By 1993, Paramount was deep into its Saturday Night Live IP strip-mining operation, convinced that anything with built-in sketch appeal could recreate the 1992 Wayne’s World phenomenon. The trouble was, they didn’t quite understand why it worked. It went way beyond the catchphrase water-cooler zeitgeist that pre-sold the film, Wayne’s World managed to tap into its own irony – not to mention the no-sell-outs slacker sincerity of Gen X.
Coneheads (1993) had none of that.
What it had instead was Dan Aykroyd in full-tilt post-Valkenvania weird mode playing everything with a straight face and going all-in with its high-concept conceit.
Unlike most of the SNL movies that followed (Stuart Saves His Family, It’s Pat, Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury – sketches that lived and died on weekly repetition), Coneheads didn’t have the luxury of doubling-down on then-popular characters. It needed to stretch the five-minute gag into ninety minutes of soccer mom satire – and strangely enough, it worked. Just not for 1993 audiences.
Set in a typical 90s suburban grid that was already teetering on the surreal (think Edward Scissorhands or Meet the Applegates) Beldar and Prymatt weren’t your typical space-invading extra-terrestrials – they were immigrants. They worked twice as hard, pushed their child to succeed, and assimilated so aggressively they started to out-American the Americans.
Sure, they’re different, they’re awkward and they don’t fit in, but they never stop trying. And the more they commit to the illusion of normality, the more touching the movie becomes.
And that’s the fun of Coneheads.
In fact, much of the humour comes from how hard these characters believe in what they’re doing. There’s a real-world sincerity to their struggle, even in the middle of the absurdity. They’re still just a family trying to build a life, navigating bureaucracy, parenting, and social faux pas like anyone else.
The feds chasing them was a joke back then, but the undercurrent of fear and the idea of an outsider having to constantly prove their worth to a system that will never fully accept them, well, that rings a bit louder now.
Of course, audiences didn’t have time for any of it. Coneheads crashed and burned at the box office, and no one walked away quoting “Maintain low tones.” But that failure didn’t stop Paramount from shoving more SNL projects into theatres, hoping the next one would be another Wayne’s World.
None came close, not even Wayne’s World 2.
And maybe Coneheads didn’t need to be the next SNL breakout phenomenon, afterall, Dan Aykroyd had already been there and done that a decade earlier. He was happy with this. Perhaps he wrote what he knew. Under all its pointy latex and deadpan delivery, it was just a little sci-fi satire about a strange family who wanted to belong.
And doggone it, I liked it. -Pop