Saturday Night Live has often tried to turn popular sketches into movies. Sometimes this notion works and sometimes it doesn’t. It all started back in 1992 when Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s Wayne and Garth got a big screen outing in Wayne’s World. They took the admittedly thin premise of the sketch – two metal heads have a public access talk show – and ran with it. The film helped kick off Mike Myers’ big screen career, and paved the way for a whole slate of SNL movies, including 1993’s Coneheads, the barely released It’s Pat, Stuart Saves His Family, Superstar, The Ladies Man and A Night at the Roxbury.
Of course, none were as big as Wayne’s World, but the road to the big screen was not an easy one. Myers fought with his director Penelope Spheeris and clashed over final cut. In the end, none of the behind the scenes battles mattered as the movie made over $120 million at the box office, and spawned a far less successful sequel, Wayne’s World 2, that Spheeris did not direct. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, we dig into what it took to make the biggest SNL movie ever, and how it remains a classic thirty years later.
This episode of WTF Happened to this Movie is written by Brad Hamerly, narrated by Dave Davis, edited by Diane Baldwin and produced by Ben Cantler. Watch previous episodes below and let us know if you think Wayne’s World holds up.