A character developed as a pre-teen, modelled on kids at suburban house parties

Mike Myers

Long before Saturday Night Live, a young Mike Myers was already doing Wayne Campbell's slouch and voice — based on older kids he watched at parties growing up in Scarborough.

Actor and comedian Mike Myers
Mike Myers, 2017 — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

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Michael John Myers was born in 1963 in Scarborough to English immigrant parents from Liverpool, and grew up between North York and Scarborough. His father, a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, introduced him to Monty Python and Peter Sellers — a direct influence on his later comedy. He attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute before transferring to Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute, both in Scarborough.

Second City, and a character born early

Myers joined Toronto's Second City almost immediately after finishing high school, training in the same institution that had produced John Candy and Eugene Levy. His signature "Wayne Campbell" character predates his professional career entirely: Myers has said he developed Wayne's slouched posture and laid-back voice as a pre-teen in Scarborough, modelling him on older kids he observed at suburban house parties — refined first on Toronto's CITY-TV overnight program City Limits, then on the Second City Toronto stage, and later on Saturday Night Live as the basis for Wayne's World.

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