Degenerated: An Oral History of Airheads

Oral History offers the most comprehensive retelling of a pop culture artifact.

Tell us if you’ve heard of this one: Three aspiring rockers break into a Los Angeles radio station with water guns. Their demands? They want their demo on the air. The three in question? Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Sandler.

Along for the ride is Michael McKean, Joe Mantegna, Ernie Hudson, David Arquette, Michael Richards, and Chris Farley. On paper, this reads like a blockbuster cast. Yet in 1994, Airheads couldn’t even make back half of its $11 million budget.

Two weeks after its opening, Airheads was pulled from theaters and rendered a flop. Not long after, Comedy Central began running the film on a continuous loop, the film’s stars became Hollywood fixtures, and a cult following emerged.

Airheads Movie Poster

This year, in celebration of its 25th anniversary, Airheads closed out Cinepocalypse Film Festival, The Lone Rangers burger debuted at Kuma’s Corner in Chicago, and a high school in Canada even mounted a stage version of the film. How’s that for a “flop”?

Today, we look back on a time when real life didn’t matter, every challenge was simply an obstacle to overcome in order to have your voice heard, and all that mattered was the music, the look, and the great debate of who would win in a fight: Lemmy or God.

Ahead, you’ll hear the entire story of Airheads as told by the cast and crew, specifically Fraser, Mantegna, McKean, Marshall Bell, Amy Locane, Michelle Hurst, Nina Siemaszko, screenwriter Rich Wilkes, director Michael Lehmann, Island Pictures executive VP Todd Baker, 20th Century Fox executive Michael London, and 20th Century Fox president of worldwide production Tom Jacobson.

And if it’s too loud, well, you’re too old…