When you revisit an old, beloved film of your youth, there is always one burning question at the back of your mind - is it as good as you remember it? With 'Wayne's World', coming to a decision is easy; it's even better than you remember.
The Mike Myers brand of comedy has seen its peaks and valleys, with peaks like the 'Austin Powers' and 'Shrek' films making him a household name and subsequent catastrophes like 'The Love Guru' and 'The Pentaverate' making you wish he never met the person who introduced him to prosthetics.
With his breakout role as Wayne, Myers is at his very best in 'Wayne's World', and Myers' winning performance is largely down to director Penelope Spheeris.
Spheeris is always the forgotten person in the 'Wayne's World' story, but the simple fact is the film would not have been a hit without her.
While Myers' script with Bonnie and Terry Turner is endlessly quotable, it's Spheeris' direction that helps the film become a beloved classic.
In an ideal world, Spheeris would be as well-remembered as the likes of Elaine May or Penny Marshall, a trailblazing comedy director who was funnier than her male contemporaries.
Spheeris comes from a documentary filmmaking background, with her name familiar to those with an interest in rock music.
The director has bona-fides in the music film business, with the director making 'The Decline Of Western Civilisation' documentaries in the 1980s.
The films focus on the punk and glam metal scenes of Los Angeles, and Spheeris has an uncanny ability to ground the strange and peculiar in gravitas.
No matter how strange and out-there 'Wayne's World' gets, Spheeris plays it deathly serious - and that's the masterstroke of the film.
The most famous scene from 'The Decline Of Western Civilisation' films is WASP guitarist Chris Holmes drunkenly blathering to the camera while his mother watches on in horror, and Spheeris shoots that scene the same way she would shoot Dana Carvey's asides to the camera in 'Wayne's World'.
Just last year, director Josh Greenbaum charmed audiences with the brilliant 'Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar', and Greenbaum's background in documentary filmmaking helped ground the surreal comedy in reality.
Over the last decade, comedy stars such as Chris Rock, Danny McBride and Jordan Peele have turned their hand to horror to great success, and the comedians deploy the same basic principle of comedy (set-up, building, punchline) for horror.
Documentary filmmakers know to let a scene breathe, and by playing such silly moments as matter-of-fact, it somehow makes the scenes funnier.
Outside of comedy, directors such as William Friedkin and Denis Villeneuve let their documentary-making backgrounds shine.
Friedkin's documentary background helps make 'The Exorcist' terrifying because it is grounded in a reality we know, and 'Dune' connected with audiences last year because Villeneuve wasn't afraid to let a scene breathe and get audiences familiar with the world of Arrakis.
The scene where diner owner Glen addresses the camera and muses about his past life is made that much funnier because the audience is conditioned to treat documentary-style filmmaking as something serious.
Mike Myers and Dana Carvey rightfully get a lot of praise for what they bring to 'Wayne's World' as does the strong supporting cast of Lara Flynn Boyle, Rob Lowe, and Tia Carrere, but Spheeris' matter-of-fact direction elevates the comedy from "great" to "masterpiece".
Speaking to Variety earlier this year to mark the 30th anniversary of the film releasing in the United States, Spheeris said "its sort of like all the right people came together at just the right time and it was a magical chemistry or something, because I have no other way to explain it."
It is hard to disagree.
Like other 'Saturday Night Live' alumni before him, Myers made the jump from TV to film in a way that seems effortless, but a large part of his film success also down to having the right director to rein him in.
Bill Murray found a kindred spirit in Harold Ramis, Eddie Murphy had John Landis, and Chevy Chase had Michael Ritchie.
As later Myers' efforts showed, giving the star total creative control over the project is a recipe for disaster, and having the right director to put their foot down helps Myers' brand of comedy shine all that more brightly.
Rumours have abounded for many years that Spheeris and Myers had a terse working relationship on the set, but Spheeris put paid to any of those rumours earlier this year, calling it "gossip."
"I really think that concept is manufactured over the years by just — gossip. We didn’t really disagree when we were shooting," she said.
The loose, improvisational nature of the script stemming from Myers and co-writers Bonnie and Terry Turner was somewhat at odds with Spheeris' particular style of directing, but it is easy to read the film as a compromise between those two styles.
Spheeris recalls saying "Okay, you guys, I need 24 hours to prep whatever you’re writing. You can’t hand it to me an hour before I’m supposed to shoot it. I can’t find a gun rack in 10 minutes. I can’t find a 30-foot python in 10 minutes, come on.”
'Wayne's World' holds up in large part 30 years later not just because of its stellar, hilarious script or the famous Alice Cooper cameo; it was also prescient of how the fan suddenly called the shots in popular culture.
In 2010, Marvel leaked that they were considering John Krasinski for the part of Captain America.
Marvel willingly leaked this information among fan sites, bloggers and journalists they trusted in order to gauge public reaction.
The reaction at the time was negative, and Chris Evans was cast.
As 'Wayne's World' strangely predicted, the fan was now the most powerful currency a creative executive had.
Prior to the release of 'The Last Jedi', director Rian Johnson professed his fondness for Youtubers Red Letter Media, joking that he "feared them."
His film was later the subject of the Mr Plinkett treatment.
The 'Wayne's World' culture where anyone can be famous for 15 minutes has bled into other areas outside of entertainment.
Just last week, YouTuber Mark Goldbridge - famous to football fans for his irreverent commentary on Manchester United - was given the keys to a radio show on Talksport.
It is not hard to see the connection between Goldbridge and 'Wayne's World' - some higher-up saw that Goldbridge was able to reach a massive audience without any media training to speak of, and now Talksport want a piece of the action.
Whether Goldbridge becomes watered down to appeal to the masses is another question, and the Youtube star would do well to watch 'Wayne's World' as research.
In 2022, just about anybody can pick up a camera, talk into it and find an audience.
Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa are just among some of the stars who put their work on YouTube prior to becoming mainstream successes.
These superstars used YouTube the same way Wayne and Garth used public access television to capture people's attention.
The ethos of 'Wayne's World' is staying true to yourself no matter how tempting it is to sell your soul.
Rob Lowe's character tries to tempt Wayne and Garth away from their homemade DIY aesthetic and slowly manipulate them into eroding the charm that made them successful to begin with.
'Wayne's World' wasn't the first piece of media to depict what happens if you try to sell your soul to get to the top, but in the cultural landscape of 2022, it's practically prescient.
The clever conceit at the centre of 'Wayne's World' is something that has happened time and time again in the history of rock music - do you stay true to your roots and the people who made you famous to begin with, or do you risk it all for a shot at the big time?
In the social media age, your favourite YouTuber or content creator getting a sponsorship splits a fanbase in half.
Some will regard it as "selling out", while others will see it as their favourite up-and-coming star getting a slice of the pie and allowing them to grow further.
And despite this article applying a journalistic, high-brow lens at a comedy, the film is simply hilarious.
Any great comedy has a dozen or so quotes you can rattle off at any given time and people will know what you're referencing.
Myers' talent for making non-sequiturs hilarious and Carvey's befuddled nature are key to making 'Wayne's World' a comedy classic.
Rumours have persisted for years about a possible third entry into the series, but to be frank ("can I still be Garth?") the original is an unimpeachable masterpiece that going back for a legacy sequel would water down what came before.
Quotes like "we're not worthy!", adding "not!" at the end of a sentence, Alice Cooper's history masterclass about the history Milwaukee, "marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries," "no Stairway, denied!" and posting this gif in reaction to someone "selling out" have all found their way into the public sphere.
Other 90's comedies have stood the test of time such as 'Clueless', the oeuvre of Jim Carrey, or 'The Big Lebowski', but 'Wayne's World' was a message in a bottle for us to receive 30 years from now.
There is nothing more important in this world than having friends to share the good and bad times with, corporations will always try to cash in on what's hot, and most importantly, the music of Queen will always live on.
Party on, Garth!
