Wednesday, June 8 is National Best Friends Day so it seems appropriate to write about two best friends from the movie, Wayne’s World. You may not believe the goofy, fun-filled film is worthy of the title of the greatest rock movie ever made. But it is worthy of the next post in my series, New Year; New Types of Friends about the different types of friendships every man needs. In this post, I’m suggesting that everyone still needs some goofy friends who make them laugh. This was certainly the case for Garth Alger and Wayne Campbell, two best friends who just love to have fun together!
First, let’s start with some background on National Best Friends Day.
About National Best Friends Day
Back in 1935, the United States Congress decided to devote a day to pay tribute to close-knit friendships. June 8th is a lighthearted, fun, and downright awesome day to celebrate your friendships every year. Other related days include the International Day of Friendship in July and Friendship Month in September.
As you celebrate friendships this month, be reminded that spending time with your best friends has some surprising health benefits as well. I wrote about the physical aspects in The Physiology of Friendship; an earlier post in this series. pending time with friends is good for our physical and mental health. Study after study shows that strong social connections lead to a longer and healthier life since adults with meaningful relationships are likely to live up to 22% longer than their peers with fewer connections. Additionally, people who spend time with friends have a decreased chance of developing depression and anxiety.
So try getting together with your best friend on June 8th and celebrate your friendship. You might even watch Wayne’s World to reflect on whether you have any friends who still love to have fun!
About Wayne’s World
The movie follows the misadventures of two aimless metal-head friends, Wayne Campbell (Mike Meyers) and his best friend, Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) who celebrate their obsessive love of radical babes and head-banging hard rock via their very own low-rent public-access television show broadcast live from Wayne’s basement in Aurora, Illinois. Life was simple for these two friends who love to have fun.
Trouble comes when a Chicago TV station sees the potential youth-audience hit, and sends sleazy network executive, Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe) to try to block control over the show. Kane also sets his eyes on Wayne’s girlfriend, rock goddess Cassandra Wong (Tia Carrere), who also wants to make her fortune in show business.
Filled with clever spoofs of movies and endlessly quotable dialogue, the flick’s most famous scene involved the infamous lip-synching to the music of Queen inside of a Ford Pinto. The head-banging scene in the car isn’t just a tribute to a classic song, Bohemian Rhapsody, it sets up one of the film’s key components — a heartfelt celebration of just how much fun and powerful rock music can be, and how it brings people together.
Director Penelope Spheeris created this hilariously goofy pop-culture comedy that still ranks as the best and highest-grossing Saturday Night Live spin-off in history. It was only the second SNL feature film at the time, behind The Blues Brothers did 12 years earlier, yet it remains their highest-grossing effort to date.
Wayne’s World was released in the United States on February 14, 1992, by Paramount Pictures. A critical and commercial success, it was the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1992. Wayne’s World 2 was released the following year but with much less success.
What Made Garth and Wayne’s Friendship Unique
The movie explores what happens when the “bromance” (defined as a close but nonsexual relationship between two men) of these two metalheads is tested by sudden fame, money, and a new relationship for Wayne. A 1992 Washington Post article describes the two fun-loving friends that evolved from Saturday Night Live skit into a comedy classic for the silver screen.
Wayne Campbell is a long-haired, baseball-capped, guitar-jamming dudester. He boasts an extensive collection of hairnets and name tags from various McJobs and salutes heavy metal on his cable show. If he ran this land, the Constitution would outlaw wedgies. The national anthem would be “Stairway to Heaven”; the national bird would be the chick. The perfect babe, according to Wayne, would sport Farrah Fawcett’s hair, Madonna’s tongue, and Betty Rubble’s derriere.
Wayne’s dweeby co-host, Garth, lives on Jolt cola, techie magazines, and Nintendo. He has frizzy blond locks, wears Clark Kent glasses, and sucks jelly out of doughnuts with a straw. His pet collie has a Rod Stewart haircut.
As most everyone knows, changes in life can cause a friendship to fall apart. Well, not for the party duo since their friendship did not change. “Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!” (Wayne & Garth’s catchphrase)
But the real-life friendship of Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey did change.
But Their Real Friendship Changed
Thanks to their iconic party duo, fans think that Mike Myers and Dana Carvey have always been great buds. But that has not always been the case.
Carvey mentioned in a recent interview that the two had actually been estranged for years after he accused Myers of stealing the Dr. Evil character featured in the Austin Powers movies from him. Not only is such an accusation of joke-stealing the highest crime a comedian could commit, but Dr. Evil went on to become nearly as iconic as Wayne and Garth.
As Yahoo Entertainment reported, Carvey first dug up the dirt when talking with Howard Stern in 2016. He claimed that he originated Dr. Evil as an impression of Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels, way back when Carvey and Myers starred on the legendary late-night show in the late ‘80s into the early ‘90s. In 2019, the wound still seemed raw and Carvey admitted to the shock jock that, “we never really talked about it.” Myers wasn’t as nervous to take the character further, for three massively successful Austin Powers movies but it bothered Carvey.
“When we see each other we just talk over each other,” Carvey explained years ago. “I have a lot of affection for him… we never really talked about it. I talked about it to the therapist; I basically let it go.” He added: “As you go through life you get beat up… you get a bigger perspective when life gets tough.”
Friendship On!
Despite any lingering hard feelings, the pair couldn’t say no to two of the biggest offers an actor could get. They reprised their roles as the beloved basement-dwelling, teenage goofballs for a spot at the Oscars in 2019. But it was a Super Bowl commercial for Uber Eats in 2021 that finally had the two old pals fully on friendly terms.
The reconnection had enabled Carvey to place Myers “in context” and “understand him” properly, he reflected, recalled that they’d been “like little rock stars” at the peak of Wayne’s World’s success.”Everyone has a 10-year-old boy inside them, or girl,” Carvey continued. “That little person gets very jealous of the shiny new toy – very envious. As friends in these last few years, you put down all your weapons and you’re just very vulnerable and very honest. It’s a great way to be with someone.”
Mature Friends Learn to Forgive
“We’ve become very very close friends,” Carvey told Stern in a recent return visit, noting that was a “full circle” change since 2019. He continued: “We have too much history, an unbelievable amount of stuff in common… we had so much shared history together, riding the rocket of Wayne’s World.” He continued: “I’m mature now; the only good thing about getting old is you just sort of get a little more wisdom. You get a little more perspective and you practice forgiveness for others and for yourself.”
He said of the Super Bowl ad: “We got closer during that whole process and started talking more. It’s very nice to have such a long friendship with someone… I came to know him in a much better way, as we’ve been really really talking these last couple of years. We’ve become very, very close friends. And we just have too much history. We have an unbelievable amount of stuff in common.”
It sure seems like Carvey needed friends again who love to have fun.
“The only good thing about getting old is you just sort of, you get a little more wisdom, you get a little more perspective and you practice forgiveness for others and for yourself,” Carvey told Howard Stern.
It also sounds like Carvey learned to be a friend who forgives.
GodBuddy Focus
Even as friendships deepen and mature, they need to maintain the fun aspects and general goofiness that give most men energy. Of course, you also need to make sure you still act like responsible adults, but it’s important to have some friends who love to have good, clean fun. You Don’t Be “That Guy” in your group of friends who drives you crazy!
Another aspect of a GodBuddy friendship is that you learn to forgive those smaller things in the past and focus on the bigger picture, like growing spiritually. Making friends with other godly men who like to have fun can help ensure you recharge your batteries so you can fulfill your mission and purpose in life.
My next post is an example of two guys on a mission from God.
