 Two minutes and fifteen seconds by Shawn Macomber --That’s all it took Alice Cooper to steal the eighth highest grossing film of 1992—a movie that had, in fact, sat in the number one box office slot for five straight weeks and in the subsequent quarter century has proven an enduring cultural touchstone. Two minutes and fifteen seconds. Yet Cooper’s role in Wayne’s World almost didn’t happen. “When I got the script, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was already there,” director Penelope Spheeris told Billboard last year. “The studio wanted to have Guns N’ Roses in there somewhere, and Mike wanted to have Aerosmith as the performance band. Aerosmith said they didn’t want to do it. You’ll notice that Aerosmith is in Wayne’s World 2, however. I’m gonna call that ‘two bad decisions.’ So when Aerosmith declined, I immediately brought up Alice because I had just worked with him on Decline of Western Civilization Part II.” Smart choice. But, of course, as with every aspect of his career, Alice wasn’t looking to do the standard issue cooler-than-thou rock star cameo—and writer/star Mike Myers was only too happy to facilitate a classic Cooper absurdist subversion. In fact, Cooper learned upon arrival that in addition to performing “Feed My Frankenstein,” Myers had written him five pages of dialogue. “It was fairly complicated,” Cooper recalls in his autobiography Golf Monster. “[I asked] ‘When are we going to shoot this?’” In about half an hour came the answer. “When I walked out on camera to do the scene, I honestly couldn’t remember the details in the lines, so I started winging it,” he continues. “I adlibbed about half of it.” And this is how we end up following Wayne and Garth backstage where rather than waist deep in wild decadence the pair instead finds their hero more interested in discussing the sociopolitical history of Brew City. “So, do you come to Milwaukee often?” Wayne asks. “Well, I'm a regular visitor here,” Cooper replies. “But Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers were coming here as early as the late 1600s to trade with the Native Americans.” “In fact, isn't ‘Milwaukee’ an Indian name?” guitarist Pete Friesen—a veteran of the Hey Stoopid and Trash tours—replies. “Yes, Pete, it is. Actually, it's pronounced ‘mill-e-wah-que’ which is Algonquin for ‘the good land.’” “I was not aware of that.” Though the cognitive dissonance is evident, Cooper presses on: “I think one of the most interesting aspects of Milwaukee is the fact that it's the only major American city to have ever elected three socialist mayors.” “Does this guy know how to party or what!” Now, I’m no Aerosmith hater—on the right days that video of Steven tyler sidling up to the Russian busker will definitely make me tear up—but can anyone envision that legendary frontman pulling this off with anywhere near the deadpan, sly brilliance of Cooper? Of course not. There’s a very meta aspect to this as well: When Wayne and Garth fall to their knees and make that immortal declaration—“We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!”—it’s true not just in the cinematic world of the scene, but out here in the real world as well; a place where it is clear very few human beings past, future, or present can fuck around with convention in such a effortless, effective way. Wayne and Garth aren’t worthy—and neither are we. One last tidbit before I stop monopolizing your attention and allow you to run to the nearest streaming service to revisit this hilarious triumph in all its undimmed glory: What appeared on screen, we now know, was only the tip of the iceberg. “I think we did it in two takes,” Cooper told Billboard of the scene. “Of course, Dana and Mike, on the floor with the ‘We’re not worthy!’ thing, were doing everything they could to get me to break up. But they didn’t realize my iron will, so I went right through that dialogue, and I think I surprised them. But if you would have seen the outtakes of ‘We’re not worthy, we’re scum,’ it goes on for like five or six minutes. And it just gets vile. Whoever owns those outtakes owns a little treasure.” It’s been twenty five years—release those tapes, motherfuckers!  BIO: Shawn Macomber is a writer, editor, and noted pug wrangler in the Greater New York City Area. (i.e. Jersey.) For more information visit his online repository at www.stopshawnmacomber.com  
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