‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’: 10 Things You May Not Know

George Carlin’s Rufus character is just as vital to the Bill & Ted movies as Bill and Ted themselves. Like the titular duo, the role is perfectly cast, and it’s just not possible to picture anybody else nailing that role in quite the same way. However, Alex Winter revealed in 2013 that Carlin’s casting was a “happy accident.” According to Winter, producers were eyeing more serious actors like Sean Connery until someone suggested Carlin after the film was already shooting. Once that idea came up, everyone agreed, and Carlin accepted the part.

The whole premise of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure focuses on them traveling to the past, meeting various historical figures. This includes such names as Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, Sigmund Freud, and Ludwig von Beethoven. In the original script, however, other major names were written into the story as well. Babe Ruth and Charlemagne both had prominent roles originally planned for them, only to later be written out. An original character named John the Serf from medieval times was axed as well.

Most fans of the Bill & Ted movies are aware Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, the animated series inspired by the film. Debuting on CBS in 1990, the cartoon featured the voices of Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, and George Carlin. Fox later acquired the rights to make a second season of the animated series, although the voice cast was replaced with all new actors.

In 1992, Fox premiered a live-action spin-off of the film, also called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures. Bill and Ted were recast with Evan Richard and Christopher Kennedy, who also voiced the characters in the Fox version of the cartoon show. Failing to connect with audiences in the same way the movies did, the series failed, running for only seven episodes before getting axed.

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Some screenwriters are absolute perfectionists, notoriously spending years working on a single script to ensure it’s just right. The exact opposite was the case for Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon when it came to writing Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Well before the years of commonplace laptops and the internet, the two would meet at coffee shops to write out the story on note paper. In four days time, they had created what would become a legendary franchise.

Speaking of Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the writers of the movie have an appearance in it as well. Both of their cameo appearances occur in the ice cream scene at the Ziggy Piggy Restaurant, with the two playing waiters. They’re the ones who bring the giant bowl of ice cream to Napoleon and later present him with a piggy patch. In the credits, Matheson is credited as Ugly Waiter, and Solomon is credited as Stupid Waiter.

The time-traveling phone booth is an iconic staple of the Bill & Ted movies, but that wasn’t the original vehicle the titular two would use to travel through time. Using a van was the initial idea, which later evolved into the decision to use a phone booth. Alex Winters suggests that director Stephen Herek “found it too Scooby-Doo,” leading to the change. It also didn’t help that Back to the Future had by then popularized the DeLorean as a time-traveling motor vehicle, and going with something more stationary was a good way to differentiate.

The ’80s was a time when almost every movie and TV series had a breakfast cereal, and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was no exception. Based on the success of the film and the animated spin-off, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Cereal” hit grocery store shelves for a limited time in 1991. The cereal was cinnamon-flavored with marshmallows shaped like music notes, and cartoon versions of Bill, Ted, and Rufus were featured on the box. The food was referenced on an episode of The Arsenio Hall Show, when Alex Winter personally presented an audience member with a bowl of the cereal. You can watch a video review of the cereal on YouTube.

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Although Bill and Ted visit some rather dangerous locations throughout history while meeting nefarious characters, the two are rather harmless themselves. In an original concept for the story, however, the duo would have been absolute monsters. The original idea was for Bill and Ted to unwittingly cause virtually every historical disaster while traveling through the past, such as the sinking of the Titanic, the Hindenberg crash, and even world wars. Probably because this idea was a bit too dark, the plot soon evolved into the one we see in the finished film.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has inspired lots of tie-in merchandise, as we’ve already touched on a little bit. That includes an official video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Video Game Adventure. To help promote the release of the game, Nintendo Power ran a promotion to give away a screen-used phone booth from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey to one lucky winner. Better yet, it was to be installed with a working telephone, with Nintendo Power footing the phone bill for a full year.

It goes without saying that the Bill & Ted movies just would not have been as iconic had any other two actors played the lead roles. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves were both perfect for the respective parts of Bill and Ted. When they were first cast for the movie, however, Reeves was cast as Bill and Winter was cast as Ted. After seeing the audition tapes, the writers felt it was necessary for the two to switch parts. Reeves and Winter had already reached that conclusion themselves as well, and the actors traded their roles prior to production.

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