SNL's "Wayne's World" Aerosmith Sketch Was the First of Many Wayne & Garth Reunions
The 1990 jam session with Tom Hanks was the most exciting thing to ever happen in an Aurora, Illinois basement.
In the weeks leading up to February 16's three-hour 50th anniversary celebration on NBC, the team behind Saturday Night Live has selected one sketch from every single season — 50 seasons in 50 days — to reflect the show's rich legacy across five decades. Presenting the sketch chosen to represent Season 15: "Wayne’s World: Aerosmith” starring cast members Mike Myers and Dana Carvey along with Host Tom Hanks and Musical Guest Aerosmith.
From chatting about babes to their hot takes on the latest movies and even helping the Aurora Police Department, Wayne and Garth did just about anything and everything on Saturday Night Live’s “Wayne’s World.” Starring cast members Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, the iconic sketch inspired a blockbuster film series, and the lovable long-haired metalheads even interviewed Aerosmith in SNL's Season 15.
The moment, as Wayne and Garth would say, was excellent!
Aerosmith visited Wayne Campbell's basement in 1990
The February 17, 1990 episode featured one of SNL’s most legendary moments when Host Tom Hanks and the night’s Musical Guest, Aerosmith, appeared in an installment of “Wayne’s World,” the popular public access television program broadcast from Wayne's parents' basement.
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Kicking off with a quick cameo from Wayne’s mom (Nora Dunn) grabbing laundry, the guys introduced Garth’s cousin Barry (Hanks) who works as a roadie for Aerosmith.
Barry, who can’t get enough of his super-sized fountain soda, reveals Aerosmith is just upstairs and Garth gets “squirrely” with excitement.
Indeed, a quick shot from Wayne’s “nook cam” shows Steven Tyler, Joey Kramer, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, and Brad Whitford all sitting at his breakfast table.
“Oh man, they’re actually here!” Garth says. “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!”
“Garth, take your Ritalin man!” Wayne tells his buddy.
Wayne notices his mom making Aerosmith take a house tour, so he sends Garth up to intervene. “Garth, go!” he yells. “My mom must be stopped, use violence if necessary.”
After Barry shows off how he does sound check — “Sibilance! Sibilance!” — Aerosmith finally appears, with Tyler tumbling onto the couch as Wayne and Garth bow down.
“Wayne, I’m so excited!” Garth says. “I think I’m gonna hurl!”
“Hey! Garth, get it together man!” Wayne tells his co-host. “Don’t hurl, ‘cause if you hurl and I catch a whiff of it, man, I’m gonna spew. And if I blow chunks, chances are someone else is gonna, right? And that’s gonna set off a peristaltic chain reaction, alright?”
The guys then ask Aerosmith a few questions, including if Tyler’s lips are real. “They mine, man!” he says, with Garth giggling in response, “Bitchin! Bitchin lips!”
Finally, Wayne tells the band it’s always been his “fantasy” to play with them — and asks them to sing the "Wayne’s World" theme song with them. Aerosmith happily obliged.
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Mike Myers’ inspiration for Wayne Campbell came from his own teenage experience
Born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Myers grew up like every other metal-loving teen rocking out with their friends — with a Canadian flare.
“I was a punk rocker in Toronto. In Canada, instead of saying, ‘Punks rule, okay?!’ they say ‘Punks rule, okay Mom?!’ We’ll gum you more than bite you,” Myers told Vulture. “But people all around me were into heavy metal, and it struck me that the suburban heavy-metal thing was universal — or, at least, in North America.”
During a 1990 interview with CBC’s Midday, Myers said the character basically born out of a “certain homogenous, adolescent, heavy-metal experience” and “just ... hanging out and being a goof.”
Specifically, Myers wanted Wayne Campbell to surprise his audiences in an endearing way. “I wanted the character to have knowledge you wouldn’t expect he might have,” he shared with Vulture, adding that while he personally was a good student and “got great marks” in his studies, he still wanted to party.
“I wrote a contrast-and-compare essay on The Spy Who Loved Me and Joseph Campbell’s cosmogonic monomyth cycle. But at the same time, I didn’t want to hang out with the eggheads. I wanted to hang out with the party animals,” he said. “So I tried to infuse this idea that Wayne has much more knowledge than you find yourself adaptable to the possibility that he could have.”
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The character of Garth Algar was based on Dana Carvey’s brother
Carvey revealed in a 2022 interview on Bill Maher’s podcast, Club Random, that Garth was based on his brother Brad Carvey. The older Carvey is an engineer who famously helped invent the first Video Toaster editing software. (Fun fact: Garth wore a “Video Toaster” shirt in Wayne’s World 2.)
“That’s basically an extrapolation of my brother Brad, I had three older brothers,” Carvey told Maher. “And Brad would kinda talk like that. That’s why Garth had stun guns, Garth got a science bent. It was just a funny, super nice character to sit in because he’s such a good guy.”
Aerosmith made a cameo in Wayne’s World 2
While SNL’s “Wayne’s World” sketch series was based on “Wayne’s Power Minute” — Myers' segment on the CBC’s It's Only Rock and Roll in 1988 — it evolved into a film franchise. The first Wayne’s World movie was released in 1992, followed by a sequel in 1993, which featured an epic cameo from Aerosmith.
In Wayne’s World 2, Aerosmith performed “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and “Shut Up and Dance” as Wayne and Garth rocked out in the crowd.
Years later, they joined forces once again. In December 2020, Myers and Carvey reunited with Perry and Tyler from Aerosmith on Josh Gad’s Reunited Apart YouTube series. “‘Sibilance... Sibilance’ Surprise…,” the band wrote on Instagram at the time. “We were ‘worthy enough’ to reunite with our friends Wayne and Garth!”
