Citizen Wayne

It's Friday night at NBC's Studio 8H, and the hammering, buzz-sawing, backslapping, back-talking, not-quite-there-yet, barely controlled panic of a rehearsal for Saturday Night Live is interrupted when a piece of living history strolls onto the set and begins to accept greetings. His name is Dan Aykroyd, and as the younger cast members of SNL's umpteenth ensemble gather to receive his handshakes, arm pats, and ''nice work''s, he seems well aware of the large shadow he casts. Aykroyd moves familiarly around the room, chatting, smiling, and then he spots Mike Myers, claps him on the shoulder, and leads him down a hallway for a more secluded talk.

''So, Mike,'' he says. ''You have a movie coming out. You should be really happy.''

''I am happy,'' says Myers, scratching unhappily at the neckline of his New York Rangers jersthink it came out well. I'm just nervous —''

''You'll never be entirely happy,'' continues Aykroyd, waving a dismissive hand. ''Maybe 70 percent. There will always be things you wish you had done differently. But remember — you must never share what could have been with the press.''

Myers nods as Aykroyd rolls on, but it's impossible to tell whether he's absorbing the advice. If he appears a little glazed, it's understandable: As he awaits the release of Paramount's movie version of his SNL sketch ''Wayne's World'' in 1,768 theaters, Myers (it's his world) and his costar, Dana Carvey (Garth just lives in it), are standing in the eye of a hurricane of promotion, publicity, and merchandising.

Although this isn't the first time Hollywood has tried to strip-mine a Saturday Night Live skit for a movie, the previous effort, 1980's The Blues Brothers, was made by filmmakers who lacked that ''live from New York'' sensibility. As Carvey explains, ''It didn't come from the factory.'' Wayne's World, however, is pure SNL, produced by Saturday Night creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels and scripted by Myers and two of the show's writers. For the past few weeks, Paramount has been blasting the movie into public consciousness with all the subtlety of an armored invasion. Anyone who hasn't gotten the message yet has only to look at the film's initial slogan — actually, more of a command: One world. One party.

It all seems a little...well, a little much for a sketch whose no-frills concept Carvey aptly describes as ''two stoner dudes in a basement,'' but the stakes are higher than they appear. If Wayne's World proves able to attract Saturday Night Live viewers and defectors, teen metal heads who watched Wayne and Garth's recent MTV special and their VH-1 parents, kids who love Wayne's pop-culture-fed smart-assing and baby boomers tickled by the sketch's wry view of suburbia, then the film could spawn a whole new SNL industry.