Things That Bring Back Memories – Wayne’s World #MondayMemories 16

For this week’s “Things That Bring Back Memories” post, I am going to pick something in the topic of “MOVIES” and go with Wayne’s World.  This movie was released in 1992, and is one that a lot of people still talk about.  If you watched it back in the day, you probably still bang your head to that certain song….what? you don’t? ha/ha  This was just a funny comedy that had everyone laughing and always made you smile.

If, for some reason, you are of an age that makes it difficult to remember the Wayne’s World movie, here’s a preview of the movie that we all saw before it came out:

Did you ever watch the Wayne’s World movie when you were younger? or have you seen it on TV or Netflix later in life?  Let me know what you thought of it, and if you have any memories of it in your life!

More Info on the Movie:

Wayne’s World is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Penelope Spheeris and starring Mike Myers 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.

The film grossed $121.6 million in its theatrical run, placing it as the tenth highest-grossing film of 1992 and the highest-grossing of the 11 films based on Saturday Night Live skits. It was filmed in 34 days.

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 was released on February 14, 1992, and was a critical and commercial success. A sequel, Wayne’s World 2, was released on December 10, 1993. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Wayne’s World the 41st-greatest comedy film of all time.

In Aurora, Illinois, two rock and roll enthusiasts in their 20’s, Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, host a cable access television show called Wayne’s World, in which they lampoon eccentric locals and discuss topics of interest that include music and beautiful women; in spite of the show’s low budget, it has proven quite popular in the Aurora area. One day, Benjamin Oliver, a television producer, discovers Wayne’s World while visiting his girlfriend; after learning of the show’s popularity, he has his assistant Russell Finley track down where Wayne’s World is taped.

Wayne and Garth are offered $10,000 from Benjamin to purchase the rights to their show. Garth talks to the audience and admits his doubts on the shady deal, but he is too shy to say anything to Wayne, and the pair accept the offer. Using their newfound wealth, Wayne and Garth attend a local night club, where they avoid Wayne’s psychotic ex-girlfriend Stacy, who repeatedly attempts to get back together with him, and Wayne sees Cassandra Wong, the lead vocalist and bassist of the band Crucial Taunt, who are playing on stage. He instantly becomes smitten with her and they both hit it off. In order to impress Cassandra, Wayne learns to speak Cantonese and the two share a conversation while Stacy, still following him, tries to make him jealous by being with another man, which ends up in disaster. He also purchases a guitar he had been eyeing for a long time.

Benjamin also becomes attracted to Cassandra, and uses his wealth and good looks to try to win her over. Giving Wayne and Garth a pair of tickets to an Alice Cooper concert to get them out of the way, he offers Cassandra a role in a music video. At the concert, Wayne and Garth meet the bodyguard (Chris Farley) of Frankie Sharpe, producer of Sharpe Records, and gain information which they could possibly use later. They are initially fazed when they go to their first recording of Wayne’s World at a television studio, repeatedly implanting the film’s product endorsements as Benjamin talks to them. When the show starts, they are required to speak with their big sponsor Noah Vanderhoff, who owns a franchise of arcades. True to form, Wayne violates Benjamin’s rules by ridiculing Vanderhoff with a series of notes written on the back of his cards. Wayne is then called up to the booth and fired on the spot from his own show. Wayne leaves, and Garth, developing a case of stage fright, freezes up on camera. Following that, Wayne and Garth get into a heated argument, causing a rift in their friendship. Wayne also becomes jealous of Benjamin moving in on Cassandra and tries to prevent her from participating in the music video. Furious at Wayne for not trusting her, Cassandra breaks up with him.

Wayne makes up with Garth, and has a plan to get Cassandra back by getting Frankie Sharpe to hear her play. While Garth and their friends, with Russell’s aid, gain access to a satellite station, Wayne goes to Cassandra’s video set, where he embarrasses himself by trying to uncover Benjamin’s ulterior motives and failing. As he leaves, a snake Benjamin is holding crawls along her neck and she suddenly suspects the same thing, Wayne apologizes to her and they return to Aurora, delaying Benjamin by having a police officer friend of Garth perform a rectal search on him. Broadcasting from Wayne’s house, Wayne’s World successfully hacks into Sharpe’s satellite television and he listens to Cassandra play. As her song comes to an end, Sharpe and Benjamin converge in Wayne’s basement; unfortunately, Sharpe, while impressed by Cassandra, is unable to sign her on, giving Benjamin a cruel satisfaction as Cassandra breaks up with Wayne again and leaves with Benjamin to a tropical resort. Meanwhile, Stacy admits she has been so moody because she is pregnant with Wayne’s child, and a fire starts amongst the camera equipment and burns the house down while Wayne carries Garth from the inferno. Unsatisfied with the “bad ending”, they reenact the scene again, only this time they unmask Benjamin as “Old Man Withers” in a Scooby-Doo ending. They then reenact it again in a “Mega Happy Ending” where Cassandra is signed on to a record contract and gets back together with Wayne, Russell learns that “platonic love can exist between two grown men”, Garth somehow starts a relationship with a “dream woman” who works at the local diner, and Benjamin discovers that “money, great hair, and a perfect body can get you far in America; almost to the top, but it can’t get you everything” before they all break out in “fish face” and begin having fun.

Some of the Wayne’s World Characters:

Mike Myers (Wayne Campbell) was born in 1963 in Scarborough, Ontario, to Alice, an officer supervisor, and Eric Myers, an insurance agent. His parents were both English, and had served in the Royal Air Force and British Army, respectively.  Myers’ television career really started in 1988, when he joined Saturday Night Live (1975), where he spent six seasons. He brought to life many memorable characters, such as Dieter and Wayne Cambell. His major movies include Wayne’s World (1992), Wayne’s World 2 (1993), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), the Austin Powers movies and The Cat in the Hat (2003).  Myers began dating actress and comedy writer Robin Ruzan in the late 1980’s after meeting at a hockey game in Chicago, during which Myers caught a puck and used the incident as an icebreaker to strike up a conversation with Ruzan. The couple married on 22 May 1993, and Myers later referred to Ruzan as “his muse”.  The couple filed for divorce in December 2005.  In 2006, café owner Kelly Tisdale confirmed reports that she and Myers were dating. Myers and Tisdale wed in New York in a secret ceremony in the fall of 2010.  They have three children.  Myers is a Dungeons & Dragons player and was one of several celebrities to have participated in the Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day in 2006.  He supports the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League.  He named two characters in the first Austin Powers movie Commander Gilmour and General Borschevsky, after then-Maple Leafs players Doug Gilmour and Nikolai Borschevsky.

Dana Carvey (Garth Algar) was born June 2, 1955, in Missoula, Montana, the son of Billie Dahl, a schoolteacher, and Bud Carvey, a high-school business teacher.  He is an American actor and stand-up comedian known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth Algar in the Wayne’s World films.  He is well known for his impersonations of George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot on Saturday Night Live. He is also known for playing The Church Lady and Hans from Hans and Franz on SNL; both are original SNL characters.  Carvey is the brother of Brad Carvey, the engineer/designer of the Video Toaster. The character Garth Algar is loosely based on Brad. Carvey has English, German, Irish, Norwegian, and Swedish ancestry, and was raised Lutheran.  When he was three years old, his family moved to San Carlos, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended Tierra Linda Junior High in San Carlos, Carlmont High School in Belmont, California (where he was a member of the Central Coast Section champion cross country team), College of San Mateo in San Mateo, California, and received his bachelor’s degree in broadcast communications from San Francisco State University.  In 1979, while performing at The Other Cafe in San Francisco, Carvey met Paula Zwagerman. They became engaged in 1980 and married in 1983. The couple have two children.  In 1997, Carvey underwent heart bypass surgery for a blocked coronary artery, but the surgeon operated on the wrong artery. The blocked artery was deeply buried in muscle and thus hard to find; another artery, though not blocked, was clearly accessible, so the surgeon bypassed it. Carvey, later suffering from angina pectoris, sued for medical malpractice and was awarded $8 million in damages. He donated the money to charity.  He has had to undergo additional surgery to correct his heart problems.

Rob Lowe (Benjamin Oliver) was born March 17, 1964 in Charlottesville, Virginia, to Barbara Lynn, a schoolteacher, and Charles Davis Lowe, a lawyer. His brother is actor Chad Lowe. He has German, as well as English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. Lowe’s family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when he was a child. Rob broke into acting in his teens. He spent the 1980’s as a member of the “Brat Pack”, a group of young, powerful and reckless actors and actresses that included Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Judd Nelson, among others. In 1988 Lowe was involved in a scandal centering around a sexually explicit videotape which involved a minor, for which he did 20 hours of community service in Dayton. He subsequently sought help for his problems with drugs and alcohol and has re-emerged in the 1990’s as a clean and sober husband and father.

Tia Carrere (Cassandra) was born January 2, 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii. While attending Sacred Hearts Academy, Tia was discovered in a Waikiki grocery store and landed the female lead in the indie movie Aloha Summer (1988). Although her passion has always been singing (grandmother Rae took Tia to her first singing lesson at age ten), Tia would continue her ascent in the acting world with a regular stint on General Hospital (1963) as Jade Soong and a string of co-starring roles on MacGyver (1985), Quantum Leap (1989) and Friday’s Curse (1987), among others. It was not until her breakthrough role as Cassandra Wong in the Wayne’s World films that Tia was able to showcase, both, her singing and acting chops. Wayne’s World was a worldwide phenom and set the stage for the evil Juno Skinner in True Lies (1994), opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, computer whiz Jingo Asakuma in Rising Sun (1993), opposite Sean Connery, and her own series lead of Sydney Fox on Relic Hunter (1999).  Other current television work has included appearing on the 2007 season premiere of Nip/Tuck (2003), on Kelsey Grammer’s Back to You (2007), and recurring as Cha Cha on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000). Recently, Tia returned to her Hawaiian roots with her voice work on Disney’s Lilo & Stitch films and series as well as her Grammy-nominated CD “Hawaiiana”.

Did You Know?

When Wayne and Garth are on the hood of the car watching airplanes fly over, Garth asks Wayne if he ever thought Bugs Bunny was attractive in women’s clothing. The comment was an ad-lib by Dana Carvey made while waiting for an incoming plane to finally come in to scene. Mike Myers laugh was genuine, and ultimately decided to keep the dialogue in the film.

Alice Cooper came to the set under the impression that he would be performing musically for the film, with one line. Upon arrival, he was surprised to be handed an entire monologue to memorize and shoot with a small amount of time to do so. However, Cooper is known to be a history buff outside of his music career.

Dana Carvey did not learn the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody” prior to filming the scene where everyone is singing along to it, and was reportedly displeased with the take of that scene used in the film because he was obviously not singing, just moving his mouth in vague relation to the lyrics.

In the early ’70s, some British music shops banned or fined patrons for playing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” because it was played so often. Hence the sign: “No ‘Stairway to Heaven'” when Wayne plays the guitar in the store.

Cassandra’s horrible jungle themed music video is a possible reference to Pearl Jam, who reportedly went through the same thing for their song Even Flow. They were so unhappy with the finished result they prevented its release and swore off music videos forever.