true to Scooby-Doo form, "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you snooping kids!" (The Scooby-Doo ending)

• Frankie gives Cassandra a six album record deal, Wayne and Cassandra kiss, Russell and one of the crew members who keeps saying "I love you" get together, while he announces how he discovered that "platonic love can exist between two grown men", Noah mentions that he's glad people are seeing him in a new light, Benjamin realizes being successful doesn't get you everything, and Garth finally gets with his dream girl. (The Mega-Happy ending)

[edit] Cast

• Mike Myers as Wayne Campbell
• Dana Carvey as Garth Algar
• Tia Carrere as Cassandra Wong
• Rob Lowe as Benjamin Kane
• Lara Flynn Boyle as Stacy, Wayne's ex-girlfriend
• Michael DeLuise as Alan, one of Wayne and Garth's crew
• Lee Tergesen as Terry, Wayne and Garth's cameraman
• Sean Gregory Sullivan as Phil, Wayne and Garth's friends who works at a garage
• Brian Doyle-Murray as video arcade magnate Noah Vanderhoff
• Colleen Camp as his wife, Mrs. Vanderhoff
• Kurt Fuller as Russell Finley, Benjamin's assistant
• Chris Farley as the well-informed Security Guard at the back of Alice Cooper concert
• Frank DiLeo as rock promoter Frankie 'Mr. Big' Sharp
• Ed O'Neill as Glen, the manager at Stan Mikita's Donuts
• Mike Hagerty as Davy, Glen's customer who got laid off
• Frederick Coffin as Officer Koharski
• Donna Dixon as Garth's dream woman
• Ione Skye as Elyse, Benjamin's girlfriend, who introduces him to Wayne's World
• Robin Ruzan as a waitress.
• Charles Noland as Ron Paxton, who tries to market his invention, the "Suck-Kut", to Garth
• Carmen Filpi as Old Man Withers
• Robert Patrick as Bad Cop (Terminator T-1000 parody)
• Alice Cooper as himself
• Pete Friesen as himself, Alice Cooper's guitarist
• Derek Sherinian as himself, Alice Cooper's keyboard player
• Jimmy DeGrasso as himself, Alice Cooper's drummer

[edit] Effect on pop culture

Filled with pop culture references, 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 in order to state the contrary (as used by the metal band Anthrax (band) in the late 1980s and early 1990s). It augmented the slacker language of Generation X, much as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure had done previously. It featured a baby blue 1970s AMC Pacer with flames and non-matching wheels, which Wayne and Garth dubbed the "Mirth Mobile".^[2]

The film frequently breaks the fourth wall, with Wayne, Garth, and others on occasion speaking directly to the audience. Parts of the story are carried by Wayne's narration to the camera, in which he offers his thoughts on what's happening in the film. Despite Wayne, Garth, Glenn, and Ben addressing the viewer, no one else seems aware that they are in a film.

[edit] Video games

In 1993, a Wayne's World video game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Mega Drive, and the Nintendo Game Boy. The game's plot differs from the film: the player controls Wayne as he goes on a mission throughout Aurora – visiting The Gas Works, Stan Mikita's, and the music store from the "No Stairway" scene, among other locations – to rescue Garth from inside the "Zoltar the Gelatinous Cube" arcade game mentioned in the film. Both games were reviewed by James Rolfe, AKA The Angry Video Game Nerd in 2009.

Alternatively, an adventure game version of Wayne's World was released around the same time for DOS. The plot involves Wayne and Garth trying to raise money to save their show by holding a "pizza-thon".

[edit] Music

• The use of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the film propelled the song to #2 in Billboard singles charts nearly 20 years after its first release. The soundtrack album reached number one in the Billboard album charts.

• Joan Jett & the Blackhearts played again its famous theme I Love Rock 'n' Roll for the movie, with a new music video. The song reached the most places in the Billboards charts 10 years after of its release.

• While in the music store, Wayne (Myers) tries out a guitar by starting to play "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, and is stopped by a salesman, who points to a sign on the wall of the sales floor, which says "No Stairway ". This performance existed in original 35mm theatrical prints, but, due to the band's licensing restrictions, the notes performed were changed for home video and television broadcasts and bear no resemblence to the original, and the point of the joke is lost. Also, when Garth (Carvey) tries out a large Yamaha drum kit, the scene as filmed was actually Carvey playing the drum kit (microphones can be seen mounted on the kit to record the performance). Carvey had played drums during appearances as The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live.

• Tia Carrere sang all her own vocals on songs she performed in the film, and were included in the films original soundtrack recording.

• Lil Wayne has referenced the movie often in his songs.

[edit] Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (July 2008)

• A Wayne's World theme park attraction was built and featured at the formerly-Paramount-owned theme parks Kings Dominion and Carowinds. The Wayne's World-themed roller coaster, Hurler, remains at both parks, but the Wayne's World section of Carowinds has been re-themed Thrill Zone, and the Wayne's World section of Kings Dominion has been merged into another area of the park known as The Grove.
• Scenes in downtown Aurora were actually shot in downtown Covina, California.
• In the opening scenes directly after they sing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen they pass by the known landmark on the corner of South Pulaski Avenue and 63rd street of a large Native American with glasses statue located over an optical store.
• Wayne and Garth's hangout, Stan Mikita's Donuts, is named after the former Chicago Blackhawks player. This is a reference to Tim Hortons, a doughnut shop chain named started by Tim Horton, a player from the Toronto Maple Leafs (Mike Myers' favorite team).
• The commercial for Noah's Arcade that opens the film contains footage of a prototype version of Sonic the Hedgehog playing in the background. In the USA the game was released only on Sega's Master System and Genesis/Mega Drive and never into arcades, but overseas destinations did have Sonic on the Mega-Tech.
• The statue of cars on a large spike was named Spindle, and was located in Berwyn, Illinois. The spindle has since been torn down to make way for more retail space.
• Ed O'Neill reprises his role as a guest on Saturday Night Live as the disturbed man who speaks directly to the viewer. On Saturday Night Live, he played a shop teacher of Wayne and Garth's who is now an employee at the donut shop.
• Robert Patrick reprises his role as the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (he is credited as "Bad Cop" in the credits). He appears late in the film, pulling Wayne over on a police motorcycle. He shows Wayne a picture of John Connor and asks, "Have you seen this boy?" Wayne realizes who the cop is, screams, and drives off as the T-1000 walks after him (with the character's signature gait) for a few steps.
• Chris Farley makes his debut movie appearance as a security guard. In the next film, he plays Milton, a friend of Wayne and Garth.
• The Gasworks was a popular nightclub in the 1980s in Myers' home town, Toronto.

[edit] See also

• Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wayne's World

• Wayne's World at the Internet Movie Database
• Wayne's World at Allmovie
• Wayne's World at Rotten Tomatoes
• I Love Rock 'n' Roll video in Youtube