Rumours of a feud between Wayne’s World masterminds Mike Myers and Dana Carvey have been circulating for literal decades.
The cult SNL sketch hit became a US $183m-grossing film in 1992, but rumour has it Myers tried to prevent Carvey from appearing in it in the first place out of fear of being upstaged.
Talks of a rift became stronger when Myers wrote and starred in smash hit Austin Powers a few years later, where his character Dr Evil bore a remarkable similarity to Carvey’s old impressions of SNL producer Lorne Michaels.
Now Carvey has shed new light on tensions between one of comedy’s most iconic duos, confirming that – at least from his perspective – Myer’s Dr Evil was a rip-off of his own impression.
Stern tests the waters, telling Carvey that he’d heard a rumour “You were a little pissed off [when you saw Austin Powers] because it was your impression of Lorne Michaels…”
“With the pinky coming out, yeah!” Carvey finishes for him.
“Well yeah, I did do [the impression of Michaels first]. When I first got on SNL, no one I knew was doing it. I first saw him on Wednesday night picking the show, and it would get kinda tense putting the cards on the board, and my first hook into Lorne was him saying, ‘Um, I still have no fucking first act’. Now he would bite his nails and I just did this” – Lorne puts his pinky to his mouth, a la Dr Evil – “and when I saw Mike do it and I did kind of go, ahh, look… it’s a really funny affectation, because it’s so specific.”
When asked if he’d ever confronted Myers about it, Carvey answered:
“Ummm… I’m in therapy now. I should say when you look back, you get a better perspective on it. We were never meant to be a comedy team, Mike just invited me into the [Wayne’s World] sketch. I’m really grateful that he did.”
The character of Garth might have been Carvey’s (it began life as an impression of his stoner genius brother), but the catchphrases were all Myers.
Still, the feud looks like it’s long-buried. Carvey, Myers and Wayne’s World director Penelope Spheeris appeared together at a reunion of the film in 2013, with Spheeris saying at the time, “We’re all getting too old to be pissed.”
