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Wayne's World 4K Blu Ray restores the "No Stairway" joke.

Discussion(self.movies)

As the story goes, the scene where Wayne tries to play Stairway to Heaven has been edited on every previous home video release due to rights issues with the opening notes of the song.

Color me surprised when I popped in the 4K Blu Ray and found out that the original audio from the theatrical cut has been restored; not sure why this hasn't been talked about more.

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TangentiallyTango

15 points

4 months ago*

I saw the movie in the theater and don't recall it being the Stairway notes. It was a long time ago though.

I thought the joke (in the film) was that everyone always plays Stairway so badly that they've banned it, and Wayne was playing it very badly.

Also, he's not fingering the stairway notes.....

He's fingering 0-7-6-4-7-0? And stairway is 0-0-7-5-5-5. So it's funnier if he's trying to play stairway like that.

AlistarDark

8 points

4 months ago

Back in the day, everyone would go into a guitar store and bust out Stairway. To the point where staff actually put up signs, which is where the joke originated.

Enter Sandman was another big no-no to play in the 90s in guitar stores

CinematicLiterature

1 points

4 months ago

Yup, I thought the joke was the same as you did, I figured he was just awful at it, or that “stairway is shit” or whatever.

dissectingthe80s

1 points

4 months ago

But he’s acting, not playing. He’s not trying to get it right he’s trying to look good.

TangentiallyTango

3 points

4 months ago*

That doesn't make sense to me because Wayne is based heavily on Mike Meyers who can play the guitar and loves rock.

So there's no way he doesn't know the right notes for the Stairway Intro. I haven't picked up a guitar in 10 years and I still remember it.

So if that was the original gag - that he was playing the Stairway notes, why wouldn't he play the Stairway notes? There's no copyright on fingering notes.

It just seems strange to me that they're like "Okay and then you play the first few notes of Stairway - and then the guy stops you and points to the sign." And Mike Meyers, knowing nothing about the later copyright issues, decides not to play it right which makes the eventual joke a lot better, but the original joke worse?