Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) is a comedy/science fiction film based on the idea of time travel. It is also a prime example of a buddy film.

The film was released by Nelson Entertainment and Orion Pictures, written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, and directed by Stephen Herek. It starred Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Rod Loomis, Dan Shor and Jane Wiedlin.

The film was made in 1987, but due to the bankruptcy of the film's distributor, DEG, was not released until 1989. Due to the delay, certain dates in the movie originally scripted as "1987" had to be redubbed as "1988". The copyright date of this movie is 1988 and the same date appears on the DVD cover.

The film's taglines — "Be Excellent to Each Other" and "Party On, Dudes!" — as well as various other California slang phrases enjoyed a brief surge in popularity in the U.S. following the film's release. The film's "no way"/"yes way" exchanges received new life in 1992's Wayne's World, though shortened to "no way"/"way."

It was followed in 1991 by a sequel, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.

Two spin-off television series were produced as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures. The first, an animated series featuring the voices of Carlin, Winter, and Reeves, ran for 21 episodes in 1990 and 1991. A later live action series, featuring none of the cast from the movie, lasted just seven episodes in 1992. A spin-off comic book, Bill and Ted's Excellent Comic Book, (following on from Bogus Journey) was produced by Marvel Comics. There were also multi-level Game Boy, NES and Atari Lynx games released, which were very loosely based on the film's time travel aspect. The P.C title followed very close to the original movie and was made in 1991.

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure the 50th greatest comedy film of all time.

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Reeves), simply referred to as "Bill & Ted," are teenagers in San Dimas, California who are in danger of flunking out of high school. A guitar-playing guru named Rufus (Carlin) arrives from a future San Dimas to help them pass a vital history test, because their garage band ("Wyld Stallyns", pronounced "Wild Stallions") holds the key to world peace and ultimate truth but will not achieve its destiny if the duo fail the exam and Ted's authoritarian father carries out his threat to ship him to Oats Military Academy in Alaska. Rufus lends them a time machine disguised as a phone booth, which they use to meet—and "collect"—various historical figures: Napoleon Bonaparte, Billy the Kid, Socrates (comically pronounced by the duo as sO 'krAtes, and given the surname "Johnson"), Sigmund Freud, Beethoven (pronounced by the duo Beeth oven), Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc (or, as they called her "Miss of Arc", which was carried on in Clone High), and Abraham Lincoln, to help them with their vital history presentation.

Originally, the time machine was to be a 1969 Chevrolet van, but the idea was nixed as being too close in concept to the De Lorean in 1985's Back To The Future. Instead, the time machine was styled after a 1960s American telephone booth. In hindsight, this was quite similar to the time-travelling British police box of the BBC's television programme Doctor Who; however, the Bill & Ted telephone booth lacked the huge interior spaces of the Doctor's TARDIS. Nevertheless, they managed to get up to eight people in the booth at the same time.

It is interesting to note that Rufus never says what his name is. Instead, Bill and Ted tell their past selves that "Rufus is a great guy".

In the original ending, Bill and Ted delivered their Oral report in the classroom, with the historical figures displaying their views on the blackboard. This was discarded in favor of a more spectacular ending.

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