Wayne's World

Penelope Spheeris came from documentaries on the Los Angeles punk and metal scenes, The Decline of Western Civilization in 1981 and its metal instalment in 1988, so the two long haired basement broadcasters were directed by someone who had filmed that world for real. Mike Myers held out for Bohemian Rhapsody in the car scene, threatening to walk when the studio pushed a Guns N’ Roses track instead. It paid off twice: a single stalled at number 9 on the Billboard chart in 1976 re-entered 16 years later, climbed to number 2 and stayed 17 weeks. Halting the film to address the camera is structure, not a gag. The ending is rejected and rewound, a Scooby Doo parody unmasking the villain is tried next, and when that fails a third finish arrives where everything resolves. Which copy you watch matters as well. In the music shop, the four Stairway to Heaven notes were replaced with different ones on home video because of the licence fee, and the originals only returned with the 2022 4K edition. A good fit if you treat a comedy that consults its audience about which of three endings to keep as the joke itself rather than a mess. Not for anyone who wants the Cassandra and record contract thread to advance as a real story.