I Just Bought a Copy of Wayne’s World 1 & 2 on DVD. Here’s Why.

I used to have a copy of Wayne’s World 1 & 2 on DVD. I probably bought it for about $10, back when I worked at HMV in the early 2010’s.

For some reason, I don’t have this DVD anymore. I don’t know why. I have never purged my DVD collection, meaning my basement shelves are lined with tributes to the way I spent money in my twenties. But I have moved several times, and somehow that particular box must have fallen through the cracks. Maybe it wound up at my brother’s house, but if so I’m probably never seeing it again.

Every so often I think to myself, “I’d like to watch Wayne’s World again.” Or less frequently, Wayne’s World 2. It’s not important or anything, there are lots of other options out there, but it’s a particularly comforting old comedy from my youth. “Monkeys might fly out of my butt.” “Schwing.” Hilarious and familiar. My wife happens to be out of the house tonight and I was looking for something to do.

I don’t have a DVD of Wayne’s World anymore. That’s okay, we live in 2026, and we have this magical invention called streaming that gives us instantaneous and unfettered access to anything we want that’s ever been made.

Except Wayne’s World, because it’s not streaming anywhere. The only way to watch Wayne’s World, on any service I am subscribed to or is available here in Canada, is to pay Amazon Prime $5 to rent it, or a whopping $19,99 to “buy” it. (Meaning you get to watch it as much as you want, unless Amazon loses its license, then it disappears forever. You have to watch it four times to break even!)

Now, renting a movie for $5 is not a foreign concept. We used to do this all the time, it was called Blockbuster. Actually, come to think of it, Blockbuster had membership fees too. Okay then, instead of Blockbuster let’s hit the indie store down the street with the weird-smelling old carpet and the clerk who talks a little too much. Yeah, that was good stuff.

Anyway, the point is, most of the time I would rather hurl myself into the unforgiving sea than give a dollar more to Amazon, or any of these streaming services. Don’t you understand, I already bought this movie once, in a two-pack for $10 ($13.72 in today’s money — that’s $6.86 per movie, and you could hold it in your hands and watch it forever as long as you didn’t lose the DVD!) I have no desire to pay one more cent for it, let alone a 200% markup.

There was a time I wouldn’t have thought twice about plunking down a few extra bucks for a movie I even kinda wanted to watch, but we’re in an era where the money’s already been paid, and any venture over and above that warrants serious consideration.

Frankly, Wayne’s World is exactly the kind of movie that should be freely available for streaming: something that was a big hit, thirty years ago, and now just represents something that would provide enjoyable background noise to an anxiety-riddled insomniac while he doomscrolls at 3 AM. The fact that it’s not is mind-boggling and probably comes down to a measuring contest between rights-holders and streamers. Setting any kind of price tag on this thing almost feels like an act of aggression. “I dare you. I dare you to give me five bucks to watch Mike Myers lip sync ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ It would be hilarious.”

It’s kind of weird to me that Amazon would put a barrier to accessing Wayne’s World of all things. It’s a bit like Spotify charging you an extra $5 to listen to 4 Non Blondes just because “What’s Up” got stuck in your head now that I’ve mentioned it.

At that point, it’s a matter of principle. I will not rent this movie. I don’t ask for much in life, but I feel I am entitled to this.

I was prepared to wash my hands of this whole thing, setting my maximum price to watch this classic 1992 SNL adaptation at zero dollars, when I decided to browse Amazon — not Prime, the part of the site where you actually buy physical things.

The results were not encouraging.

There was the first movie on a special 30th anniversary edition blu-ray for 26 bucks. There was a presumably not-special two-pack for $28. An old DVD of the first movie on its own is available for $15. Not unreasonable charges to pay if you happen to want to watch Wayne’s World very badly, but I am unemployed and my desire not to squander every cent I have on frivolous purchases vastly overpowers my need to see this movie again.

And then, hidden amongst the search results, with that little “1 copy left” flag that I never know if I should take seriously, was an offer for a two-pack much like the one I bought back in 2011. This was priced at $13.50, which, thanks to the magic of inflation, is the equivalent price I would have paid back then.

I had to do some mental math on the options before me. Let us assume that if I ever wanted to see Wayne’s World again, it is going to cost me a minimum of $5. Plus $5 for the sequel, and that’s just to watch each movie once. The going rate for permanent ownership is several times that. I am either never going to see these movies again, or I am going to watch them every year on my birthday to justify the expense.

Here’s where the deal becomes irresistible, and it involves some really weird financial math, so stay with me. One of the very few virtues of Amazon as a business is that they accept TD points, a rewards program I’m signed up for. I collect these points by buying things with my credit card, and then I can use them to pay off my credit card, or spend them on Amazon… but the exchange rate, for some reason, goes further on Amazon. So spending $15 dollars on Amazon in this case (after taxes, which are covered by the points) is like spending $11 on my credit card. At this point it almost seems like a waste not to hit “Buy now.” A golden opportunity like this (ie, to watch Wayne’s World for a somewhat reasonable price) only comes around once in a lifetime! The only move more cost-effective would have been to go to my brother’s place and root around in his old boxes until I found it, and honestly, none of us wants me to do that.

So I just spent less, in 2026, to own these movies than I did fifteen years ago. And now they’re mine forever… again… assuming I don’t lose this one in a move as well. It’s not the $0 I had hoped to spend at the outset, but I still feel like I got the most for the money I was willing to part with.

Everybody’s got their own Wayne’s World, in this situation. Something that, with all the glut of media available to us, has an extra barrier that gives you pause. I don’t know if other people feel the way that I do, that with all the money I already spend on streaming services there’s a reluctance to go beyond that, like you have to convince yourself and draw up a complex algorithm of when it’s okay to spend extra. Maybe it’s a function of my ongoing unemployment, but I don’t think, when I was earning a regular salary, I would have wanted to spend $30 on a Wayne’s World blu-ray either.

There are obviously a lot of advantages to living in an increasingly digital world, but there is a lot that we have lost. Forking over $20 or $30 to Netflix and Amazon every month to provide your monthly entertainment makes more financial sense than trying to fish a few watchable DVDs out of a $5 clearance bin, but because the people making the product (or at least, holding the rights to it) are also the ones selling it, there are limits on the selection available. That’s called Vertical Integration, and it was considered a bad thing in 1948 when the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in United States v. Paramount Pictures, ordering the production studios to divest from exhibition venues, a decree that was “sunsetted” some years ago.

For the most part, instead of buying a product, you now buy access, and it’s a bit of a game of cat and mouse to try to make sure you get your money’s worth every month. I for one can almost never find anything to watch on Netflix, and everything good on Prime seems to be on some add-on channel called Reelz or Filmx that costs an extra $7 and I forget to unsubscribe from. I probably watch more bad things that I’ve already paid for than I should, since good things cost a little more.

I almost never buy DVDs anymore because there are so few movies that I intend to rewatch anyway, but when my wife took a liking to Top Gun Maverick years ago, I got her a two-set with that and the original so that we could watch it anytime, and it’s undoubtedly proven worthwhile. If you really like something, make sure to get a version you can actually hold.

And keep track of it when you move.

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