So, you haven’t seen Wayne’s World or, like Lee, it’s been so long that you don’t remember it? Well here’s the Two Drink Cinema preview, giving you all of the most basic information about the film so you don’t go in completely blind. 

Here’s the plot as Lee remembers it…

“Wayne’s World is an 80s movie about two rock obsessed guys, Wayne (Mike Myers) and his mate Garth (Dana Carvey) who somehow host a TV show from his basement. Maybe it’s like Channel 31. Wayne falls in love with a hot rock chick and Garth falls in love with someone who looks like him. They sing Bohemian Rhapsody in the car, play guitar in a shop and at the end the hot rock chick does a cover of Ballroom Blitz which is actually really good.”

As soon as Lee read that out in the podcast he realised it actually isn’t an 80s movie, it’s released in 1992, 30 years ago, which is why we’re reviewing it in 2022. 

The film is based on the Saturday Night Live sketches created by Mike Myers. It’s on the second movie ever made from SNL sketches, the first being The Blues Brothers, which we have watched and reviewed previously. It is also the second most successful of all 12 movies inspired by SNL. It grossed $183 million worldwide, making it the 8th most successful film of 1992. On a rumoured budget of $20 million that’s a pretty good return. Good enough to cause the studio to decide to make a sequel. 

Overall it was well-received at the time, as the dollars show I guess, but when you look at the review aggregators you get a mixed bag. Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 79% approval rating, but we have to take everything on that site with a grain of salt now anyway. I was shocked when I saw that on Metacritic they gave it only 57/100 but that’s only based on 14 reviews, so it’s not a huge sample size. 

The production was pretty straightforward, it’s not a complicated movie, but it wasn’t without it’s production issues. Most of those centring around Mike Myers himself. The first issue was the fact that he couldn’t drive. That’s a relatively big issue when there’s a couple of key scenes where Wayne drives the “Mirth Mobile”. Apparently, they sent him a driving instructor instead of a driver in order for him to get to set. 

The bigger issue was his clashing with the director. According to director Penepole Spheeris he was “emotionally needy” and reading between the lines he was a pain in the ass. They clashed so badly that Myers prevented Spheeris from directing Wayne’s World 2. 

Interestingly, there were no casting changes, as we talk about with many films but the cameo by Alice Cooper was meant to be Aerosmith but they were ‘too busy’ and we get to see Alice Cooper instead. 

The movie didn’t win any awards and has only been ‘nominated’ for inclusion on some of the AFI lists. Nothing worth really noting there. But the cultural impact is still felt today. 

“Schwing”, “…not!”, “That’s what she said” are all in the common vernacular (particularly in the 90s), largely because of Wayne and Garth. 

We’re both looking forward to seeing it again and remembering what it’s actually about. Have a listen to our full preview episode (it’s got many more of Brett’s jokes in it than this article does).