When the conversation of the most overrated band in history crops up I often want to put Queen forward as my suggestion. Their omnipresent hits represent the worst of bands who favour stadium-sized grandeur over true ambition. However, I can never truly get behind the idea of trashing Freddie and co when their music helped create one of my most beloved scenes in cinema history.
Early in 1992’s Wayne’s World, a bunch of rockers squeeze into an AMC Pacer with custom flames painted on the side. As they drive past the automarts, car washes and beef stands of downtown Chicago, Bohemian Rhapsody plays on the car stereo. The song’s operatic verses are used for laughs (the “Let me go” line becomes a cry for help from a friend who is partied out and might “honk” in the backseat) while the breakdown in the middle creates space for a spot of high-speed headbanging. To me it’s as thrilling a car scene as anything in Bullitt or the Mad Max franchise.
At its core the scene, and Wayne’s World as a whole, is about the friendship between Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey). They are best friends who, when they’re not moshing behind the wheel, host a show on public access TV. Essentially a pair of irreverent pre-internet YouTubers, they wear ripped jeans and Def Leppard shirts while chatting to eccentrics like the inventor of Suck Kut, a self-hair-cutting device. The DIY show has given them micro-celebrity status, with Wayne dating Cassandra (Tia Carrere), the singer in a band he meets at the Gasworks, a local club.
Wayne, switched on and sporting his own merchandise, wants to achieve something big (or “cachunga” in the 90s slang-heavy script) while his spacey co-host is happy to chew on red licorice and ponder on the attractiveness of Bugs Bunny when he dresses as a woman. It’s not clear what precisely Wayne wants in life, but having enough money to buy his dream guitar, a 1964 Fender Stratocaster in classic white, lovingly nicknamed “Excalibur”, would probably help.
Enter TV executive Benjamin, played with slippery corporate menace by Rob Lowe. He spots an opportunity to take the scrappy Wayne’s World and make it mainstream, lining his pockets in the process. What ensues is a punk fable that warns of the dangers of accepting a quick buck and what can be lost by selling out.
The film is endlessly quotable with both Wayne and Garth breaking the fourth wall to address the audience directly. They praise their heroes with “we’re not worthy” and lovingly refer to attractive women as “Baberham Lincoln”. “I don’t even own a gun. What am I gonna do with a gun rack?” Wayne asks a besotted ex whose idea of a birthday gift is a little unorthodox. It’s a line that runs through my mind any time I receive an underwhelming present.
The film’s rock credentials are also unshakable. Alice Cooper makes a cameo and big laughs are mined from Led Zeppelin riffs. Director Penelope Spheeris, best known for her Decline of Western Civilization trilogy of music documentaries, memorably spurned an offer to direct This Is Spın̈al Tap over fears it was poking fun at metal bands. In Wayne and Garth, however, she saw true fans.
As a millennial viewer watching from the UK thanks to its endless repeats on Sky Movies, I wasn’t always conscious of the gen X ethics Wayne’s World was instilling in me. One of Wayne’s World’s most beloved scenes involves Wayne and Garth mocking product placement while blatantly advertising products for Reebok and Pepsi. This cultural aversion to chasing money over everything was all but wiped out by the time I graduated into the post-financial crash economy in which influencer brand deals and “securing the bag” became a means of survival. Perhaps it’s idealism, or rose-tinted nostalgia, but I can’t shake the idea that Wayne’s generation had it right. I know for sure that any dreams I have of fighting back against “the man” (I refuse to say late-stage capitalism) have their origins in Wayne’s Aurora basement.
The idea of a modern-day Wayne’s World is nigh on impossible; if you need an illustration as to why the dynamic no longer works then watch the cringeworthy 2021 Super Bowl advertisement for Uber Eats of all things. Perhaps that’s for the best. To me, Wayne and Garth will always be the slackers who time-traveled from the 90s to instill their idealistic and unconventional wisdom when I needed it the most.
Wayne’s World is available on Paramount+ in the US and the UK and Binge in Australia
