As a teenager, I had spent a significant portion of my time
watching SNL reruns on A&E or whatever channel happened to be airing them
at the time. My favorite episodes were from the early-to-mid 90s, when Chris
Farley, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, and Adam Sandler ruled the show. So when I
heard a rumor that the 2004 all-school play would be Saturday Night Live, I HAD to be a part of it.
The play was going to be made up of a number of skits, just
like the show itself. And here’s the most beautiful part: you got to choose
your own skits. If you wanted to be in a particular skit, all you had to do was
present your idea to the director. If she deemed the skit appropriate enough
for the play, you were responsible for casting any additional characters. I was
overjoyed: not only could I reenact some of the greatest SNL skits of all time,
but I could cast my friends in them, too!
Each person could only submit so many skits for
consideration, so I had to narrow down the huge number of possibilities to the
skits most likely to be appreciated by the Arlington crowd. My ultimate
choices? Wayne’s World and Landshark.
Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? |
I chose Wayne’s World because – seriously – what character
could be more fun to embody than Wayne? Besides, Wayne’s World is something
that the people of Arlington could definitely appreciate, whether they’d seen
the SNL skit or not. The next step was to cast Wayne’s faithful companion
Garth. There was no question: it had to be my friend Tiffany. Together, we
would make the best Wayne and Garth that Arlington had ever seen. After hearing
of the stellar casting, the director asked me to plan for not one, but THREE
Wayne’s World skits, which I was more than happy to do.
I chose to include Landshark because it’s always been one of
my favorite skits. Yes, it’s silly and ridiculous, but honestly, what SNL skit
isn’t? I also presumed that a solid percentage of our audience would remember
watching the early episodes of SNL. Most of the other skits were from the early
90s and beyond, so I thought the fledgling years of the show deserved some
recognition. Besides, it had been a life goal of mine to dress up as a shark
that walks on land and pretends to have candygrams. (“Life goal” may be an
exaggeration. “As soon as I found out about this play goal” would be more like
it.)
After our skit ideas were approved, we needed to find
scripts for them. I lucked out with Wayne’s World; finding transcripts of the
original sketches was a breeze. There were no Landshark scripts to be had, but
they weren’t that hard to write up: knock on door. Landshark pretends to be the
plumber. Girl doesn’t fall for it. Landshark pretends to have a candygram. Girl
falls for it. Door opens, Landshark eats the girl. Comedic gold!
We began rehearsals, and everyone was convinced that this
would be the best Arlington all-school play of all time. Ever. I wish I could
remember what all of the other sketches were (I know somebody was Roseanne
Roseannadanna), but I was too busy perfecting my early 90s wannabe rocker with
a public access television show persona.
Costuming was another hurdle to jump, of course. We were
more or less on our own, and we accepted the challenge. Tiff’s and my Wayne’s
World costumes were fairly simple, but they were dead-on. We both had ripped-up
jeans and t-shirts, and Tiff’s mom made me a special hat that read “Wayne’s
World.” I borrowed my friend Nick’s electric guitar, and Tiff had drumsticks
from the band room. The only real challenge was the hair. Luckily for us, the
all-school play took place in the fall, so the stores were well-stocked with
Halloween wigs. Tiff’s wig was some blonde shiny thing that she trimmed up, and
mine was some sort of Cher wig that we hacked into a mullet. We looked great.
PARTY TIME! EXCELLENT! |
My Landshark costume was nowhere near the perfection of
Wayne’s World. I wasn’t going to create an entire shark costume, so I settled
for drawing a profile of a shark head that would emerge from the door and “eat”
its victim. It was low-budget perfection.
However, every great play has its obstacles. We were closing
in on opening night when a handful of cast members dropped out, taking a few
skits with them. The play would run short unless a few brave actors stepped up
to fill the space. I was one of volunteers: I wanted to be the Church Lady.
Now, Arlington had its own fair share of Church Ladies, and
if you remember the skits, most of them were about the evils of sex. I chose
the only semi-innocuous Church Lady skit I could find: she goes to the church
potluck and denounces the red Jello for being food of Satan. As long as I got
to say “Isn’t that special?” and do the Superior Dance, I was satisfied.
The play was an absolute blast. Everything went smoothly
(except for the time I lost my microphone when Tiff and I were doing the drunk
driving PSA sketch), and people loved us: especially the “Aerosmith Comes to
Wayne’s World” scene. The crowd just loved seeing Tiff and me enact the old
Wayne’s World classic: “we’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!” We tried to work
in every Wayne’s World catchphrase possible: from “party time! Excellent!” to
“schwing,” we covered a lot of ground. (Yes, I know “schwing” probably wasn’t
appropriate, but Tiff and I made it work. In our play, “schwing” meant
“awesome,” and was not used in conjunction with Heather Locklear like it was in
the real show. That could’ve gotten weird.)
Landshark and the Church Lady were hits, as well, but
Wayne’s World was the clear favorite. I’d had the best time being Wayne, and I
was definitely sorry to see it end. I was almost sorry to throw away my mullet
wig… almost.
I had been in school plays before, and I would be in one
more play after SNL. However, I have never had as much fun in a school play as
I did during the short run of Saturday
Night Live. Sure, it helped that we were performing old familiar skits that
had been proven to be funny once before, but what really made it great was the
incredible freedom that we were given. If you wanted to be in a skit, YOU made
it happen.
Thinking back, I would’ve loved to do more skits. If I could
do it over, my next skit would undeniably be Matt Foley: Chris Farley’s
motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river.
LIVING ON GOVERNMENT CHEESE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER. |
Wayne's World, Wayne's World! Party on Wayne....these were the best of times! We absolutely rocked the Wayne's World, Excellent! Thanks for this amazing trip down memory lane; schwing! :)
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