Most non-heinous

Lauren and I finally had a Saturday night with nothing work related, so we cozied up on our couch, played a board game and decided to watch the movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It had been several years and I forgot what a solid little comedy it was.

For those who didn’t grow up in the eighties and haven’t seen this movie, briefly, it’s about two boneheaded high school kids who are trying to form a band… except now they’re failing history. They have one last chance to get an A-plus on their final oral report and pass the class or else Ted will be sent away to military school. From seven hundred years in the future, in drops (literally) a man named Rufus. He sends the moronic duo on a ‘most excellent adventure’ through history, where they gather ‘personages of historical significance’—including ‘the most bodacious philosophizer in ancient Greece’, Socrates (pronounced ‘SO-craits’); ‘the very excellent barbarian’, Ghengis Kahn; and of course, ‘the short dead dude’, Napoleon. They succeed in passing their report, and we realize the full importance of these two kids and the band they’re trying to form.

No doubt, this movie requires big, huge, gigantic suspension of disbelief, what with time-traveling phone booths, and entire civilizations achieving world peace through rock-n-roll, plus several dozen minor plot points that you just kind of have to say, “Sure, why not.” But if you can get by that, it is just ninety minutes of good clean fun. Heck, minus a few dirty words here and there, this movie is tame enough that I wouldn’t feel weird about my young kids watching it. And if this movie doesn’t fill you with the urge to play air guitar, nothing will. But most of all (and this really is the mark of a truly great movie) this flick has a ton of quotable lines. I mean a ton.

‘Sixty-nine, dudes!’

I honestly don’t think anybody could make a Bill & Ted today. The closest they came to trying was that lame waste of life, Dude, Where’s My Car. It’s like Hollywood thinks that in order to make a movie about idiots, the movie itself has to be idiotic. Yet, Bill & Ted, for as “dumb” and improbable as the movie was, was actually quite witty and well thought out. And apart from the titular duo being abnormally stupid with ridiculous surfer accents, you never feel as though you’re watching one-dimensional stock characters. Compare that to Dude, Where’s My Car—which wasn’t so much a movie as it was a series of disconnected vignettes that only served to beat you over the head with the fact that these guys were idiots and nothing more.

‘Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.’

But let’s move on. What occurred to me tonight was how this movie really defines my generation. Or more accurately, one’s knowledge of this movie, or lack thereof, can tell you a lot about which generation they are a part of. And it all comes down to Keanu Reeves. Everybody from my generation cannot watch a Keanu Reeves movie without thinking, “Dude, that’s Ted jumping on that bus… That’s Ted talking to Dracula… That’s Ted learning kung fu.” If you come from a later generation, you simply replace all those declarations with, “Dude, that’s Neo in that vineyard.”

‘All we are is dust in the wind, dude.’

Something else that’s extra funny about this movie for me personally is George Carlin. I am a huge Carlin fan. I can quote every album I own verbatim, making the same use of his crotchety anger and numerous F-bombs. But here’s the thing, I first met ole George as Rufus in Bill & Ted. A couple years later I saw him hosting a comedy awards show and had no idea that he was this comedic legend. I simply thought, “Wow, that’s weird. Why would they have Rufus hosting a comedy show?” The first time I heard a George Carlin routine I thought, “Hey, that’s that guy from Bill & Ted sounding all angry at the world.” It’s all so ironic because, obviously, Carlin’s role as Rufus was the one role where he stepped out of character. But tonight, I had to laugh because for the longest time, I thought that was who George Carlin really was.

‘It seems to me that all you have learned is that Caesar is a salad dressing dude.’

There is one thing that makes me sad when I watch Bill & Ted. Alex Winter. For him, playing Bill S. Preston Esquire was really where he topped out. After making the sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, he really didn’t do much. I checked out IMDB and the few post-Bill roles he did have were in movies or TV shows that I’ve never even heard of. It’s really too bad. Why did Keanu have life after Bill & Ted and not Alex? They both seemed evenly pitched in their roles as idiots. But somehow Keanu is the one who achieved longevity. Though, actually, I just did a Google search on Alex, and it looks as though he’s developed a new career behind the camera as a writer and director of films and appears to be doing very well for himself. So… good for you Alex.

‘Eat the pig! Eat the pig! Ziggy ziggy ziggy zig!’

But anyway, long story short, Bill & Ted… great movie. If you haven’t seen it, rent it. If you already own it, watch it again, because I’m sure it’s been awhile for you too. Watch it and remember that idiocy can be done smartly. And of course, above all…

‘Be excellent to each other… Party on, dudes!’