(Columns often contain opinions of the author.)
Wayne’s World! Wayne’s World!
-Only I did not have much party time, but my life was excellent.
I was quite sheltered and did not know who Queen, a decades-old, classic band whose music was featured in the “Wayne’s World” film, was at the time it came out. A sister five years my senior usually introduced me to contemporary music but somehow missed that one.
I was a young teen when the “Wayne’s World” film came out. And other Gen Xers who recall it and other generations can enjoy it on the big screen again when it is shown at the Miller Theater on 708 Broad St. on Sunday, April 27 at 2.
The only time I stayed up late as a young teen was to watch Saturday Night Live where I became familiar with the material from a skit that would later become the film. Therefore, there was not much party time for me (only a little when I went away to university).
I did not even know the film was out until one summer in the ’90s. Every summer, my church youth choir would go to get judged at a conference in Myrtle Beach and combine with other choirs to make one gigantic choir.
One night, either a music video version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” with “Wayne’s World” clips or the film itself came on at the hotel. Our Minister of Music’s son had turned to the channel, and we were mesmerized by the song. It was operatic and like a church song at times. But it was definitely not something youth choir members would listen to and definitely not perform. It was a song I later sought out along with other Queen songs. “Wayne’s World” may have introduced “Queen” to part of a new, somewhat sheltered generation. (Much like all the video service covers and award show covers of Queen songs did for later generations.)
Through the cable access rock show main characters of Wayne and Garth, “Wayne’s World” introduced me to other things as well, including rocker culture, back-stage passes and even slacker culture. (The last rock concert I traveled to was with my sister and her friends when I was in elementary school, and they were in late middle or early high school. And this was New Edition and The Fat Boys at the now destroyed James Brown Arena. My Mom chaperoned, and they somehow convinced her to take them.) All the cultural aspects of “Wayne’s Word” appealed to a teenager as well. I listened to some hair bands and was not allowed to go to their concerts, but “Wayne’s World” immersed me in them.
But what I remember most as a writer and English major is linguistic and socio-linguistic aspects of the film. They played with words and syntax a good bit throughout the film, and my friends and I, after seeing the film, would repeat the lines ad nauseum. People only used to say, “No way!” Now, you could do the opposite and say, “Yes, way!” Then, there was “Ex-squeeze Me? Baking powder?” which we would use when somebody would say something shocking. Gone was our parents’ “I beg your pardon?”
Thankfully, that never got us into trouble as it was fairly innocent. But the lines about smelling bacon and smelling a pork product of some kind, which Wayne and Garth say around a cop, never left my lips around small town cops. Thank goodness they didn’t. Calling cops pigs or implying they were pigs was not something a good Southern church boy did. But that did not mean if my friends I were driving somewhere and saw a cop car that we didn’t yell (with the windows up), “Does somebody smell bacon?”
Next, how about Wayne’s somewhat bawdy “Schwing!” that he would yell? Thankfully we boys never harassed anybody we really liked with “Schwing” – the Freudian, phallic-like term that at least one source says came from the sound of a sword coming from a scabbard. This was usually accompanied with Wayne doing a pelvic thrust toward his potential love interest with sidekick Garth doing the same at times. Yes, that definitely appealed to teenagers.
Next, in somewhat of a contrast to “Wayne’s World”, the film “Clue” had multiple endings, but the different endings were released with different cuts of the film at different cinemas. On some VHS and cable releases, they included all endings. “Wayne’s World”, from what I recall, came with three different endings shown in sequence. Two of them were parody endings, which I will not spoil. The parodies had lines my friends and I repeated as well. But much like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books of my childhood changed narratives to have multiple directions and endings, ‘Wayne’s World” was quite experimental as a mainstream film to incorporate three different endings – albeit played up for comedy.
Hop in your old (or new) car, put on some “Queen”, and go see this comedic, somewhat experimental treat of a film which has contributed to our language and culture and even pop culture education.
Ron Baxley, Jr., a former educator of 15 years, has been an author for over 30 years and a journalist for a number of decades. He has been a columnist and correspondent for “Augusta Good News” for approximately three years. A teaser trade paperback of his latest, self-published book, “O.Z. Diggs the Fifth Estate,” Book 3 of the satirical, Southern fantasy O.Z. Diggs VII series, is premiering at Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 3 at ABX / Augusta Book Exchange in Martinez after 2 p.m.
