Speaker 1: Okay, Jason. While I agree that this podcast will be
most triumphant, I think that our intro needs to have
Eddie van Halen on the guitar.
Speaker 2: We won't get Eddie van Halen on the guitar until
we have a triumph of video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's poiless to have a triumphant video before
we have even decent instruments.
Speaker 2: That is why we need Eddie van Halen.
Speaker 1: And that is exactly why we need a triumphant video.
Speaker 3: Excellent, Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the
forgotten of eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: Pop culture with your co hosts James D.
Speaker 2: Graves and Jason Collibing.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the most Triumphant Surely you Can't Be
Serious Podcast. A Ah, James D.
Speaker 2: Graves esquire and I am Jason the Man Colvin and
you are wild Stones. All right, greetings, my excellent friends.
Let's get into this.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk today about Bill and Ted.
We have two movies to talk about today and then,
if all things go according to plan, you will be
joining us next week and Bill and Ted Part three
Face the music will have come out, and we will
give you our most triumphant review of that excellent or
bogus movie.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it is a bodacious movie that we can share
with the masses. I've been very, very anxious to see
this one, been waiting since ninety one. Man, I'm all
for it. Man, I'm more Bill and Ted, the better
for me.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, honestly, with part three, we've got a
ten year history to discuss. I mean, I know that
everybody's wanted one for twenty thirty thirty nearly thirty years now, yeah,
but I mean even that itself was in a spin
there for for ten years. Since twenty ten, this has
this thing been creeping along, and so we can we'll
talk about that in a little while. But before we
get there, let's let's start back, and let's talk about
the history of the original Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.
Speaker 2: Did you see this one in the theaters?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay? How old were you to see? This? Came
out in eighty nine.
Speaker 2: So February seventeenth of eighty nine.
Speaker 1: So February seventeenth of eighty nine, then I would have
been thirteen years old.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's about the perfect age really.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 2: I saw this one, yeah, on a double date that
I think my mom dropped me off at the movie theater.
It's one of those he min, can't you pick me
up and pick up my girlfriend and drop us off?
Speaker 1: Good times. You had to go awkwardly knock on the door,
your mom said hi to her parents? Is hi waving?
Your mom's really cute? Shut up there the prom shut
um dead. I'll tell you I remember, honestly. I remember
seeing the preview of this movie coming on TV and
when when the line came out, who was Joan of
arc and they go, Noah's wife. I thought, I've got
to see this as soon as it comes out. I've
got to see this movie. And you know, Back to
the Future had just come out a few years previously
in eighty five, and we were waiting with baited breath
for Back to the Future Part two that same year
in nineteen eighty yeah nine, yeah, and so another teenage
time travel movie, Count me In, Man, count in all right.
Speaker 2: So this was written by Ed Solomon and Chris Mathieson.
They wrote the script by hand on notebook paper.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It stemmed from a comedy routine that they had
done together. Ed Solomon was had actually was our aready
writing was he was the youngest member of the Writer's
Guild at the time that he was writing, because he
was writing for Laverne and Shirley. Wow, as crazy as
that sounds, Yeah, he was doing these stand up routines
with Chris Matheson and who was the son of Richard Matheson.
Speaker 2: Richard Matheson wrote I Am Legend.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He also wrote What Dreams May Come. Yeah. He
also wrote the screenplay to Somewhere in Time, another time
travel movie.
Speaker 2: This guy is a heavy hitter in the science fiction realm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In his early days, he was writing Twilight Zone episode.
You know, Chris talked about how when they were doing
the script, he was actively trying to not make it
a sci fi movie, just because he didn't want to
just be doing the same stuff that his dad did.
And so it really just started off, like I said,
as this comedy bit about these dummies talking about history
when they didn't know anything about history, and they had
just a small bit of it that involved some time travel.
And then his dad said, man, that sounds like your
whole movie. Man, that was huge advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he nailed It's it's interesting for me
to think that Richard Matheson, the same guy who wrote
the vampire slash zombie apocalyptic story, contributed majorly to the
birth of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they had a third guy that when they
were doing their comedy stand up bit, they had a
third guy that was Bob. It was Bill and Ted
and Bob, but Bob kind of got tired of the
idea pretty quick and so then it just became Bill
and Ted. Which this wouldn't have worked as a three
piece for me. We'd have wandered into some kind of
weird three stooges thing. This needed to be the duo
that are like brothers out there.
Speaker 2: Chris Mathieson said that he and Ed Solomon were in
playwriting class together at UCLA. One of the guys in
their class was Shane Black. Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon, Predator,
The Last Action Hero. He wrote Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,
he wrote Iron Man three. I mean this guy a
prominent guy, and they said in class their memory of
him was that he did absolutely nothing the entire semester
and then like the last day of class, he pulled
something out of his butt that was better than anybody
had written in military class.
Speaker 1: I have to turn something in. All right, you go,
all right, here you go.
Speaker 2: It's called Predator, and the funniest guy in the class
by a long shot, he said, the funniest man he's
ever met is at Sullivan, uh huh. And so they
just sort of gravitated towards each other, started hanging out,
enjoyed each other's company, and they would go to this
little improv club. He said. They had no real aspirations
of being comedic performers. They just kind of wanted to
be writers, you know, And so they would just improv.
And one of the things was they wanted to do
was just a couple of dumb guys discussing current events.
And so he said, they just slid right into those characters.
They would just start talking like yeah, man, oh excellent,
and it just came really naturally to him.
Speaker 1: Once they had the idea of what the script was
going to be, the time travel concept, they would meet
at coffee shops and they wrote the entire script out
on notebook paper talking to each other in a coffee
shop over the course of four days. It's incredible the
script changed a lot because Initially, the time travel vessel
was a nineteen sixty nine Chevy van, but you know,
they realized, okay, well, there was another time travel movie
that involved a car that was way cooler than this was.
It was supposed to be the band van. It was
the Wild Stallions van. But so they decided to change
it and went with a phone booth, which is weird
because a phone booth had been being used a lot
longer than that is the time travel device for Doctor
Who the Tartists. But the original idea is there. Rufus
is the guy who owns the van. He lends them
the van. He's like this twenty eight year old guy
who's still in high school or something. He lends them
the van. They're driving along and all of a sudden
they're in Nazi Germany and they pick up Hitler in
the van, and then they bring Hitler back to San Dimas,
and you can see how politically that may not be
the best plot line to go with.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that well received.
Speaker 1: Thick and Napoleon probably was a much better choice. You know,
a little a little further away would be its good.
Speaker 2: Napoleon is hilarious in this movie.
Speaker 1: Oh he's brilliant, and he's not been in a bunch
of stuff. And he's not French.
Speaker 2: He's what is he.
Speaker 1: He's Australian with like Italian heritage. I mean he's he's
not a French guy at all. But I always remember
him as the guy who's in the bathtub during the Trumanship.
Speaker 2: All right, okay, so.
Speaker 1: This is I mean, this has always just kind of
been their baby. I mean they I mean, they really
worked on this concept for a long time before it
actually got fleshed out and came to the screen, which
I've heard them talk about Part three. They didn't want
to do this thing that would be a cash grab.
They didn't want to do a reboot. They wanted to
do something that was true to the characters that they created.
And with the with these I mean it sounds like,
you know, these are not just oh I wrote this
character once. It was these are beings that we've formed
fully into a personality over a course of years. We're
not going to betray them. So I have a lot
of hopes for part three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad that they are looking out for the
integrity of the characters.
Speaker 1: I love these characters.
Speaker 2: I hope that they treat them well, and I hope
that they make an enjoyable movie. So I'm super excited.
I don't know if you know this or not, but
Bill and Ted were originally envisioned as like fourteen year
old boys, like just nerds.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but once they cast.
Speaker 2: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter and they thought, eh, these
guys are pretty cool guys, that kind of helped form
and change the character.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're good looking guys, right, yeah, all the
I love the scene where they're in the Cowboy bar. Look,
we are totally weak. I cannot possibly fight you.
Speaker 2: This is Keanu Reeves, Like up to this point, did
you know who he was before this movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, I mean he'd been in a minor roles
here and there, I think, but nothing when they saw him.
I mean, they had auditions for this one. I've read
some stuff that I think is probably are legend about,
like Matheson and Solomon seeing them at a Mark McDonald's
somewhere talking to each other. I think that's a total
urban legend. I agree there was casting, there was auditioning.
That was something that went on, but they identified him
immediately as Ted. It was at that point that they said, Okay,
now we got to find somebody to go along with
him to be Bill. Here's something that you can encourage
your kids to be early or on time. So they
had called several people back. I mean, they had auditioned
hundreds of actors, and they had called people back to
play with Ted to see who would be a good pairing.
You know. It's kind of like Star Wars with Carrie Fisher,
Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill. But as it turned out,
Alex Winner was one of the first guys to show up.
Keanu Reeves was already there and they started doing lines
together and then they started kind of riffing off each
other and they were having a good time and they
got to be kind of friends before they ever stepped
foot into do their audition. And so when they went
to do the audition, the guy who was already Ted
had already developed a rapport with the guy who would
become Bill, and so he show at the right time.
Speaker 2: Man, if you're not ten minutes earlier, you're late. That's
that's a great story. I also, I've heard that Pauly
Shore auditioned. Yeah, I've heard that Sean Penn auditioned, which
I struggle with that idea.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, because it's Pecoli, right, it's Spaccoli ten
years it's Speccoli ten years later. I mean they are
both Speacoli. Why would you have Sean Penn who is
obviously now ten years older and he looked old when
he played Specoli. Yeah, No, that doesn't make any sense.
And uh, River Phoenix also in the mix there. Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 2: Wow, Well, I'm really glad for me. Alex Winter when
I saw him on screen, yeah, I recognized him.
Speaker 1: From The Lost Boys. Yeah, immediately he's one of the
pack of vampires that's following Keifer Southerland around.
Speaker 2: That's right, first come, first state. He's the first vampire
that gets it. All. Right, let's talk a little bit
since we're already kind of there, Let's talk a little
bit about the casting in this movie. Okay, so you've
got Alex Winter as Bill s Preston Esquire, Keanu Reeves
as Ted Theodore Logan, which the only thing I knew
about him before I saw a movie called The River's Edge,
which is very very serious and dramatic and traumatic and
sad and not funny at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that had Crispin Glover from Back to the
Future in it as well, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And it's about a guy murdering his girlfriend
and the other teenagers cover up for him. I think
Ione Sky is in it. It's it's a weird, sad,
unfunny movie. And then you have Keanu Reeves just hits
it out of the park with Ted Theodore Logan.
Speaker 1: He did so well with this that he he said,
for a while, I was worried that my tombstone would
say Keanu Reeves he was Ted, And you.
Speaker 2: Know, he very nearly was, because he did basically the
same character in Parenthood after this, and then he slowly
started to change for me when he made point break.
Speaker 4: Point break Yeah, johnnyah, boy freaking Johnny Utah. Yeah, he's
a bad and then he's muscled up, he's surfing. Yeah,
oh man, that that movie made me want to move
to California.
Speaker 2: And then he jumps to the movie Speed, which we're
going to cover one of these days, yes, And then
he jumps to the Matrix.
Speaker 1: The Matrix. I mean, he's neo. He's been a part
of so many franchises. I mean, he's got Bill and Ted.
He's I mean, Speed was a speed one in Speed two.
He's got the Matrix, which went over and over. He's
got John Wick, which has gone over and over. He's
really I mean we used to I can remember kind
of making fun of him as an actor. He was
just kind of this, okay, really guy, but he's he
is somebody who has made a name for himself. It
is kind of that case career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That's a good compression. Okay, So let's
talk about Rufus for a.
Speaker 1: Second, right. Rufus is played by George Carlin, who's a
stand up comedian who has a fantastic bit on the
words you can't say on the radio.
Speaker 2: We'll not go through those words right here, because we're
trying to stay family friendly.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's do it this way. Okay, It's okay.
You can't say blank, and you can't say blank. You
also can't say blank, you can't say blank, sucker, you
can't say mother blank, you can't say blank, and you
can't say tits.
Speaker 2: So yes, so Rufus. George Carlin Alexa Wandro said that
that was a happy accident. They were actually trying to
get Sean Connery to play Rufus.
Speaker 1: That had been all wrong. I mean I love Sean Conry,
but no, not in this role. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they were just kind of sitting around. They're like, okay,
we can't get Sean Connery. Who else will be good
in this role? And somebody just tossed out the name
what about George Carlin?
Speaker 1: Okay, so he had just been in a movie called
Outrageous Fortune. It was produced by the same guy who
produced Bill and Ted's excellent Okay Adventure. Yeah, okay, so
it was an easy Oh hey, George called George I know.
Speaker 2: All right. So George Carlin is Rufus. Rufus is their
mentor and their guide. He's also the one who shows
up in the Circle, which to me, we're going to
talk about the five greatest scenes in the movie, but
the visit at the circle k when he shows up
and says, gentlemen, I'm here to help you with your
history project. And they're like, what you know when the
Mongols ruled China? Perhaps we can ask them. Let's talk
about Missy for a second. Okay, I don't know exactly
how to pronounce her name, but her name is Amy
Stock or Stotch. She plays Missy I mean mom, I
mean Missy. She marries Bill's dad in the first one,
she carries Ted's dad in the second one. And then
I think somebody said that she ended up with Denomalos,
the bad guy from Brogus Journey after.
Speaker 1: That, Well I saw that. I don't know where it
would have been, whether it was because they did. They
had a few things that came about after Bogus Journey,
Like they had a cartoon series that actually had Alex
Winter and Keanu Reeves and George Carlin voicing the cartoon character.
That's awesome, and there is even a short like the
and then the second season it wasn't them, and then
they made a live action TV show that was the
guys that voiced the cartoons after the original cast left.
So I don't know if somewhere in all of that
mess that she ends up with Denomalos or not, or
if it's in this movie. Maybe it's in this movie
that she ends up with Dynomalos because Dannomalos, that guy died.
Who is that actor?
Speaker 2: I can't remember his name, Joss Auckland.
Speaker 1: Which I mean I know that you know him the
same place I do, which is lethal weapon.
Speaker 2: Two Diplomatic community.
Speaker 5: It's been revoked, all right, So Missy is uh Bill's
stepmom and every time she leans over, they both stare
and look down her shirt.
Speaker 1: Dude, that's your mom. Hold on, before we run on,
we talked about denomalos, right, so do you know what
that is? What? It's Ed Solomon backwards.
Speaker 2: That is awesome, Ed Solomon, the writer.
Speaker 1: For Bill and Ted. Yes, Ed Solomon backward words is
well kind of Ed backwards day and Solomon backwards. Nominally,
Let's talk about mister Ryan real quick.
Speaker 2: Mister Ryan, who is their teacher, who before we go
any further, he is a good teacher. He doesn't want
his students to flunk. He has been over backwards to
help them pass. They have flunked every section of his
class and.
Speaker 1: He is All you can tell me is that Caesar
was the salad dressing dude.
Speaker 2: Ed stand up, stand up?
Speaker 1: Yes, stand up.
Speaker 2: So mister Ryan played by Bernie Casey, who is also
in Revenge of the Nerds and never saying ever again.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on a second, Wait a minute, I feel
like I have a piece of knowledge. Revenge of the
Nerds to had a song in it that was written
by Ed Solomon. Get out of here. How do you
know I I because I'm a freaking genius. That's how
I knew it. Yes, nineteen eighty seven Revenge of the
Nerds Part two Nerds in Paradise credited Ed Solomon Lyrics No.
On fifteen Boom.
Speaker 2: Nice, well done. That is a mind blowing fact that
you will only get here at They sure that you
can't be serious?
Speaker 1: Podcast right next credit Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see here. Let's keep going, because if
you are a fan of eighties movies, I've got I've
got some stuff for you. You're ready to hang on
tight you go Ginghis Khan is played by Al Leon.
You may recognize him as the guy who always gets
killed in every action movie in the eighties. I'm not kidding.
He was in Diehard. He's the guy who's the candy
bar right before they shoot the police that are advancing
on the front door. Right he gets blown up when
they blow up the helicopters.
Speaker 1: Uh blow the roof Lea's in lethal weapon.
Speaker 2: He's the guy torturing mel Gibson with the electric shockers
while he's in the Showery Riggs managed to grabs him
with his ankles and breaks the guy's neck.
Speaker 1: That's all.
Speaker 2: Leon Yes is also in Big Trouble in Little China.
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2: He's a stuntman slash actor, and he plays Genghis Khan
in Bill and Ted's excellent, bitch. I'm gonna keep going,
I'm rolling, okay.
Speaker 1: Ready.
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln is played by Robert D.
Speaker 1: Baron.
Speaker 2: Hang with me on this.
Speaker 1: I'm hanging.
Speaker 2: Got to reach deep in the vault for this. One
of my favorite early eighties movies is The Private Eyes
with Don Knots and Tim Conway.
Speaker 1: It used to be one of my favorite movies, and
then you loan me the DVD and I watched it
with my family and I kept hearing, when is this
movie gonna be open?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: You're killing me. I loved it, But that movie does
not hold up. I'm sorry, my friend.
Speaker 2: That is a family favorite at my house, The Private Eyes.
But at the very beginning Tim Conway's character in don Knots,
they pull up to a gas station. The guy says,
you guys are the two idiots in the newspaper, and
he's got a real heavy Cogny accent, right, and they
end up blowing up the gas station.
Speaker 1: That is Robert V.
Speaker 2: Barron, who plays Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Party on dudes. Yeah, he was also and people who
were night Court fans and I was a big night
Court fan. But there's an episode where there's a cowboy
on who kind of looks like the Lone Ranger except old,
gray haired Lone Ranger and he's wearing a red shirt.
It's the same guy. I remember seeing him and being like, oh, dude,
that's the same guy. Now.
Speaker 2: Then I'm really gonna blow your mind here. You're ready
for this?
Speaker 1: Blow my mind? All right?
Speaker 2: Joan of arc is played by Jane Whedland. Yes, who
is in You and Star Trek four?
Speaker 1: So she's been in.
Speaker 2: Some stuff, right, yeah, right, I'm gonna play a song
and I'm gonna see if you can remember this one, right,
You're ready for this?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: That song ringing bell to you at all?
Speaker 1: No? Okay, that song it's.
Speaker 2: Called rush Hour. That was kind of a top ten
hit the summer of nineteen eighty eight. That's a song
by Jane Whedland. Okay, I am going to play a
song that you will recognize, Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: All right. That song is called ar Let's Arcia Arlet Sorry,
same group though, right, yeah, go go go Gos. Yes, sorry,
the Go Gos. Yes.
Speaker 2: Jane Wheeland wrote that song and plays guitar for the
Go Gos.
Speaker 1: Now that you say, I totally see it. That yep,
good job, man. My mind is blown. Nice nice video,
MTV connection. I love it. There you go, there you go? Okay,
all right, so you ready for me to blow your
mind a little bit? Yes? Do it? Okay? Okay. So
we all know that Keanu Reeves went on and has
done many many movies. Alex Winter has done not as
many movies as an actor, but he's become a pretty
prominent documentary filmmaker. One of the ones that you might
recognize is called The Deep Web, which he did back
in twenty fifteen, actually narrated by Keanu Reeves about the
Dark Web and the Silk Road and the drug trade
that went on on the web. And I'm a big
fan of a book called American Kingpin, which is about
this guy named Ulrich who was a He was a academic.
He was like a master's student who didn't get into
PhD program and decided to start selling drugs on the
dark Web and developed the Silk Road. And he's now
serving several life sentences in prison. It's fantastic book. You
should check it out. But I digress. Alex Winter not
been in a whole lot of stuff. He was in
Freaked after this and hasn't been in a whole bunch
of stuff, but has done some things. But back to
our MTV days. Alex Winter was the director of several
videos including Higher Ground, Knock Me Down, and Taste the Pain,
all by Red Hot Chili Peppers and are you ready
for this one? Who's the Mac? By Ice Cube What.
Alex Winter directed the video for Who's the Mac? What
theag Wow?
Speaker 2: I believe Alex Winter even directed a video for Extreme.
Speaker 1: Yes, he did Decadence Stance and he did Photo Graffiti.
Speaker 2: Extreme has a connection to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
as well. They have the song play with Me, which
is fantastic. It's what they play during the mall scene
and has the.
Speaker 1: Play right here.
Speaker 2: My kids love this song. They asked me to play
the song in the in the car. It's also the hardest.
One of the hardest songs to play on Guitar Hero
was Play with Me.
Speaker 1: That's how they do it. Yeah, that's not surprising. It
on Porn of Graffiti. Nina Benincourt had the song Flight
of the Wounded Bumblebee, which I mean, if you've heard
Flight of the Bumblebee, you know how fast that is.
It is that on speed. I mean, it's crazy good.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know this or not. But
Bill Ted's Excellent Adventure was all filmed in nineteen eighty seven. Yes,
this is the interesting thing to me. It was all
filmed in nineteen eighty seven. They wrapped it up sat
on a shelf.
Speaker 1: So when they first when the director, Steve Stephen Herricks,
first started looking at this, he thought to himself, Okay,
this is either going to be a huge hit or
phenomenal flop. They got the production company, the dent Entertainment Group,
to finance the film. I mean they're practically done. I
think they've cut it, They've they've done all of the shooting,
and then Dyal Renis goes bankrupt and so they're stuck
and they think, oh, well, crap, this thing is just
going to go straight to video. It's never going to
see a movie theater or anything like that. But then
some of the guys who worked for the Delentis Group
ended up working for the Nelson Group, and the Nelson
Group in combination with Oriyan bought it and put it
out there.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. I'm so glad too.
Speaker 1: Before they had the DearS group was was run by
Dio deal Reenis and he keeps looking at it and
he's like, I just I don't get it. What is dudes?
What is dudes? What is that? And they keep trying
to explain it. Finally, I remember it seems like maybe
it was Solomon or Mathison says, it's a guy with
a big and he says, at that point he finally
understood what it meant.
Speaker 2: Hino de Lorenzis actually gave us Flash Gordon. I don't
know if you remember. Oh wow, Yeah he did Flash Gordon.
So we got a podcast about that sometimes.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, just for the soundtrack alone, exactly.
Speaker 2: We gotta at least talk about the soundtrack. Okay, So
let's do the plot overview for Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.
Bill and Ted are students in high school and they've
got to pass their history class or else. Their band
Wild Stallions, who save the world from by their amazing
music somehow makes peace with everybody and causes serenity and you.
Speaker 1: Suddenly left from Slow Stone. Dude, I get this done
really really quick.
Speaker 2: Somehow, while Stallion's music makes bowling scores go way up
and many golf scores go way down. But the rockmand
Wild Stallions will never exist because Ted will be sent
to military school in Alaska. Rufus, their mentor from the future,
is sent to go help them out. He gives them
the keys to a time traveling foam booth so they
can go back and grab historical figures from the past
to help them create an excellent final report. But the
clock in San Demus is still ticking.
Speaker 1: There's a totally different kind of idea behind time travel
in this movie than in Back to the Future. You
don't have any space time paradoxes. You don't, I mean,
none of that stuff matters. Like, there's no danger that
you're going to screw everything up forever. Somehow in the
future they can see that in the past that if
something doesn't happen to change things, that the future that
they're in won't happen. I don't understand how that works,
but I'm not supposed to, because this is not a
science ficture movie, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Please don't notice the time continuum loop where they continuously
meet themselves at the circle k again and again and
again and again.
Speaker 1: Right and forget to wind their watch.
Speaker 2: All right, So I've got some great tidbits on this.
Do you want to go into that? All right, Let's
just talk about Bill and Ted's characters for a second,
all right. They're kind, they're sincere, they're friendly, they're lovable.
There's good dudes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And for somebody who wants to watch.
Speaker 1: Movies with their kids, yep, it's pretty tame. Right.
Speaker 2: There's really no cussing. There's no drinking, there's no drug use,
there's no sex.
Speaker 1: I can think of two cuss words in this whole thing,
and they're the same cuss word. You killed, Ted, You
medieval gweed.
Speaker 2: That's about as mad as Bill gets the entire movie.
Speaker 1: You left Napoleon.
Speaker 2: He was a.
Speaker 5: That line.
Speaker 2: Talk about what the director, Stephen Harrit he would give
them direction. Yeah, And his main direction was more labrador,
more labrador, because the labrador is the dog that you
can yell at, you can kick, and it'll be sad
for a second and then it'll come back and it'll
be all smiley and lick your face and just be like,
can we go play now?
Speaker 1: Yes? And that's what these characters are, oh for sure.
And you know I saw this. You know, we talked
originally about comparing this movie to Wayne's World, and then
we saw something today, Today's date. That's that was a
comparison of those two movies that referred to him as
stoner movies, which in neither movie are people getting high.
I mean, that doesn't happen now I can see that
is you know, like, okay, I get that these are
guys are like cool, yeah, and they have that kind
of mentality, but they don't do it in this You
can watch this movie and there's no there's no marijuana use,
there's no drinking except for the bar scene. Like they
didn't even cardiffs. We've got to remember this place. There
are people in life that have this kind of attitude
about life and the good naturedness without being high all
the time. There's nothing wrong with being genuine and sweet.
You know, these guys are just sweet dudes. Yeah, just
kind of dumb.
Speaker 2: Did you know that the these two guys say the
word dude seventy times.
Speaker 1: And they say the word excellent thirty times. I cannot
believe that they didn't say the word dude sixty nine times.
Speaker 2: I know, what a waste, what a blown opportunity. And
actually that is a funny insinuation that my daughter, who
was watching it with me, she didn't catch.
Speaker 1: She's too young.
Speaker 2: It's funny they thought of the same number.
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah, I've got a twelve almost thirteen year old.
That's something at seven to eleven was sixty nine cents.
And I saw him talking to his brother's like sixty
nine and then he's like, what does that mean. He's like,
I'm not telling you.
Speaker 2: All right, here's something forty. Alex Wender claims he gets
two types of letters from teachers all right, positive ones
from history teachers for encouraging students to learn about history,
and negative ones from English teachers for affecting the way
students speak. In the film, Bill and Ted claimed that
they need Eddie van Halen in their band.
Speaker 1: To make it better.
Speaker 2: After the film was released, Eddie van Halen jokingly said
he would have joined their band if they would have
asked him. That is a great opportunity for Bill and
Ted three.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. I don't know what Eddie.
Speaker 2: Van Halen's up to, but if he joined the band
in Bill Ted three, that would be freaking amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's interesting, you know, like the most important
people in the future are all they are all played
by musicians. I mean everybody can everybody recognizes Clarence Clements, right, Yeah,
from the East Street Band, from Bruce Springsteen eas Street Band.
Speaker 2: Right, He's one of the most important persons in the world.
Speaker 1: He's the he's the big, the big black guy up front. Yes.
We also have Martha Davis, who was the lead singer
of the band called the Motels. Oh really, yes, And
we also have h Waybill, who was the lead singer
of a band called the Tubes. Are you serious?
Speaker 2: I've never known this. I've seen this movie nine thousand times.
Speaker 1: Yep. He Waybills worked with Toto, He's worked with Richard
Marx and Billy Sherwood. But yeah, all of the three
most important people in the world in Bill and Ted's
excellent adventure Future are all musicians, which is appropriate since
it's their song that has led the world to world peace.
Speaker 2: No way, yes, way, Oh my gosh, I got this
for you. Ready for this?
Speaker 1: You love?
Speaker 2: This picture on Ted's T shirt is the cover photo
for Van Halen's why Can't This Be Loved?
Speaker 5: Single?
Speaker 2: Solder in the Van Halen fifty one to fifty tour right,
very popular with Van Halen fans. It was Sammy's first
tour with Van Halen after replacing David Lee Roth. Who
you like better, van Halen or Van Hagar? Go back
and listen to our van Halen episodes. I would love
to have this T shirt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, dude, have you looked to see if the
T shirt's still available? No, I need to I would
wear if I bought that shirt. I'm not kidding. I
don't care that it's the Sammy Hagar shirt. I would
wear that shirt every freaking day with a black vest
over it.
Speaker 2: All Right, here's something that you're not gonna get it
from any other podcast. When Abraham Lincoln emerges on stage
at the end during Bill and Ted's History report, his
opening line is for score and seven minutes ago.
Speaker 1: And it happens at eighty seven minutes into the.
Speaker 2: Film four score plus seven.
Speaker 1: Pretty tasty man. Nice there. Actually, there are quite a
few historical things that they put in this movie that
are really smart and really hidden, Like when they're doing
the Napoleon thing and he's there on stage and he's
going over all of this thing and I can't remember
whether it's Bill or Ted. At this point, it's like,
I don't think it'll work, and he knocks all the
pieces off. It's actually recreating the French invasion of Russia.
That was Napoleon's huge loss, that his Waterloo, another historical reference. Boom. So, yeah,
they they've got a ton of the a ton of
those things in there that you just you're not gonna
get unless you just happen to be an expert in
these things. To get him, they just kind of nicely,
neatly hit it, hid them in there.
Speaker 2: Yes, when they're at the police station and uh Ted's
dad asked Abraham Lincoln what his birthday is, February twelve,
I know what it is.
Speaker 1: With an L. It's Lincoln with an L. Why do
you insist on saying that your Sigmund Freud? Why do
you assist on saying I'm not Freud? Anyway. Steve Solace
is the guy who wrote a bunch of the guitar
stuff which is prominent in the soundtrack. But you know
what the last scene when Rufus picks up a guitar
and starts playing and he's phenomenal, Yeah, it's Steve Solace's
hands that you're seeing play the guitar. Nice. Yes. Now
in the next movie they get a different Steve as
Steve Steve Yes again David Lee Roth connection there, and
he's done most of the music in the Bobbish Journey episode.
Speaker 2: All right, let's flip over to Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
Speaker 1: And so as a part two to the time travel movie,
you would expect another time travel movie. But time travel,
although present, is a very small factor in this particular movie.
So you've got instead of this the storyline where they're
picking up people from the past, although those things do
crop up. This is a movie that's more like a
Paradise lost, like they're journeying down into hell and up
to heaven. And it's really based on an old Ingmar
Bergmann movie called The Seventh Seal okay, and it's a
really famous it's a fantastically famous movie. Seventh Seal comes
from revelations where it talks about the Seventh Seal being broken.
And in the movie you have Maxiwan Sidau plays this
Night who ends up trying to win his life back
from death by playing death in a game of chess
instead of Battleship, Monopoly and Electrics.
Speaker 6: All, yeah, you're wrong, Death, it was Professor Plum. I
never lose Best five or seven.
Speaker 1: They decided to make a part two. Yes, Steven Herrick says, okay,
this to me, this movie seems like a parody of
a movie that was already a parody, and so I'm
not really interested in doing it. So they bring on
a different guy named Peter Hewitt. Now, this is Peter
Hewitt's first movie. They had seen a short film that
he had made called The Candy Show, and that's how
he got put in the director spot. He makes a
cameo appearance in the movie. He's the guy who starts
smoking a cigarette and then Death says see you soon, yeah.
Speaker 2: Bill In tevs. Bogus Journey was released July nineteenth of
ninety one. Budget was twenty million and it made thirty
eight million at.
Speaker 1: The box office. Pretty good. I mean that's a pretty
decent hit. Double their money. Yeah. So there are a
couple of cool little bits in this. Whenever the Robot Bad,
the Evil Bill and Ted come back, they arrive at
the circle K right. Yes, well, when they arrive they
land right next to this burnt square in the parking lot,
because that's where the original Bill and Ted had come
back to whenever they met the first Bill in Ted
before they started time traveling in the first place.
Speaker 2: I got on Google Maps and I found this circle
K by the way.
Speaker 1: Nice. So it's not a circle K anymore? No, is
it a seven eleven.
Speaker 2: It's a seven eleven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so by the time the second movie came around,
it had become the seven to eleven. They had to
like digitally go in and change it to a circle K. Actually,
I don't know if it's digitally back then, it probably
was like they put a different sign up on the
wall after. Did we have our old friend Chelsea Ross
playing the part of Colonel Oates? Yeah, Harris exactly. Yes,
and also from Hoosiers. Yes.
Speaker 2: William Sadler plays death in this yeah.
Speaker 1: And William Sadler of course was in die Hard Too.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's the bad guy in Diehard Too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he's also in what I consider the best
movie of all time, The shash Ank Redemption. Can't wait
to talk about that one.
Speaker 2: That one's coming down the road, definitely for sure.
Speaker 1: So Okay, I don't know, did you notice this when
you're watching Bogus Journey at the end as like everybody's
listening to them play their song. Like you've got people
around the world listening to them play their song at
the Battle of the Bands, right, William Sadler is actually
plays the part of a British guy watching this with
his family. His family is actually it's like his actual
wife and his actual child that are watching Bill and
Ted on TV on the Battle of the Bands.
Speaker 2: Nice, that's cool.
Speaker 1: And of course we've got Pam Greer pre Jackie Brown
still a good Oh she looks fantastic.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, major mab Unfortunately she turns out to be
rufous right spoiler.
Speaker 1: And then the band on the Battle of the Bands
that's playing before Bill and Ted before Wild Stallions gets
up to play is primus nice.
Speaker 2: When Bill and Ted go to Missy's seance as ghosts, right, yes, yeah,
Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the creators and writers of
Bill and Ted, they're actually they're they're the men attending
the seance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they make a cameo appearance there, And they
also made a cameo appearance in Bill and Ted's Excellent
Adventure as the Ziggie Piggy guys the Ziggy Bigye Stige
Big where Napoleon is eating a Neapolitan Sunday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you a Star Trek fan, like an original
Star Trek series fan.
Speaker 1: I watched a bit of it and that was I mean,
that was a fun detail because they're watching Star Trek
on TV in the In the movie, Bill and Ted
are watching Star Trek when they're kind of stuck at
their apartment.
Speaker 2: Yes, so this episode, I've actually seen Captain Kirk is
being chased around by an alien and he's supposed to
be on this desert.
Speaker 1: Planet or whatever.
Speaker 2: It turns out that is a location shot in California,
and this is the same spot where the Evil Us
is throw Bill and Ted off of the cliff. That's
the same spot where that Star Trek episode was filmed.
Speaker 1: Nice tie in. Okay, I thought this was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: The Evil robot Us is we're supposed to kill Bill
and Tad again at the Battle of the Bands, whereupon
the boys would invoke their wins against death to get resurrected.
Speaker 1: So like they had nine lives or something.
Speaker 2: I guess like they had beaten death in Twister and
in Battleship and in Clue, so they had like extra lives,
so to speak, didn't it.
Speaker 1: I really love how Death like because he moves from
this ominous figure to this guy who's just kind of
hanging out like I'm just along for the ride, and
then he moves into the Yeah, I'm gonna do a
rap here at the end of this thing. It's I
just think it's hilarious what they do with the character
of Death, and I'm really excited to see what they're
gonna do with it in face the music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been beaten, and so he's kind of a
part of the gang, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it when he looks.
Speaker 2: At God and he's like he like explains to him
as like they melvined.
Speaker 1: Me the at the end, whenever he's rapping, when Death
is rapping. This is kind of this is a weird,
kind of twisted fact here for you. Okay, so he
does the you could be a king or a little
street sweeper, but sooner or later, you're going to dance
with the Reaper. These were actually the last words of
Robert Allan Harris, who was the first man to die
on death row in California in twenty five years. Wow,
that's cool. I've never heard that before.
Speaker 2: All Right, this is a cool Most people caught this
and I get it, but it's still worth mentioning if
you're not a super eighties music fan, this mine have
got past you. But when they meet God. First of all,
they maintain their sweetness when talking with God. Right, Ted's
like you are a most noble creator. Great job on Earth,
Bill and I enjoy it on a daily basis before
they get to God. In order to get into Heaven,
they have to prove themselves worthy. And so Ted says,
every rose has its thorn, Every night has a dawn,
just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song. These
are key lyrics to the.
Speaker 1: Song every Rose has Its Thorn by Poison Love that song.
When this movie was released opening weekend, it finished number two?
Do you know to finished number two? Two? Yes? I do?
Ternator two Judgment Day right, which involves a robot going
back in time to kill somebody in order to change
the future. How ironic is that? Huh? Okay, So I'm
about to blow your minds last note on my paper.
We can talk about some best scenes here in just
a second, but I'm gonna blow your frigging mind. The
mall yes, when they have to go and build their
own robot versions of themselves and they're taking the aliens
and they go to the building emporium. The mall that
they go to is the same mall that was the
Twin Pines Mall and Back to the Future.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, that is excellent or Lone Pine Mall.
Speaker 1: It's depending on what you know, what Spider verse you're in.
Speaker 2: In my mind, it's Lone Pine Mall. Okay, Well, I
want to talk about the songs for a second. Okay,
So we talked briefly about Play with Me by Extreme. Yeah,
great song, fun, fantastic, The lyrics are great. If you've
got young kids, play it for them.
Speaker 1: The loven Okay.
Speaker 2: In Bill and Ted's Bogus journey, Kiss contributes a great song.
Speaker 1: You and I have talked about the fact that I'm
not a big Kiss fan. God Gave Rock and Roll
to You is maybe their best song.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is great.
Speaker 1: Great song.
Speaker 2: Is the song that wins the Battle of the bands.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting thing that they decide to come back.
Now here's a bit that's that It'll be interesting to
see how it plays in to face the music. Because
they they conquer the bad guy. They're they're they're about
to play their song for the Battle of the Band,
which is supposed to be the thing that makes them
you know, that moves everyone, right, and they suddenly realize
that they can't play their instruments, and so they hop
in the phone booth. They leave, and they basically say
they've been gone for fifteen months, and they look like
the guys from ZZ top right, and they play this
beautiful guitar piece which was written by Steve VII, which
ultimately flows into God Gave Rock and Roll to you. Well,
when they come in, they both have babies on their back,
and we know from the preview that we've seen and
from the you know, the cast listing that face the
music involves daughters, not sons, right, But then I was
talking with you, this is nearly thirty years ago, Like
those sons are going to be like father age themselves.
These are not teenage sons, so they had to go.
They had I mean, these have to be the little
sisters or whatever. But you know, of course Ted's son's
name is Bill, and Bill's sons name is Ted.
Speaker 2: But you know, on that note, I think it's funny
that these characters continually speak each other's names all the time. Oh, yes,
like a million times. It's like I go on friend, Yes, Ted,
my friend, I do I did hear something funny on
an interview with Chris Matheson. So they were working on
the script for Bogus Journey and it was late and
they were typing away. Actually Ed Solomon was typing, do
you hear the story? No, it was late, and you know,
they're sort of slap happy, and they were working on it,
and the next day when they reviewed their notes, the
word station was written in the middle of a sentence,
just very obscurely, for no reason, just the word station.
And they thought that was the most hilarious thing in
the entire world, Like why would you type the word
station in the middle of the paragraph for no reason?
And so that's why the word station is so prominent
in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Like that's the name
for the aliens in the future, right, that's that's the
only word that the aliens can say is station, station, station, Okay.
And that's even why like evil Ted is like fist bumping,
say station.
Speaker 1: So let's just talk. You did the plot overview for
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Do you want to do
the plot overview for Bogus Journey as well? Or do
you want me to do that? Why don't you go
ahead and do that? So in the future, a disgruntled
gym teacher named Chuck daydon nomalus I got it was
a gym teacher come in with armed soldiers and takes
one of the phone booths in order to send two
robot versions of Bill and Ted back in time in
order to kill Bill and Ted so that he prevents
world peace from occurring, thereby changing the future into the
future that he has imagined. The Evil Robots are successful
in their attempt to kill Bill and Ted, and Bill
and Ted are dead. They face death, they face hell,
they face heaven, and ultimately are introduced to aliens that
help them build new robots to help them overcome the
Evil Robots, ultimately ending them in the Battle of the Bands,
where they successfully play a song that brings about a
feeling of unity and happiness for all who are watching
on TV.
Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting flipping back to Bill and
Ted's Excellent Adventure, one of the characters that they were
interested in grabbing in the earlier drafts of the script.
They talked about grabbing Charlemagne.
Speaker 1: Who they called Charlot Mange. And I mean they actually
filmed scenes where they had taken somebody who was not
famous named John the Serf. There was a scene and John,
John the Surf, Yes, John the Surf was he was
still credited in the credits. I don't know. I mean
he wasn't in the movie, but got credited in the credits.
And Bill and Ted were supposed to take the princesses
to prom That's that scene got cut cut as well.
I know Alex Winter went back and tried to find
those that old footage, but he basically found that it
went the way of the Dayla Reneitis group and was
no more.
Speaker 2: It is lost in the strands of time. All we
are is dust in the winds.
Speaker 1: Like sands to the These are the days of our lives.
You killed that medieval dick weed. I'm just going to
say that every once in a while. I just I
just like saying that.
Speaker 2: Bill tees Bogus Journey is joyable. It's just not.
Speaker 1: It's just not excellent adventure. It is not.
Speaker 2: I'll be good to see how we rank these like one,
two and three, Right, I'm hoping that three can compete
with two as the second best. Sure, I don't think
we're gonna I don't think three is going to be
as good as one.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way. No, I don't think
there's any way, not as far distance, as far distant
as they are, I don't think there's any way that
it's going to be. Yeah, I just hope it's. Honestly,
I hate to say this. I hope it's not a disappointment.
Speaker 2: Cut your expectations low, and maybe.
Speaker 1: It won't be right. This one is I mean, this
is thirty it's nearly thirty years. It's thirty one years
after Excellent Adventures, So that's that's a lot of time.
Speaker 2: Also, it seems kind of weird that fifty year old
men would be talking like, yeah, bodacious, you know, I
wonder how that's.
Speaker 1: Going to go. I tell you what I'm excited about.
It's it. And I've touched on this before, but it's
the thing that all of all guys our age kind
of go through where we just all expected to be
superheroes or rock stars or sports gods or something like that.
I mean, it's we all had this expectation that we
were going to do something great, and then here we
are at middle forties, Like, I feel like I just
was meant for so much more, and these guys flat
out got told you're going to cause world peace. You
are meant for not only something great, the greatest thing
of all time, And they have arrived at middle age
and nothing's happened yet. Yeah. That's a good I mean,
that's a good plot point, I think. So I'm hopeful
that they are able to make something beautiful out of
that while maintaining the goofy, crazy silliness of it all.
Speaker 2: All right, well that's our opinion. We want to hear
from you, guys. What do you think don Ted's Excellent
Adventure better?
Speaker 1: Any better?
Speaker 2: What are your expectations for part three? What's your funniest line,
favorite scene?
Speaker 1: Weigh in?
Speaker 2: We want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hit us on Twitter at Shirley Podcasts, on Facebook
at Shirley Podcasts, or email us like some folks have
done shirleypodcast at gmail dot com. Would love to hear
from my friend.
Speaker 2: Be excellent to one another and party on dudes,