Wayne's World (film)

Wayne's World
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Penelope Spheeris
Produced by	Lorne Michaels
Written by	Mike Myers Bonnie Turner Terry Turner
Based on	Wayne's World created by Mike Myers
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 (1992-02-14)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 million
Box office	$183,097,323 (worldwide)

Wayne's World is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Penelope Spheeris and starring Mike Myers in his film debut as Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey as Garth Algar, hosts of the Aurora, Illinois-based Public-access television cable TV show Wayne's World. The film was adapted from a sketch of the same name on NBC's Saturday Night Live.^[1][2]

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.^[3]

Wayne's World was Myers' feature film debut. The film also featured Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere, Lara Flynn Boyle, Brian Doyle-Murray, Robert Patrick (spoofing his role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day), Chris Farley, 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 34 days,^[4] it was followed by Wayne's World 2. In 1993, readers of Total Film magazine voted Wayne's World the 41st greatest comedy film of all time.

Plot

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 an Alice Cooper concert in Milwaukee. He also remembers that a security guard at the concert (Chris Farley) 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, 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 Wayne's crazy ex-girlfriend Stacy (Lara Flynn Boyle) 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 an injured Garth, Cassandra lies in paradise with Benjamin. Wayne and Garth then decide they don't like that ending, and decide to do the "Scooby-Doo ending" instead. Wayne then pulls off Benjamin's face, revealing that he is 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!" After this, Garth imitates Scooby-Doo by saying "Good One, Shaggy." Wayne and Garth then decide to do the "mega happy ending", where Frankie gives Cassandra a six album record deal, Wayne and Cassandra kiss, Russell and the crew member who keeps saying "I love you" get together, while he announces how he discovered that "platonic love can exist between two grown men", Noah is glad people are seeing him in a new light after he started sponsoring Wayne's World, Benjamin realizes being successful doesn't get you everything, and Garth finally gets his dream girl (Donna Dixon).

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 crazy ex-girlfriend
• Michael DeLuise as Alan, one of Wayne and Garth's crew
• Lee Tergesen as Terry, Wayne and Garth's head cameraman
• Dan Bell as Neil, Wayne's and Garth's other crewman
• Sean Gregory Sullivan as Phil, Wayne and Garth's perpetually wasted friend who works at an auto repair shop
• Brian Doyle-Murray as video arcade magnate Noah Vanderhoff
• Colleen Camp as 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, a controller at the Cable 10 television station who Benjamin and Russell ask for help, he later claims that he got laid off while at Stan Mikita's.
• 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
• Chaz Healy as Concert-goer
• Robert Patrick as T-1000
• Alice Cooper with Pete Friesen, Derek Sherinian and Jimmy DeGrasso as themselves

Reception

The film holds 85% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

Box Office

The movie was a box office success debuting at No.1.^[5][6] The film's final final domestic gross was $121,697,323.^[7]

Soundtrack

Main article: Wayne's World (soundtrack)

Effect on pop culture

Wayne's World AMC Pacer clone at Planet Hollywood in New York City

Filled with pop culture references, the sketches and 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. It augmented the slacker language of Generation X, much as Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure had done previously. It featured a baby blue 1976 AMC Pacer with flames and non-matching wheels, which Wayne and Garth dubbed "The Mirthmobile".^[8]

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, Cassandra, Glen, and Ben addressing the viewer, no one else seems aware that they are in a film.

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.

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".

In the beginning of the film, the Noah's Arcade commercial features Starlight Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog playing behind Noah Vanderhoff, the owner of the Noah's Arcade franchise.

The video games Pong, Pac-Man, and Ms. Pac-Man were mentioned by Noah & Wayne but not seen in the film.

In addition, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned features a car based on the AMC Pacer named "Rhapsody" in reference to the famed scene from the film. If the player zooms in on the dashboard with the sniper rifle, they can see a photograph of Wayne and Garth.

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. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, died of bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS a few months before the film's release.

• Gary Wright rerecorded "Dream Weaver" for this film and it was used whenever Wayne looked at Cassandra.

• 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 (often falsely credited as Dana Strum from the band Slaughter), who points to a sign on the wall of the sales floor, which says "No Stairway To Heaven". The joke references the fact that in a number of guitar stores in the UK, the song is banned from being played due to the fact that so many people tried to play the guitar portions of the song after its release, employees became sick of hearing it. Wayne's 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 very little resemblance 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 her cover version of songs, such as Sweet's "The Ballroom Blitz", were included in the film's original soundtrack recording.

See also

Chicago portal

• Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches
• List of Saturday Night Live feature films

References

1. ^ "Party On, Wayne -- From TV to Movies". Time. March 2, 1992. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974985,00.html#ixzz0hBUadfF1. Retrieved 2010-03-04. 
2. ^ "Metalheads Of `Wayne`s World` Are Headed For The Big Screen". Chicago Tribune. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-08-17/entertainment/9103010015_1_myers-and-carvey-night-live-mike-myers. Retrieved 2010-10-26. 
3. ^ Diamond, Jamie (1992-04-12). "FILM; Penelope Spheeris: From Carny Life To 'Wayne's World'". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/12/movies/film-penelope-spheeris-from-carny-life-to-wayne-s-world.html?scp=8&sq=Wayne's%20World&st=cse. Retrieved 2010-08-08. 
4. ^ "Find The Film movie trivia". http://www.findthefilm.com/movies/waynes_world.php. Retrieved July 5, 2009. 
5. ^ "Weekend Box Office `Wayne's World' Keeps Partyin' On". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-03/entertainment/ca-3323_1_weekend-box-office. Retrieved 2010-11-18. 
6. ^ "Weekend Box Office `Wayne's World' Gains in Fifth Week". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1992-03-17/entertainment/ca-3873_1_weekend-box-office. Retrieved 2010-10-26. 
7. ^ Alphabetical Movie Index A-Z, www.boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2011-01-17.
8. ^ Excellent! 'Wayne's World' car for sale AMC Pacer from movie, $1.2 million Shelby Mustang among items for sale by car museum. CNNMoney.com December 16, 2004 NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The 1976 AMC Pacer used in the 1992 movie "Wayne's World" is among the items to be sold by an Illinois car museum.

External links

• Wayne's World at the Internet Movie Database
• Wayne's World at AllRovi
• Wayne's World at Rotten Tomatoes