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Myers did not suffer from an inferiority complex. Brandon Tartikoff loved to tell the story of the time when, having moved on from NBC to the presidency of Paramount Pictures, he was trying to convince Myers, in the wake of the Wayne’s World success, to agree to make a sequel. To sweeten the pot, Tartikoff asked Myers who he’d always wanted to work with. “I have a big Rolodex,” Brandon said. “Give me the name and whoever it is, they’re only a phone call away.” Myers thought for a moment and then said, “Fellini.” Tartikoff didn’t believe his ears. Who? “Federico Fellini,” Myers replied. “I have always considered him a great artist.” He looked at a flabbergasted Tartikoff, waiting for his response, or maybe expecting him to pick up the phone and dial Italy. “That’s when I realized,” Tartikoff said, “that he was completely serious. He really thought he was in that league now.” Tartikoff felt that even for Hollywood, this was one of the great chutzpah stories of all time.

DANA CARVEY:

Lorne said Mike needed a sidekick for the “Wayne’s World” sketches. Basically I just showed up at read-through and there was this sketch and I was just in there. I don’t think Mike resented it. It’s so infamous that it’s hard to talk around this — but obviously the show was fine, and then once we got into feature-film territory, defining the roles was a little harder. That’s as delicately as I can put it. When it was just a sketch, I would just be reactive and laugh really hard and support him.

I remember I always thought, “Aren’t we just doing Bill and Ted?” I thought we’d be nailed as doing a Bill and Ted ripoff. But I think Mike’s a clever writer, and he put his own stamp on “excellent” and “way, no way.” Bill and Ted did precede us, but I guess it didn’t matter.

TERRY TURNER, Writer:

Mike was interested in us writing Wayne’s World with him because we’d done some of the sketches with him and the collaboration seemed to work. And then Lorne came to us one day and asked us if we would like to write the movie with Mike. And we said, “Sure, absolutely. We definitely would love it.” Because it was an opportunity. So we took it.

Oddly enough, Lorne’s advice on the movie was don’t make anyone angry at each other, because it will remind the audience too much of home, and we want them to have a good time in the theater. In a way, his light touch worked, because he only said about two or three things about the movie. And sometimes he made us a little crazy, because he didn’t keep up with the dailies as much as he should have and we had to go back and then reshoot things which could have been done sooner. But I can’t complain about it, because it certainly was a great opportunity for us.

I’m sure I’m not speaking out of school here when everyone knows that there was a problem with Mike and Dana on the set. I’m pretty sure everybody knows that. So there was some hostility and then some friendly hostility, and then people would band together and it spilled over into the show. I remember once, Lovitz said to Dana, he was just absolutely killing in a sketch, but when Dana came off the stage, Lovitz said to him, “Dana, Dana! You’re coming off gay” — just to undermine every bit of confidence he had. Just like, you know, a jerk. They’d pick at each other, but everybody knew it was kind of a joke, and yet sometimes it wasn’t so jokey.

DAVID SPADE:

I think the breakthrough for me was probably when I did that sketch as the receptionist saying, “… and you are?” and that kind of thing, which kind of worked. It was a little dry attitude, and it caught on fast, which was nice. That didn’t really solidify me there, but the following year I did my first “Hollywood Minute,” and that’s the one Lorne liked.

I was just basically sitting at the table in the writers room, bored, reading People magazine, commenting out loud about what was going on in the world, and just making fun of everyone. Someone was like, “Why don’t you just do that on the show? That’s what