Wayne's World = the McKenzie Brothers

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I’m sure I’m far from the first person to point this out, but isn’t Wayne’s World (the skit, the show, the movies) just a rip off of SCTV’s the McKenzie Brothers? I mean there are so many similarities, I’m surprised Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas didn’t sue and win a substantial settlement. The only differences I can see are
  1. Wayne and Garth aren’t Canadian and
  2. they’re not brothers and
  3. they don’t wear parkas and warm-weather hats, which is really just a restatement of Point 1 above
So what gives? How did Mike Myers and Dana Carvey get away with it? Where’s the outrage?
 
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I never thought they were particularly similar.

The McKenzie brothers were specifically intended to be Canadian, that was pretty much the entire joke. They were created in order to meet a Canadian network’s demand for specifically Canadian content.

Wayne and Garth were the MTV stoner generation, and if similar to anything I would say they were like Bill and Ted, or Beavis and Butthead.

I’m sure you could draw parallels between many dimwitted male comedy duos if you looked hard enough.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I never thought they were particularly similar.

The McKenzie brothers were specifically intended to be Canadian, that was pretty much the entire joke. They were created in order to meet a Canadian network’s demand for specifically Canadian content.

Wayne and Garth were the MTV stoner generation, and if similar to anything I would say they were like Bill and Ted, or Beavis and Butthead.

I’m sure you could draw parallels between many dimwitted male comedy duos if you looked hard enough.
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Yeah, they were caricatures of two down-market Canadian guys without much going on in their lives (or their minds), lovable losers as it were. I didn’t know they were created to fulfil Canadian content quotas; I thought they were created for SCTV. Do they predate SCTV?

I guess one big difference now that I reflect on your post is that Wayne and Garth sort of lived for and epitomized rock and roll fans; whereas the McKenzies were just hosers.

I found them interesting at the time because I wasn’t too familiar with Canadians and had never met one. I could sort of tell they were probably based on an amalgam of people that Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis knew, though: sort of Canadian everymen. And I think there was something affectionate in the portrayal.
 
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From Wikipedia:
The sketch was conceived when SCTV moved to the CBC television network. Due to the difference in the amount of time allocated for commercials, each episode to be broadcast on that network was two minutes longer than those syndicated to the United States. The CBC network heads asked the show’s producers to add specifically identifiably Canadian content for those two minutes. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas thought that this was a ridiculous request, given that the show had been taped in Canada, with a mostly Canadian cast and crew, for two years. The request inspired them to create a parody that would incorporate every aspect of the humorous stereotype of Canadians.
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Tis_Bearself said:
From Wikipedia:
The sketch was conceived when SCTV moved to the CBC television network. Due to the difference in the amount of time allocated for commercials, each episode to be broadcast on that network was two minutes longer than those syndicated to the United States. The CBC network heads asked the show’s producers to add specifically identifiably Canadian content for those two minutes. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas thought that this was a ridiculous request, given that the show had been taped in Canada, with a mostly Canadian cast and crew, for two years. The request inspired them to create a parody that would incorporate every aspect of the humorous stereotype of Canadians.
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Oh my gosh that’s too precious for words!
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Tis_Bearself said:
I never thought they were particularly similar.
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I guess what struck me as most similar is they both have an ill-considered and probably little-watched cable access show. Oh and they’re constantly bickering with one another.
 
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Cable access shows were often fodder for comedy then. See also Weird Al’s “UHF”.
People’s minds were just blown that ordinary folks could go on the air and have these crazy shows with seemingly no supervision. The actual cable access shows were often crazier or funnier than the comedy spoofs of them. It was true “reality TV” because it wasn’t scripted, it was really reality.
 
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Maybe, but:
“…There is nothing new under the sun” Ecclesiastes 1:9
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations…” Mark Twain (although a lot of quotes are erroneously attributed to him)

Star Wars is a re-telling of the classic hero’s journey, The Chronicles of Narnia is a re-telling of the central message of Christianity, and even Strange Brew was a re-telling of Hamlet.

It can be irritating to fans of an original work for sure, especially when new fans fail to recognize the original, but those new hosers can take off, eh! lol, now I’m taking off to youtube for some Bob & Doug
 
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ascetic said:
Maybe, but:
“…There is nothing new under the sun” Ecclesiastes 1:9
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations…” Mark Twain (although a lot of quotes are erroneously attributed to him)

Star Wars is a re-telling of the classic hero’s journey, The Chronicles of Narnia is a re-telling of the central message of Christianity, and even Strange Brew was a re-telling of Hamlet.

It can be irritating to fans of an original work for sure, especially when new fans fail to recognize the original, but those new hosers can take off, eh! lol, now I’m taking off to youtube for some Bob & Doug
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That’s a beauty way to go, eh?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Cable access shows were often fodder for comedy then. See also Weird Al’s “UHF”.
People’s minds were just blown that ordinary folks could go on the air and have these crazy shows with seemingly no supervision. The actual cable access shows were often crazier or funnier than the comedy spoofs of them. It was true “reality TV” because it wasn’t scripted, it was really reality.
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I guess they were the podcasts of their day, except podcasts often seem very professionally produced to me at least.
 
People are so jaded about media today because of the Internet showing virtually everything and because most TV and video these days is presumed to be fake or scripted. In the 80s and 90s people had been raised to think that TV and radio were supposed to be professional and slick and up to a certain standard. There were things you just did not see on network TV, ever, or hear on commercial radio, ever.

When public access TV started to become accessible and draw a following, and college radio started going to 1000 watts and above so people could actually hear it, it was an attention getter. Nowadays, whatever you put in a video, on the radio, or in a podcast, people have seen and heard it all online. There’s no element of shock or surprise.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
People are so jaded about media today because of the Internet showing virtually everything and because most TV and video these days is presumed to be fake or scripted. In the 80s and 90s people had been raised to think that TV and radio were supposed to be professional and slick and up to a certain standard. There were things you just did not see on network TV, ever, or hear on commercial radio, ever.

When public access TV started to become accessible and draw a following, and college radio started going to 1000 watts and above so people could actually hear it, it was an attention getter. Nowadays, whatever you put in a video, on the radio, or in a podcast, people have seen and heard it all online. There’s no element of shock or surprise.
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True. Apparently (and I only learned about this yesterday) there’s something called ASMR on youtube which are videos of girls whispering. So clearly people are grasping at straws due to their jadedness.
 
You’re mostly right, but ASMR reminds me of something I used to do back in the day.

I found listening to talk radio at low volume a good way to soothe myself to sleep. The sound of your average radio presenters voice in and of itself usually pleasant, and if it’s low volume you don’t get distracted by the content of what they’re saying.

ASMR is similar and, I understand, often used for similar reasons. I find ASMR too soft though - maybe I’m getting older and more deaf 🙂
 
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Ah, the McKenzie Brothers. Good stuff! Recently I introduced two huge Rush fans to Take Off. They’d never heard of the song. They loved it!

 
Tis_Bearself said:
From Wikipedia:
The sketch was conceived when SCTV moved to the CBC television network. Due to the difference in the amount of time allocated for commercials, each episode to be broadcast on that network was two minutes longer than those syndicated to the United States. The CBC network heads asked the show’s producers to add specifically identifiably Canadian content for those two minutes. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas thought that this was a ridiculous request, given that the show had been taped in Canada, with a mostly Canadian cast and crew, for two years. The request inspired them to create a parody that would incorporate every aspect of the humorous stereotype of Canadians.
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Yes. If the stories are to be believed, sometimes it grew from “two minutes” to “whatever short amount of time was left to fill”, was usually completely improvised, and the improvisation was helped along by actually consuming beer. 😂 🍻

And, back to the OP: You might as well say Bob and Doug were a “rip-off” of minstrel show characters Mr Bones and Mr Interlocutor, and probably earlier types. Any two guys telling jokes on stage, really.
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I always thought that Ackroyd and Belushi were like an updated Abbott and Costello.

Also, Cheech and Chong were kind of the granddaddies of all the drunk/ stoner comedy duos
 
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38 ish days left until Christmas. I’ll just leave this right here for your shopping inspiration.


(Hope this posts correctly…first time trying a link)
 
Just as a side note, I always thought all the members of SCTV were Canadian but apparently Andrea Martin and Joe Flaherty - two of my favorite cast members but really they’re all my favorites - are American.
 
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