Film / Wayne's World

"Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent! Woo-oo-oo-ooh!"

"We're not worthy!"

Wayne's World is a 1992 comedy film starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, hosts of the Aurora, Illinois-based cable access television show Wayne's World. Adapted from the popular late '80s/early '90s Saturday Night Live sketches of the same name, the film was directed by Penelope Spheeris, with Myers co-writing the script. It was the second film to be adapted from SNL, coming out 12 years after The Blues Brothers, and its success would inspire a slew of movies based on SNL skits throughout the '90s, with various degrees of success.

The movie follows the adventures of Wayne and Garth in their quest for fame and fortune, battling a crooked network executive (Rob Lowe) who tries to undermine both their control over their show and Wayne's attempts to woo Cassandra Wong (Tia Carrere), a rock singer and bassist who also seeks to make her fortune in show business.

Also featured in the cast are Lara Flynn Boyle, Kurt Fuller, Brian Doyle-Murray, Colleen Camp, and Ed O'Neill. Chris Farley, Ione Skye, Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, and Robert Patrick (spoofing his role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day) all make cameos.

Followed a year later by Wayne's World 2, which features Christopher Walken as record producer Bobby Cahn. This time around, Wayne feels the need to do something with his life, but he doesn't know what until the ghost of Jim Morrison visits him in a dream and tells Wayne that his destiny is to put on an epic rock concert in Aurora. To put on the concert Wayne enlists the help of Garth as well as the world's greatest roadie, Del Preston. Meanwhile, Garth becomes involved with blonde bombshell Honey Hornee (Kim Basinger) while Bobby Cahn plots to break up Wayne and Cassandra so that he can take her with him to Los Angeles.

Wayne's World earned $122 million at the box office against a $14 million budget, placing it as the 10th highest-grossing film of 1992 and the highest-grossing film ever based on an SNL skit. The sequel did not repeat the first film's success, earning only $48 million in the United States market against a $40 million budget. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Wayne's World the 41st greatest comedy film of all time.

The film has also received a few Licensed Games. Two of them are platformers by Radical Entertainment and Gray Matter, which have pages here and here respectively, while the third one is an adventure game by Robert Fiorini & Associates, which has a page here.

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"WAYNE'S TROPES! WAYNE'S TROPES! INDEX TIME! EXCELLENT!":

• The Ace: Benjamin. Quoth Garth:
  “Okay, pop quiz: Cassandra is not interested in Benjamin because: A. Chicks think he’s handsome, B. Has cool car, C. Has lots of cash, D. Has no visible scars, E. Does not live with parents.”
• Adaptation Expansion: As with most movies that started out as SNL skits; this one turned a 7-minute skit about an Aurora cable-access show into an entire movie (and eventually, a sequel).
• Ambiguous Disorder: Garth is incapable of even basic human interaction unless Wayne is no more than an arm’s length away. But he’s also capable of aligning satellites to beam a signal directly into a moving limo. It should be noted that Garth is basically just Dana Carvey’s impersonation of his older brother Brad Carey.
• An Aesop: Mocked in the Mega-Happy Ending.
  Noah: You know, ever since I did your show, kids are looking at me in a whole new way.
  Terry: I love you, Man.
  Russell: And I love you, because I've learned that platonic love can exist between two grown men.
  Benjamin: And I've learned something, too. I've learned that a flawless profile, a perfect body, the right clothes, and a great car can get you far in America - almost to the top - but it can't get you everything.
  Wayne: Isn't it great that we're all better people? (beat, with Garth) FISHED IN!
  • Mocked again in the sequel.
    Wayne: Jim, why was I supposed to put on this concert?
    Jim Morrison: Because you had to learn that it doesn't matter what you do, Cassandra loves you for who you are. And that being an adult means facing responsibility yet still taking the time to have fun.
    Wayne: Right, it's like coming home on Friday night and doing your homework right away so that your Saturday night is free to just party.
    Jim Morrison: *clearly annoyed* No, I like the way I said it better.
    Wayne: Okay.
• Affably Evil: Although Benjamin doesn't have a lot of respect for Wayne and Garth, he is always polite and flattering to them. This stands in stark contrast to Bobby Cahn, who is openly dismissive of Wayne and Garth.
• The Alcoholic: Phil. Although alcohol is never mentioned in relation to him, almost every time we see him he looks like he's on the verge of throwing up from too much drinking (the only time we really see him sober is when he's doing inspection on the Mirthmobile at the garage where he works).
  Phil: [not remembering their trip to the Gasworks] Hey, did you guys go to the Gasworks on Friday night?
  Wayne: [Referring to him and Phil as well] Yeah, we were there.
  Phil: There was this band, 'Crucial Taunt'. They had this mega-babe for a lead singer, unreal.
  Wayne: Phil, we were there. Have you gone mental? Hello!
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Applies to both Cassandra and her dad.
• All There in the Script: Terry is the only member of Wayne and Garth's crew to be named on-screen. The other two are Neil and Alan. It's easy to tell which is which because Neil is the only member (besides Terry) to appear in both movies. Alternatively, anyone who watched Encino/California Man will recognize Alan as Matt Wilson.
• The Alleged Car: Garth's "mirthmobile," a sky blue AMC Pacer with flames rather inappropriately painted on the sides.
  Phil: Okay, it passed inspection... barely.
• Almighty Janitor: Chris Farley (in his first-ever feature film role) plays a security guard with an uncanny ability to supply exposition.
• Aroused by Their Voice: Handsome Dan's voice is so sexy that Wayne and Garth assume he's a ladies' man. He turns out to be Harry Shearer.
  Garth: God, Handsome Dan is so cool. He must get a million chicks.
  Wayne: I bet he's totally studly and buffed.
  Garth: With a voice like that he's gotta be a babe magnet.
• Artistic License – Law: There is a police officer who thinks nothing of subjecting a person to a cavity search on almost no grounds whatsoever. You really need probable cause to violate a person's privacy like that in reality - and they wouldn't do it openly, right there on the side of the road, during a traffic stop.
  • Except this has happened in real life, leading to criminal charges and lawsuits.
• Ass Shove: A part of Garth's "airplane rant" implies this, as he mentions having to find a doctor to "pull it out again".
• Ax-Crazy: Glen, the diner owner. Every line he has is about him murdering, wanting to murder, or the voices in his head telling him to murder.
• Bad Vibrations: A shaking glass of water, part of an obvious homage to Jurassic Park in the sequel.
• Basement-Dweller: In the first movie Wayne lives in his parents' basement. By the second film he and Garth have gotten a place of their own.
  Wayne: Okay, so I still live with my parents, which I admit is both bogus and sad. But at least I have an amazing public access show! And I still know how to party!
• Be All My Sins Remembered: Parodied in, "We're not worthy!"
• Beat Still, My Heart/And Show It to You: When one of the patrons of the donut shop complains about being laid off, Glenn (Ed O'Neill) says that he should "...find the guy that did it, rip out his still-beating heart, and then hold it in front of his face, so he can see how black it is before he dies!" The patron decides to simply file a grievance with the union. The world is, after all, a twisted place.
• Beware the Nice Ones: In the first film, Garth is insulted and then shoved to the ground by a large bully. Garth calmly goes to his car, retrieves a cattle prod, returns to the club, and sends the bully flying with a powerful electric shock.
• Big "WHAT?!": "It's O.K. She's marrying Bobby. (Beat) WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?"
• Big "WHY?!": Played for Laughs by Wayne, while carrying a burnt, unconscious Garth in the "unhappy ending".
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Wayne doesn't pull any punches in mocking his sponsor, Noah Vanderhoff. It gets him fired.
• Black Comedy Rape: In order to prevent Benjamin from stopping Cassandra’s televised audition at the end of the film, Officer Koharski performs an unwarranted body cavity search on him. Also plays as Rape as Redemption in the mega-happy ending.
• Bland-Name Product: The film's fictional Stan Mikita's Donuts is a stand-in for ubiquitous Canadian restaurant Tim Horton's Donuts. Mikita and Horton are both Hockey Hall-of-Famers. Horton played for Toronto, actor-writer Mike Myers' hometown; Mikita played his entire NHL career in Chicago, an hour from Wayne's hometown of Aurora.
• Book Ends: Wayne's World 2 opens and closes with live performances by Aerosmith.
• Bowdlerise: The NES version of Wayne's World toned down the language from the movie. One example (even discussed by The Angry Video Game Nerd) had Wayne and Garth say that they're going to see "the Lousy Beatles," whereas they said they're seeing "the Shitty Beatles" in the film.
  • A slightly more tame example in relation to the SNES and Genesis games involves Wayne about to say "Monkeys might fly out of my [butt]", at which point he stops himself short and instead says they'll "fly out of me".
• Brass Balls: When Wayne kicks Cassandra's father in the nuts in a kung-fu duel, a pair of two Chinese medicine balls (made of metal, of course) fall out.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Near the beginning of the second movie, Wayne and Garth address having a new time slot, the related negotiations with fellow shows "Plant World" and "Cooking World", and the cancellation of "White Supremacy World" which made all the switches possible.
• Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: When Wayne has an argument with Garth and Cassandra. He makes up with the former, but not with her... until they change the end, that is.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Wayne and Garth do this frequently. Garth is sometimes made uncomfortable by the camera's attention and even distracts it so that he can run away. When Glenn tries to pour out a dark confessional to the camera, Wayne quickly cuts him short and says that only he and Garth are allowed to talk to the camera.
• Brick Joke:
  • In the sequel Wayne encounters a group of men early on engaged in setting up their lampshaded Fruit Carts and moving their Sheet of Glass back and forth across the street. It gets forgotten only to pop up later during the Chase Scene.
  • When they enter the donut shop, Wayne greets a Mr. Whithers who owns an amusement park. This has no relevance whatsoever until the Scooby-Doo ending, where it turns out Benjamin is Mr. Whithers in disguise.
• Butt-Monkey: Garth.
• Bungling Inventor: Ron Paxton, inventor of the Suck Kut, a vacuum cleaner that's been re-purposed to cut hair.
  Garth: Turn it off, man, turn it off! It's sucking my will to live! Oh, the Humanity!
• Can't You Read the Sign?: "No Stairway? Denied!" ^note He was not allowed to play "Stairway to Heaven".
• The Cast Show Off: Mike Myers is fluent in Cantonese in real life. Everything he says is actual Cantonese, though his accent is rather atrocious.
• Chekhov's Gun: Once in each film. They even get lampshaded by the duo.
  • The helpful security guard in 1, who tells them about Frankie Sharpe's travel plans through Illinois.
  • The four street workers in 2. Two make sure they have plenty of watermelons and chickens stacked, but not to sell them. The other two walk move a Sheet of Glass back and forth for no reason.
    Garth: It's weird.
    Wayne: Yeah, it seems extraneous at the time, but you gotta wonder if it'll pay off later.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Old Man Withers, who is introduced early on; this comes to fruition in the Scooby-Doo Ending.
• Chroma Key: The blue screen, also known as a magical portal through time and space to such glamourous locations as New York City, Hawaii, Texas, and... Delaware. "Hi...I'm in Delaware."
• Classically-Trained Extra: Used in a meta way in the sequel. A gas station attendant is removed for being a terrible actor... and replaced by Charlton Heston. He is so awesome that Wayne is reduced to tears.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • The better we get to know Del Preston in Wayne's World 2, the more evident it becomes that he is completely off his rocker. Garth calls him out on it during the meeting to discuss stage crew positioning for Waynestock.
    Del Preston: Alright, ladies and gentlemen. It takes two people to run a concert: one back stage, and one out front. One man alone cannot do this. Wayne, you will run the backstage team. Milton, you are my liaison between Wayne's backstage team and Garth's front-stage team which includes myself in the booth. To the left and right of the stage are machine gun nests armed with M-60 Brownings. Now these babies tend to heat up so make sure you shoot in 3-second bursts. In the event of capture I will personally distribute these cyanide capsules to be placed under the tongue like so. Any questions?
    Garth: Yes, I have a question: When did you turn into a nutbar?
  • Garth shows shades of this from time to time, particularly when Benjamin tries to talk to him one-on-one about changing the show. Garth, who is wearing a bizarre helmet with bits of electronics coming out of it and appears to be working on some form of robotic hand, simply responds awkwardly, "We fear change." The robot hand takes that opportunity to suddenly start moving, which Garth reacts to by smashing it repeatedly with a hammer.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Implied in the first movie when Garth tells Wayne what he can do with his show and the roar of a jet plane flying overhead drowns him out.
• Combat Uninterruptus: In Wayne's World 2, Wayne takes a phone call in the middle of his fight with Jeff Wong, without any break in the Kung-Foley sound effects or the Hong Kong Dub.
• Cool Car: Wayne's World 2 is the only movie in existence that makes the AMC Pacer cool. The Thelma & Louise parody features a convertible Mirthmobile, and at the end we see the Mirthlimo, a six-wheeled Pacer stretch limo in which Aerosmith arrive.
• Coolest Club Ever: The Gasworks in the first film, and Komrades in the sequel.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Honey Hornee gets Garth back to her home, she begins the process of seducing him by playing soft, romantic music on the stereo. Garth, oblivious of her intentions, asks her if she has any Megadeth.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Benjamin Kane in WW, and Bobby Cahn in WW2.
• Creator Cameo: The crew member who replaces the Bad Bad Actor with Charlton Heston is director Stephen Surjik.
• Creator Worship: In-Universe when they encounter Aerosmith.
  Wayne and Garth: We're not worthy! We're not worthy!
  Steven Tyler: You're worthy, you're worthy!
• Creepy Doll: In 2, the boys live in and do their show from an abandoned doll factory. There are baby dolls, doll heads and dismembered doll parts all over the place in the background. Garth even has a doll head attached to the end of his hockey stick!
• Crying Indian: Parodied during the closing credits of Wayne's World 2, when the Weird Naked Indian sheds a tear upon seeing all the trash on the ground following Waynestock. Although he does cheer up a little when he sees Wayne and Garth cleaning up the mess.
• Curse Cut Short: Garth chews Wayne out while they're hanging out near the airport. He is about to launch on a long, profanity-laced tirade, but an airplane drowns out his words. Wayne's shocked expression and his response ("Do you kiss your mother with that mouth") implies it was something pretty offensive.
• Death Glare: A chain occurs the "Sphincter-hoff" moment. Benjamin glares at Russell, who glares at Neil, who glares at another technician, who glares back at Neil, who glares back at Russell, who glares back at Benjamin, who glares back at the scene.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After being defeated by Wayne in hand-to-hand combat, Jeff Wong (Cassandra's dad) takes a liking to Wayne and becomes supportive of Wayne dating his daughter.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: In Wayne's World 2, Wayne is searching for a purpose to give his life meaning. After a dream in which he talks to the ghost of Jim Morrison, he learns that the purpose of his life is to host a rock music festival in Aurora.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Garth emerges all grown up and content after losing his virginity.
• Disposable Love Interest: Garth's dream woman from the first movie does not appear in the sequel. Nor is she even mentioned.
• Distaff Counterpart: Betty Jo, from the second film, is a female version of Garth.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Parodied in the "Scooby-Doo Ending" of Wayne's World, where it's revealed that Benjamin is really Old Man Withers, the amusement park owner who Wayne spoke to for five seconds near the beginning of the film. Probably an Affectionate Parody of how, in older Scooby-Doo episodes, the perpetrator was often introduced the exact same way.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • The film theme song is sung by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey themselves. Or rather by Wayne and Garth themselves.
  • In-Universe, the two almost always perform the very short theme song of their show on camera. The sole exception is when Benjamin owns the show; he has a studio recording played instead.
• Downer Ending:
  • One of three endings to the first film. In the downer ending, Cassandra is denied a record contract, Wayne's house burns down (with Garth dying in the fire), it's revealed that Stacy is pregnant, and Benjamin and Cassandra become lovers and travel to a beautiful tropical island together.
    "WHY, GOD?! *SOB* ...WHY?!?!"
  • The sequel has two downer endings. In the first downer ending, none of the bands show up to Waynestock, then Wayne and Garth get lost in the desert to die of dehydration. The second downer ending is the Thelma & Louise ending where Wayne and Garth commit suicide by driving the Mirthmobile off a cliff. Thankfully, Wayne and Garth decide not to end the film with either of the downer endings and go with a happy ending where Waynestock is a rousing success.
• Dream Sequence: In the first film, Garth has a fantasy sequence in which he woos the woman of his dreams to the song "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix. In the sequel, Wayne's dreams are where he communicates with his Spirit Advisor, Jim Morrison.
• Dub Name Change: The one character whose name is changed in the German dub is Honey Hornée. Her new name Gail (resembles "geil" which still means "horny") seems somewhat less forced.
• Europeans Are Kinky: Bjergen Kjergen (Drew Barrymore), the Swedish receptionist at WPIG Radio, who tells Wayne that she wishes to make love to him in the near future because he once stayed up all night working on a homework assignment about Sweden.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
  • The Weird Naked Indian is called as such by everybody who can see him. He's even billed in the closing credits as "naked indian."
  • In the first film, the "Shitty Beatles".
    Wayne: Hey, Tiny, who's playing today?
    Tiny: Uh, Jolly Green Giants and the Shitty Beatles.
    Wayne: Shitty Beatles? Are they any good?
    Tiny: They suck.
    Wayne: Then it's not just a clever name.
• Excuse Plot: The films have a barebones plot and instead stuffed full of jokes.
• Executive Meddling: Invoked.
  • In Wayne's World, Benjamin, new owner of Wayne's cable-TV show, makes it look much more professional and streamlined in order for it to be more attractive to advertisers. This goes from the theme song now being a studio recording to the show itself being made in a studio rather than Wayne's parents' basement.
  • In Wayne's World 2, Bobby, new producer of Crucial Taunt, wants to replace everyone in the band except for Cassandra with session musicians for the album recordings. Justified as her band actually isn't that good.
• Expy:
  • Garth is an impression of Dana Carvey's brother, which he also uses in his stand-up.
  • Del Preston from the second film is intentionally one of the actor Ralph Brown's character Danny the drug dealer from Withnail and I and was added late in the scripting after Dana Carvey saw said film and took a liking to the character of Danny.
  • Honey Hornee is very similar to Evelyn Marsh of Twin Peaks, a Femme Fatale who tries to seduce her lover into killing her husband. Luckily, Garth elects not to follow through with the deed.
• Face–Heel Turn: Wayne goes through a minor one in the first film, driving away both Cassandra and Garth and the camera by being a Jerkass. Thankfully he realizes fairly quickly how much of a jerk he's been and proceeds to right the wrongs he's created.
• Fade to Black: Lampshade Hanging by Garth:
  Garth: I can't believe they did that!
• Feather Boa Constrictor: Cassandra has one for a music video, but it apparently falls asleep on her.
• Female Rockers Play Bass: Cassandra is the bassist and only woman in her band. While her sex appeal (schwing!) is a big part of why people are interested in the band, she's also the frontman and vocalist and genuinely serious about her music. The sequel reveals that she's the only one in the band with any talent.
• Fetish: Conversed Trope. invoked
  Garth: Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played a girl bunny?
  Wayne: [pauses to consider] No. [laughs] No!
  Garth: Neither did I. I was just asking.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: Despite the fact that Wayne and Garth are apparently a pair of hard-partying metalheads, the Wayne's World films contain no depictions of drug use and very little alcohol consumption (when Garth is given a glass of whiskey he immediately spits it out, believing to have been Coca-Cola that went bad). The only vices Wayne and Garth seem to have is their love of coffee and donuts from Stan Mikita's (although their friend Phil perpetually seems to be on the verge of throwing up from excessive drinking).
  Garth: "Okay, we've had some word that there is some bad red rope licorice circulating in the crowd. Please stay away from the red rope licorice."
• Funny Background Event:
  • In the second movie, after Wayne & Garth crowd-surf to the front of an Aerosmith concert, they are shortly followed by a pizza-delivery boy, a refrigerator, and a goat.
  • As Charlton Heston gives his soliloquy, the guy he replaced can be glimpsed loitering the background.
• Fun with Subtitles: In the first film, Wayne learns Cantonese to impress Cassandra. He begins the conversation speaking what sounds believably like the subtitles. Over time, the words he says get shorter, while the subtitles get longer. By the end, Wayne is sitting there looking bored as the subtitles continue without his intervention.
• Fur Bikini: When Cassandra was trying to film a video.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Garth is constantly building elaborate electrical contraptions out of nothing. Parodied in the climax to the first movie, where he uses a bunch of implausibly complicated electronics and computer programs to somehow triangulate the precise location of the music executive.
• Gelatinous Encasement: Mentioned. The corrupt CEO of Noah's Arcade describes their newly released game Zantar, about a gelatinous cube that grows in power as it consumes chieftains, signaling the new level. The trick is that there is no next level, so the kids at the arcade cough up money to reach a non-existent goal.
• Genius Ditz: Garth is incredibly skilled with electronics and gadgets, but incredibly out of it and thus bad at almost everything else. He generally needs Wayne around to help him with basic life things.
• Gay Bar Reveal: Happens in Wayne's World 2 when Wayne and his friends (who coincidentally are wearing disguises that make them look just like the Village People) hide in a bar called "The Tool Box" while fleeing from the Big Bad.
• Geeky Turn-On: In the musical sense after Cassandra displays her knowledge of classic Fender guitars.
  Wayne: There it is: Excalibur.
  Cassandra: Wow... '64 Stratocaster in classic white with triple single coil pickups and a whammy bar.
  Wayne: Pre-CBS Fender corporate buyout.
  Cassandra: I'd raise the bridge, file down the nut, and take the buzz out of the low-E.
  Wayne: God, I love this woman!
• Genre Savvy: Wayne and Garth, revealed in their discussions with the camera. Garth in particular has reservations about signing a contract due to a Twilight Zone episode, though the episode in question doesn't actually exist.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Cantonese Love Rip Taylor: According to Cassandra. invoked
• Give Geeks a Chance: In Wayne's World 2 the sexy blonde bombshell Honey Hornée falls for the shy, nerdy Garth and seduces him. But later in the film we find out that she wants him to kill her husband, causing Garth to flee in terror. In fact, it's entirely possible that she was never really interested in Garth and just used her feminine wiles to try and manipulate him into murdering her husband.
• Glove Snap: When the Big Bad is being "searched for drugs".
• Graceful Loser: Benjamin in the mega happy ending, who has learned from his mistakes and admits that being rich and handsome can't get you everything.
• Gratuitous Ninja: In the process of explaining The Plan to his buddies, Wayne opens a door to reveal a vast training chamber full of exercising ninjas.
  Garth: Wow. What are you gonna do with these guys?
  Wayne: Nothing. I just always wanted to open a door to a room where people are being trained like in a James Bond movie.
• HA HA HA—No: Wayne's reaction when Garth asks him if he was ever turned on by Bugs Bunny in drag.
• Has a Type: Based on the three women he gets involved with over the course of the films (the unnamed "Dream Woman" from the first film, Honey Horneé, and Betty Jo) it definitely seems like Garth likes blondes.
• Heel–Face Turn: Russell, before the end, and Benjamin in the "Mega Happy Ending."
• Hell-Bent for Leather: The outfit that Cassandra wears to the Aerosmith concert in Wayne's World 2.
• Helpful Hallucination: The Indian can only be seen in reality by a few select individuals, namely Wayne and Garth, but can somehow hold solid objects.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Wayne and Garth.
• Hidden Depths: Alice Cooper shows himself to be very knowledgeable of (Native) American history. There's a little Truth in Television here as Alice Cooper is a big history buff in real life.
• Homage: The second film has a premise similar to Field of Dreams, except Wayne has visions telling him to put on a rock festival instead of telling him to build a baseball field.
• Hypocritical Humor: Wayne and Garth talk about why they won't sell out to corporate sponsors... while at the same time making Product Placement after Product Placement.
• I Am the Band: According to Bobby Cahn in Wayne's World 2, Cassandra is the only member of Crucial Taunt who is talented, and the rest of the band is "terrible". He successfully convinces her to get a new band.
• Idiot Savant: Wayne. He may be Genre Savvy, but he's still a bit of a meathead.
  • Garth is even more than Wayne. He is awkward and antisocial and almost seems to have Asperger's, but describes hacking a military satellite as "almost too easy".
• Invisible Parents: Although Wayne still lives with his parents during the events of the first film, they are never seen or heard from.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Although Wayne chafes at the idea of putting Noah Vanderhoff on his show, he did sign a contract agreeing to do so, and Benjamin is not being unreasonable at all in pointing it out.
• Kung-Foley: Taken to ridiculous extremes in Wayne's World 2 during Wayne and Jeff's fight scene.
• Lampshade Hanging: There's a lot of meta-humor, such as when Wayne remarks that the security guard seemed conveniently helpful.
• Lead Bassist: Cassandra is a type B and a type C. She is Crucial Taunt's bass player in addition to being the lead vocalist and face of the band.
• Learnt English from Watching Television: Wayne asks Cassandra where she learned English.
  Cassandra: College, and the Police Academy movies.
• Left the Background Music On: In the Shout-Out to The Graduate, Simon & Garfunkel cut out when the car travels through a tunnel.
• Limited Wardrobe: Wayne is almost always seen wearing his black t-shirt, ripped jeans and Wayne's World cap; Garth wears a blue button-on shirt and a t-shirt for a random rock group (most notably Aerosmith) underneath most of the time.
• Lip Lock: All of Wayne's conversations with Cassandra's father are (badly) dubbed, even with Wayne speaking English.
• "London, England" Syndrome: Parodied with Del Preston's exact address being "London, England", and they manage to find his house immediately with that address.
• Love at First Sight: Wayne is smitten with Cassandra from the first moment he lays eyes on her.
• Magical Native American: In Wayne's World 2, Wayne is escorted through the desert to Jim Morrison's ghost by a "weird naked Indian".
• Manchild: Wayne, and to a greater extent Garth.
• Manly Tears: Wayne sheds these in the second film because Charlton Heston's cameo is just that awesome.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: In-universe. On the show, Wayne mocks his guests and trolls Garth For The Lulz. However off the show, he's one of the nicest guys, albeit a bit of a moron which nearly ruins his relationship with Cassandra twice, but he means well.
• Medium Awareness: Not only do many characters talk into the camera, but they're aware of the presence of a camera in the first place, and Wayne even mentions the camera that only he and Garth may talk into (which is brought up after Glen manages to steal the camera away for a few seconds; see Noodle Incident). Also, they give each film three different endings, some of which they even give titles.
• Metal Head: Wayne, Garth, and several of the supporting characters in the films.
• Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow:
  • Cassandra, especially by the sequel, where she's evidently only interested in marrying an American man in order to be allowed to remain in the US.
• Mirror Character: Wayne to Stacy in the sequel. He starts stalking Cassandra and showing up at places she's at just like Stacy did to him. In some ways his behavior is a little worse, leaning into the Crazy Jealous Guy a tad when both Benjamin and Bobby make their moves on Cassandra; where as Stacy is merely clueless and overly persistent.
• Mistaken for Gay: In the sequel, Wayne & Co. are conducting surveillance on Cassandra, disguised as a construction worker, traffic cop, biker, and sailor. When they're spotted, they retreat, and hide from Christopher Walken in a gay bar. Then the Weird Naked Indian appears and joins them.
• The Mountains of Illinois: Quite literally.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Honey Horneé, who is played by the gorgeous Kim Basinger and always dresses sexy.
  • Also, Cassandra, who is played by 80s and 90s mega-babe Tia Carrere.
• Multiple Endings: A Downer Ending, a Scooby-Doo Ending (it was Old Man Withers, the guy who runs the haunted amusement park) and a Mega-Happy Ending. The sequel replaces the Scooby-Doo ending with a Thelma & Louise ending. The scene cuts to the happy ending as Wayne and Garth drive off a cliff into the Grand Canyon.
• The Münchausen: Del Preston, the greatest roadie who has ever lived. He's worked with every great rock band, he's been all over the world, and he's got no shortage of stories from his career.
  Del Preston: There I am in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at three o'clock in the morning looking for one thousand brown M&M's to fill brandy glass or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So Jeff Beck pops his head around the door and mentions there's a little sweet shop on the edge of town. So we go, and it's closed. So there's me and Keith Moon and David Crosby breaking into this little sweet shop, right? So instead of a guard dog they've got this great big bloody Bengal tiger. Well, I managed to take care of the tiger with a can of mace, but the shop owner and his son... that's a different story altogether: I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But sure enough I got the M&M's and Ozzy went on stage and did a great job..
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Glen, the manager of Wayne and Garth's favorite donut shop.
  Glen: You know, if you stab a man in the dead of winter, steam will rise up from the wounds. Indians believed it was his soul escaping from his body.
• The '90s: Wayne's World emerged in the weird, transitional 80s hangover that was the early 1990s.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The closing credits for 2 make it clear that Kenny G was in no way involved in the scene where Garth imagines he's having his tooth drilled while attending a Kenny G concert (thus likening the two situations).
• No Fourth Wall: A hallmark of the films. Wayne and Garth speak directly to the camera and comment on the progress of the film throughout. Wayne claims than only he and Garth are allowed to talk to the camera, but many other characters end up doing so throughout the film. Some university/college courses actually examine the film's use of the audience as a separate character.
• Noble Top Enforcer: Russell, who despite being Benjamin's top lackey is actually not a bad guy. In the end he decides to help Wayne and Garth.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Glenn's crime of passion: "I'd never done a crazy thing in my life before that night. Why is it, if a man kills another man in the heat of battle, it's called heroic? Yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it's called murder?"
  • Also, in the first film, when Wayne and Garth are talking to Benjamin about being between lawyers and Garth mentioned grabbing their last lawyer by his "big fat head and said, 'Listen man, I'm not going to jail for you or anybody!'"
    • Unless you interpret that as a clumsy cover up as to why they don't have a lawyer.
  • How, exactly, Garth managed to handle the rest of the "Wayne's World" episode after being left alone (especially considering the Dead Air Performance Anxiety Heroic BSoD he was experiencing when the scene ends). See Take Our Word for It.
• No Social Skills: Garth is incapable of even basic human interaction unless Wayne is no more than an arm’s length away.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Nobody in the cast even attempts to speak with a Chicago accent. However more glaring is Wayne (Mike Myers) speaking with an obvious Canadian accent. Couple that with the obvious stand-in for Tim Horton's, the Gasworks, playing street hockey, and some other subtle Canadian things and it's obvious that Myers was secretly trying to set the movie in his native Canada instead of suburban Chicago.
  • Partially averted. Chicago is a large enough city with residents from many parts of the country, so not everyone speaks with that accent. In particular, Chicago accents are not very common in the suburbs.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: When the boys give an interview to a local radio DJ, they discover he's more interested in loading tapes than actually listening...so they start calling him names, and he's completely oblivious to their joking around.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: Garth, when he snoops around Benjamin's room, finds the latter's diary. In it is listed the entry "Purchase feeble public access show and exploit it," to which Garth remarks, "Gee, I feel sorry for whoever that is!"
• Obvious Stunt Double: Invoked and played for laughs when Wayne and Garth fly to London where they claim they thought Paramount just use stunt doubles. We then see Wayne and Garth explore where they're shot from behind and played by actors who are clearly way too short and too tall.
• Odd Friendship: Though they have a lot of common interests, Wayne is the life of the party, Garth is painfully shy around everyone except Wayne.
• One-Hour Work Week: Wayne admits to having held a variety of dead-end jobs, which he never seems to work. The trope is justified in the first film by the fact that Wayne's World is quickly picked up in the first act, allowing Wayne and Garth to develop it professionally.
• One-Scene Wonder: Both in-universe and out. Charlton Heston shows up in one scene when the actor who's supposed to be delivering a line isn't up to snuff. His performance in the scene reduces Wayne to tears.
• Or Was It a Dream?: In Wayne's World 2, Wayne has a dream in which has a conversation with the ghost of Jim Morrison in the middle of the desert. When he wakes up, his feet are covered in sand.
• Oscar Bait: Played with in a scene where Wayne gives a "tearful" speech (after splashing water on his eyes so it looks like he was crying) apologizing to Cassandra, culminating in a wail of, "I NEVER LEARNED TO READ!" The words "Oscar Clip" flash at the bottom of the screen.
• The Other Darrin: invoked The Trope Namer is discussed, which is when Wayne realized that both actors were named "Dick", and their last names combined equal "Sergeant York", an honored military officer and among the most decorated American soldiers in World War I.
• Overly Prepared Gag: Hm, Wayne and his friends are spying on Bobby Cohn, while disguised as a cop, construction worker, biker, and sailor, and are forced to hide in a gay bar? Now where could this setup be going?
• Parody Product Placement: When Benjamin tries to convince Wayne and Garth of doing some advertising in their show, they both explain they'll never sell out — while doing blatant product placement ranging from Wayne grinning into the camera and holding up a Pizza Hut box to Garth suddenly being completely decked out in Reebok gear.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: After Wayne erupts into a total Jerkass (see What the Hell, Hero? below) and ditches him during a live taping of the titular show, Garth dumps him. Their make up leads directly into Wayne hatching the plan to defeat the Big Bad.
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Garth's bedroom in the first film is this.
• Postmodernism: The sketch could be considered Bill & Ted meets David Letterman. In the films they break the fourth wall and hang a lampshade over if not outright spoof several tropes.
• Product Placement: Mocked in this scene.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: In the second film, Del Preston recounts beating a father and son to death with their own shoes in the process of fulfilling a musician's crazed demands. It's apparently justified to some of the other metalheads because, "Ozzy went on stage and gave the performance of his life."
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Stacy the "Psycho-Hose-Beast". The Psycho theme even plays when Wayne sees her at a party.
• "Psycho" Strings: Stacy's leitmotif. Played for Laughs when they briefly cut through the romantic music to indicate her proximity to the camera.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Wayne, Garth and their buddies.
• Read the Fine Print: Wayne and Garth fall victim to this. Wayne acts like he is reading the contract, but it's pretty obvious later on in the movie he did not. It's a bit of realism because as creepy as Benjamin is he is staying entirely within the laws and averts Moving the Goalposts. The things Wayne gets in trouble for are quite reasonable things to put in the kind of contract he signed.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Officer Koharski, who reacts with good-natured humor when Wayne and Garth jokingly call him a pig. At the end of the film he helps Wayne and Garth with their plan to get Cassandra a record contract.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Wayne (red) and Garth (blue).
• Remember the New Guy?: Milton (Chris Farley) in the sequel. Interestingly he does appear in the first film as a very knowledgeable security guard, but is clearly a different character.
• Re-Release Soundtrack: "No Stairway? Denied!" makes a lot more sense when you consider that the original theatrical release had Wayne play the first five notes of "Stairway to Heaven" before the guitar shop owner cuts him off. Some releases changed it to the first two notes; most releases nowadays have a generic riff. The joke was eventually fully restored on the 4K Blu-ray release.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Wayne vs. Benjamin
  • Wayne vs. Bobby in the sequel.
• Satellite Love Interest: Garth's dream woman in the first film. She serves no role other than for Garth to have somebody to pine over.
• Scotireland: When invoking a Shout-Out to Leprechaun, Mike Myers uses his Fat Bastard accent.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: "Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played Girl Bunny?"
• Sequel Non-Entity: Phil, Officer Koharski, and Garth's Dream Woman.
• Sex Starts, Story Stops: Parodied in the first movie. After a plot-important scene of Cassandra on the phone arranging her music video shoot, Wayne and Cassandra get in bed together, with no plot importance. They aren't shown actually having sex, but the words "Gratuitous Sex Scene" flash on the screen as they unconvincingly simulate sex while clothed.
• Sexy Scandinavian: A sexy Swedish secretary, Bjergen Kjergen, hits on Wayne for knowing so much about her home country.
• Shout-Out: The series is littered with them:
  • Wayne, Garth, and the crew lip sync to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" during a nighttime drive, headbanging during the guitar solo. Incidentally, Queen's last American performance during frontman Freddie Mercury's lifetime was as the musical guests on the season 8 premiere of Saturday Night Live.
  • Jim Morrison and the "weird naked Indian" are references to The Doors.
  • Wayne driving the Alfa Romeo Spider to Simon & Garfunkel music and breaking up a wedding, including Cassandra's father, Bobby and the minister each mouthing the phrase "son of a bitch", are references to The Graduate.
  • Ralph Brown plays basically the same character as he did in Withnail and I.
  • Two of the alternate endings directly reference Scooby-Doo and Thelma & Louise.
  • Noah's Arcade has a video game featuring a Gelatinous Cube, a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster.
  • While racing off to rescue Cassandra from Benjamin, Wayne gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop. Said motorcycle cop turns out to be the T-1000 flashing a photo of John Connor asking "Have you seen this boy?"
  • Paired with The Mountains of Illinois, (literally) as "The Graduate" Homage Shot uses the same church, which is on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and mountains and palm trees can be scene clearly when they catch the bus.
  • At one point in the second film, Wayne and Garth are waiting in their car looking through a map on a rainy night, until the ground starts rumbling. Once Wayne takes the map off the window, ''a giant T-rex is looking directly at them''. Upon roaring, they rightfully panic and drive away quickly.
  • Also, the sequel has shout-outs not only to the Woodstock festival itself, but especially to the Martin Scorsese film. The warning about the "bad red rope licorice" is a spoof of the reports about "brown acid" at the actual Woodstock event.
  • Also in the second film, Wayne and his friends are all in disguise (Wayne is a construction worker, Garth a traffic cop, and their other two friends as a biker and sailor) to spy on Cassandra and Bobby. Once they are found out, they run away and hide in a gay dance club. They end up on the stage, and because of their disguises, are made to dance to the Village People's signature song "YMCA," completed with the inclusion of the Native American hallucination.
  • "Officer Koharski", the donut-eating police officer found in "Mikita's Donuts" is a well-hidden Shout-Out to Don Koharski, an NHL referee most famous for getting into an on-ice scuffle with New Jersey Devils head coach Jim Schoenfeld (after which Schoenfeld famously shouted, "You fat pig! Have another donut!")
  • "Mikita's Donuts" is a shout-out to Canadian donut chain "Tim Hortons" (Stan Mikita and Tim Horton were both famous NHL players, and both are now in the hall of fame).
  • The first thing Wayne and Garth do upon reaching Milwaukee in the first movie is spoof Laverne & Shirley.
  • During the roadie tryouts, Wayne berates Milton, saying "What's keeping you here? You don't belong here! Why don't you just quit?", and Milton tearfully says "Cause I've got no place else to go!", parodying a similar exchange between Sgt. Foley and Zack Mayo from An Officer and a Gentleman.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: As mentioned above, implied with Garth at one point in the first film.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: The first film pits sophisticated, wealthy Benjamin Kane against the goofy, barely employed Wayne and Garth.
• Smug Snake: Benjamin Kane in the first movie, and Bobby Cahn in the sequel.
• Sophisticated as Hell: From the end of the first film:
  Wayne: "Well, that's all the time we have for our movie. We hope you found it entertaining, whimsical yet relevant, with a revisionist conceit that belied the film's emotional attachment to the subject matter."
  Garth: "I just hope you didn't think it sucked."
• Sound-Effect Bleep: When Wayne and Garth get into an argument outside the airport, eventually Garth snaps and says to Wayne:
  Garth: You know what you can do with your show? You can take a [long sound of an airplane landing, drowning out Garth's voice, interspersed with Wayne's horrified reaction shot] until the handle breaks off and you have to find a doctor to pull it out again!
  Wayne: Kiss your mother with that mouth? You've gone mental!
• Spaghetti Kiss: Garth, in the sequel, except with red rope licorice.
• Spin-Off: The movie is an example of a segment spinoff. Wayne's World was originally a reoccurring sketch on Saturday Night Live.
• Spirit Advisor: In Wayne's World 2, Wayne receives guidance from the ghost of Jim Morrison.
• Stacy's Mom: In one of the Wayne's World SNL sketches, Wayne has the hots for Garth's mom (played by Candice Bergen). Understandably, Garth is rather squicked out by it.
• The Stinger: Exchange of words between Wayne and Garth during the end credits.
• Stripperiffic: Honey Horneé's wardrobe seems to consist entirely of outfits that are tight-fitting, skimpy, or both.
• Subverted Punchline: In the second film, Wayne awkwardly avoids using anything that sounds like the word "eye" when talking to a character with a very noticeable eye disorder, ending when he promises to "make sure to cross my Ts and dot my... lowercase Js."
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Bobby Cahn to Benjamin Kane. This is because Rob Lowe was supposed to return for the sequel but couldn't, prompting Benjamin's part to be rewritten into a different character.
• Take Our Word for It: In the first film, after Wayne gets fired from the show by Benjamin, Garth is forced to finish the show by himself; his reaction is best described as Deer in the Headlights, and one of the crew compares Garth to the first Your Head A-Splode scene in Scanners. Later references by multiple characters indicate that Garth managed to put together an entertaining show by himself regardless, but the audience never gets to see it.
• Take That!:
  • "Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes that everybody liked. They left that to The Bee Gees."^note A take that to The Bee Gees, that is — not Led Zeppelin.
  • The Suck Kut product that Wayne and Garth showcase on their show, the one that nearly butchers Garth's hair at the beginning of the film was a real product. The parody in the films was a quick jab at the actual product. "It really does suck" indeed.
• Tempting Fate: This little gem from Garth while playing with donut characters:
  Cruller-pede: "Hey, Mr. Donut-Head Man, who's trying to kill ya?"
  Mr. Donut-Head Man: "I don't know, but they better not."
  (Garth starts stabbing Mr. Donut-Head Man with a hockey-stick pencil)
  Mr. Donut-Head Man: "Ahh! Ohh, that's not good! I'm not happy! OH, NO!"
• That's What She Said: This movie practically replenished this trope's popularity by itself. Bless you, Claudia Schiffer.
  Garth: Hey, are you through yet? Because I'm getting tired of holding this.
  Wayne: Shya. That's what she said. [both giggle]
• There Is a God!: In Wayne's World 2 Wayne says this when he mistakenly believes that Heather Locklear is waving to him.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-Universe example; this is how Wayne reacts to the Executive Meddling of the show in the first movie. invoked
• To the Batpole!: The second film shows that Wayne and Garth's new studio now has the whole Adam West Batman setup to get to the Mirthmobile; Wayne skips it however, to provide us with a recap while in an old elevator.
• Translation: "Yes": Taken to ridiculous lengths. In Wayne's World, Wayne pauses to look at the camera and his silence is translated as an intelligent response to Cassandra's questions.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Variant: when Garth leads the break-in to get the equipment for their plan at the climax of the first film, he gets everyone to drop their stomach and do an army crawl, despite nobody being around. Hilarity Ensues when he falls on his keys.
• The Unreveal: In the Scooby-Doo ending, Benjamin is unmasked to expose Old Man Withers, but we never find out his motive.
• The Vamp: Honey Horneé, who seduces Garth and then tries to get him to kill her husband.
• Villain Has a Point: Benjamin has every right to fire Wayne from the show after the latter insulted and humiliated their sponsor on television.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Played for laughs in the sequel when Bobby Cahn fails to fall for the same "a sphincter says what?" gag that Noah Vanderhoff did in the original (though, to be fair, Garth doesn't deliver it as well as Wayne did).
• What the Hell, Hero?: As Wayne begins to slide into Jerkass territory, he delivers an angry tirade at the camera, prompting it to turn away and abandon him. Wayne instantly realizes his mistake and resumes his heroic role. He even apologies to the audience for it.
• Wicked Cultured: Benjamin, who impresses Cassandra with his knowledge of fine wines and his ability to speak Cantonese.
• Wish-Fulfillment: Mike Myers had said that he wanted to do public access when he first became a performer, but didn't want to go through the sea of paper work to make it happen. The Wayne character was his way of getting the experience without the burden of bureaucracy.
• Yuppie: Benjamin, the clean-cut, handsome, ambitiously business-minded young TV exec with the nice car and penthouse apartment in the city.

---

Wayne: That's all the time we have for this week. Until then, good night!
Garth: Party on, Wayne!
Wayne: Party on, Garth!
Wayne & Garth: It's Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent! Woo-oo-oo-ooh!