We Would Have Gotten a ‘Wayne’s World’ Reunion at ‘SNL50’ Had Dana Carvey Not Been Sick
Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special featured some genuinely surprising creative decisions, even beyond the choice to give Kim Kardashian more airtime than many former cast members who were in attendance that night.
Several of the recurring sketches that were brought back for SNL50 — such as “The Lawrence Welk Show,” “Black Jeopardy” and “Debbie Downer” — were somewhat unexpected. Especially because so many famous SNL characters weren’t a part of the special at all.
Some of the most glaring omissions can be explained by performer absences; Dan Aykroyd watched the show from home while pounding back vodka, so obviously there was no Coneheads content. Bill Hader opted to skip the event, hence why Stefon never showed up. And the Church Lady sat this one out, owing to the fact that Dana Carvey was reportedly getting over a “bad flu.”
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And fans were vocally disappointed that there was no Wayne’s World sketch as there had been during SNL’s 40th anniversary special.
On the most recent episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Fly on the Wall podcast, Carvey revealed that he had originally planned to dust off his glasses and flannel shirt to play Garth Algar once again. “I wasn’t there, I had the flu,” Carvey explained. “I was on the downside of it, but I still didn’t have the oomph to travel. (It) wasn’t recommended.”
The Master of Disguise star went on to confess: “I felt bad that I couldn’t go, ‘cause I think that Mike (Myers) and I were supposed to do Wayne's World.”
On the one hand, seeing Myers and Carvey, now both in their 60s, playing supposedly youthful rockers in a suburban basement may not have been all that great. Then again, if we never get another Wayne’s World reunion, then the franchise’s ultimate conclusion was that awkward Uber Eats Super Bowl commercial from 2021.
Rather than recast Garth with, like, Jon Hamm or Sabrina Carpenter, the show scrapped the Wayne’s World sketch altogether. But Myers still got some screen time as Coffee Talk’s Linda Richman, who made a surprise cameo in Bronx Beat. It’s unclear if this sketch was written before or after Carvey canceled, but hopefully we can all agree that Linda meeting Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph’s Betty and Jodi was a crossover that easily topped every single Avengers movie.
“I thought that Linda Richman, the Coffee Talk woman, came out and really scored,” Carvey told Spade. “He’s landing all his hooks, and they’re playing it kind of straight. They’re trying to understand this crazy character. So I thought that landed very (nicely).”
“Wayne’s World would’ve done great, but it was fun to see that,” Spade agreed.
“I would’ve been really happy to do it, but I couldn’t make it,” Carvey added, in character as Garth.
At least SNL50’s reel of problematic sketches didn’t add insult to injury by including clips of Wayne and Garth’s aggressive schwing-ing.
