Time & Perspective Quote by Mike Myers

There’s something wonderfully self-aware in Myers calling it “a miracle” that anyone wants his characters on an answering machine: it’s gratitude, yes, but also a sly acknowledgement of how fame turns make-believe into infrastructure. An outgoing message is mundane, practically clerical. Myers treats it like a stage, and the punchline is that the audience is begging for the stage to follow them home.

The subtext is about portability. His characters (Wayne, Austin Powers, Shrek’s vocal swagger) were never just jokes; they were catchphrases with legs, identities people could borrow for a moment. An answering machine greeting lets you outsource your personality: you’re busy, unavailable, slightly more entertaining than your own life. Myers isn’t merely flattering fans; he’s clocking the eerie intimacy of parasocial culture before it had a name. We don’t just watch the character; we want the character to mediate our relationships, to stand between us and the small discomforts of communication.

Context matters here: this is a pre-social media ritual, when personalization meant a recorded voice and a little performance. The “miracle” is that mass entertainment collapses into private space so easily. A comedian’s work is usually ephemeral, dissolving when the sketch ends. Myers marvels at the opposite phenomenon: characters becoming a kind of consumer utility, looping in kitchens and dorm rooms, turning absence into a bit. It’s funny, but it’s also a sharp snapshot of celebrity as a service people request on demand.