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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

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There were parts of "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" I probably didn't understand, but that's all right, because there were even more parts that Bill and Ted didn't understand. This is a movie that thrives on the dense-witted idiocy of its characters, two teenage dudes who go on amazing journeys through time and space with only the dimmest perception that they are not still playing video games. I missed the enormously popular movie that introduced these characters, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," and felt myself blessed at the time. But now I'm not so sure. Their "Bogus Journey" is a riot of visual invention and weird humor that works on its chosen sub-moronic level, and on several others as well, including some fairly sophisticated ones. It's the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick. The movie begins far in the future, where students at Bill & Ted's University have the opportunity to chat personally with Thomas Edison and Beethoven, and to study such artistic classics as the " Star Trek " TV series. An evil overlord of time, named De Nomolos and played by that gravel-voiced, white-haired villain Joss Ackland , vows to rewrite history by destroying Bill and Ted (played as before by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves ). He has invented robots that look and act exactly like the two heroes, and are just as dumb, and he sends them rocketing back through time in a telephone booth. Bill and Ted are meanwhile trying to win a rock band contest with their own group, the Wyld Stallyons, which includes a couple of girl musicians they picked up in the 15th century. Startled by the appearance of their robot-doubles, they commence their own journeys through time and space in a desperate attempt to destroy them, save themselves, preserve the book of history, stay cool, and meet cute chicks. The funniest thing that happens to them is their showdown with the Grim Reaper ( William Sadler ), who looks just as he does in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal." In that film (as most of the audience for this one will probably not know), Death played chess with a medieval knight, with the knight's soul at stake. This time the dudes challenge the Reaper to a pocket video game, and beat him, even after he tries to weasel out with an offer of best of three. Death, having lost, has to accompany Bill and Ted on their journey and do what they tell him, and this leads to some of the funniest moments I have seen in any movie in a long time, including one where the Reaper does a little comparison shopping for scythes at the hardware store. One of the stops on the bogus journey is Heaven, created with great imagination and a lot of light and echoing sound effects and a most peculiar conversation with the Deity. Bill ands Ted handle this summit meeting, as they handle everything else in the film, like two dudes for whom "Pee Wee's Playhouse" would be too slow and intellectual. All of the actors (including George Carlin , who turns up in an important supporting role) have a lot of fun with this material, and it turns into more delicate fun, based on more subtle timing, than you might imagine. Many of Sadler's laughs as the Grim Reaper come from simple physical cringing, as he conveys his embarrassment and lost dignity.

Of Bill and Ted, I can say that I have not seen Alex Winter much before (he was in " Rosalie Goes Shopping "), but I have seen Keanu Reeves in vastly different roles (the FBI man in the current "Point Break," for example), and am a little astonished by the range of these performances. Like Sean Penn , who immortalized the word "awesome" in a Bill & Ted-like performance in " Fast Times at Ridgemont High ," he brings more artistry to this cretinous role than might at first meet the eye. Who is the movie intended for? Your basic "Bill & Ted" audience, for starters -- upward-bound young moviegoers looking for something one notch more challenging than " Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ." But also for lovers of fantasy, whimsy, and fanciful special effects. This movie is light as a feather and thin as ice in spring, but what it does, it does very nicely.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

George Carlin as Rufus

Keanu Reeves as Ted

Alex Winter as Bill

William Sadler as Grim Reaper

Joss Ackland as De Nomolos

• Chris Matheson
• David Newman

Directed by

• Peter Hewitt

Produced by

• Scott Kroopf
• David Finfer

Photographed by

• Oliver Wood

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William Sadler Answers Every Question We Have About  Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

This story originally ran in 2020. We are republishing it in honor of  Vulture’s Sequels Week .

The fun of the Bill & Ted movies comes from juxtaposition. Take two daffy metalheads from San Dimas, California, place them alongside disapproving parents, famous historical figures, or worshipful citizens of the 27th century, and watch the sparks fly. But it’s likely that the Wyld Stallyns front men will never have a better scene partner than Death (William Sadler), whom they encounter in the afterlife after being killed by their own robotic imposters in 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey . At first, Death’s appearance is one more pop-culture reference in a movie full of them — just like in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal , our heroes must best him in a game of skill if they want to save their souls. But then he sticks around, following Bill and Ted first to Heaven, then to San Dimas, revealing previously unseen layers: a childlike lack of sportsmanship, a fragile ego, some smooth grooves on the bass. (The film’s credits reveal he eventually left Wyld Stallyns to release a solo album but rejoined the band after it proved a critical and commercial flop.) “Many of Sadler’s laughs as the Grim Reaper come from simple physical cringing, as he conveys his embarrassment and lost dignity,” Roger Ebert noted in his review , which hailed the actor for providing “the funniest moments I have seen in any movie in a long time.”

The performance is even more surprising given that Sadler, a veteran character actor, has primarily made his name in dramas, playing either creeps (a rogue colonel in Die Hard 2 , a pedophile in Kinsey ) or authority figures (a sheriff in Roswell , the president in the MCU). Before Sadler reprises the role in the long-awaited Bill & Ted Face the Music , he spoke to Vulture about the origin of Death’s Czech accent, creating some of the character’s most famous lines, and bonding with George Carlin between takes.

I read that you started off as a stand-up. Yeah, back in high school. I called myself Banjo Bill Sadler. I told corny jokes and played a four-string banjo all over Buffalo at parties, conventions, and fire halls. I enjoyed it, but when I discovered acting, that seemed far more satisfying.

Why was that? Well, I was better at it. And I was reading the words of people much wiser and more experienced than me. The second play that I did, The Subject Was Roses — it’s a Pulitzer Prize–winning play about this dysfunctional three-person family — it just ripped my eyes open. I had so much to learn from these great writers that telling corny jokes and playing the banjo paled in comparison.

By the time you went out for Bogus Journey , how were you feeling about your career? When I started, I did about 11 years of theater before I came to Los Angeles to try to break into movies and television. And an awful lot of that was comedy. I spent a year and a half doing Biloxi Blues with Matthew Broderick on Broadway. I was steeped in that world, but when I got to Los Angeles, they took one look at me and said: villain . “You’re edgy, evil, cold-blooded … the guy who could murder you and then sit on your chest and eat a sandwich while you bled out.” It was all these despicable humans. But I was just breaking in, so I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at villain roles. And to be honest, they’re wonderful. If you can’t be the hero, it’s great to be the villain. So I was getting cast in that kind of role over and over again, and I started wondering, Will I ever get a chance to use this comedic side of myself? Then Bill & Ted came along, and I thought, Well, here we go. Let’s give this a shot.

You fought really hard for the role. Was that unusual for you? I guess I did. I had seen Excellent Adventure and thought it was terrific. The Reaper was an opportunity to make this wonderful transition, because the Reaper himself starts out as this scary figure. He’s Death, the most frightening image you can imagine. And then, almost immediately, as he starts to lose the games with Bill and Ted, he starts to unravel. And in the unraveling he becomes more human and more likable. I thought that was pretty wonderful, so I went for it. I put myself on tape with [casting director] Karen Rea, and I did the Czechoslovakian accent too. I told them ahead of time I was going to do an accent, and they said, “That’s probably not a good idea,” I think because they don’t think American actors do accents very well, but I knew I could nail that one because I had done it before.

How did you come up with the idea that Death should speak in a Czech accent? That, again, I drew from my theater background. I had done a play called New Jerusalem at the Public Theater, a Len Jenkin play, and there was an actor in it named Jan Tříska from Czechoslovakia. [ In Czech accent ] The way he spoke, everything was like this. I thought it was funny and appropriate, so I stole it.

Did Jan ever find out you were doing his voice? I don’t think so. I really should buy him dinner if I ever see him again. But he was just one of the actors in the show. He could read the phone book. It was just funny: The accent was always on the wrong syllable and so on.

So I did the audition with the accent and then I didn’t hear anything for several weeks. I think they went around putting other people on tape, looking at people like Christopher Lee and Christopher Lloyd. I mean, he’s Death; he’s thousands of years old. Finally, one day, I got a phone call from Karen Rea. She said, “Can you come in tomorrow and do the audition again? But go to a Halloween store and get some gray to put in your hair and black out your teeth.” I thought that was going to look awful, so I called the makeup man from Die Hard 2 , Scott Eddo, and told him my problem. He said, “Come over to my apartment.” So at seven in the morning, I showed up at his apartment, and he did this old-age makeup. He made me look like a believable 80-year-old man. I got in my car, drove to Orion Pictures and did the audition again, and that apparently worked. I was old enough. Which is ironic because the makeup that they ended up using was just a big white face and hollowed-out eyes. Age wasn’t really going to be an issue anyway.

Did people treat you differently when they thought you were an 80-year-old man? Apparently, after I left, one of the producers turned to Karen Rea and said, “He looks a lot older in person.”

I guess it was believable. It was believable makeup, but I think, at the end of the day, it was the fact that it was funny. Because it wasn’t all that funny on the page — or not obviously funny, anyway. I think that was the edge: that I found a way to make him silly.

What was Death like in the script? The game sequence was always there. I didn’t really bring anything to it except that silly Czechoslovakian character. I made him more vulnerable. I made him needy . At the end of it, when they’re admiring Station’s butt, I added that line, “Don’t overlook my butt.”

I love that he’s got such a wounded ego. Exactly. He’s been humiliated. They dragged him to Heaven and back down to earth and then, finally, they let him be a member of the band, and he’s the happiest person on earth. He goes on this really wonderful journey. That was all in the script; I just embodied it for them.

The director called you “unstoppable.” He said you came up with all of his favorite stuff in the movie. We were shooting in a hardware store one night, the sequence where we’re buying all the bits and pieces to make the robot. Once I got in this character, I couldn’t turn him off. I thought, Wouldn’t it be great if the Reaper walked by somebody who’s smoking and just said, “See you real soon,” and the guy panicked and put the cigarette out? I told Pete Hewitt, the director. He liked the idea, but they hadn’t cast someone to play the smoker. So he [played] the smoker. That’s Pete Hewitt. He said, “Bring the camera over here,” and two minutes later it was on film. It went like that: a really wonderful collaborative effort.

Were you a big Ingmar Bergman fan when you took the role? I had seen a number of his films. I think I may have seen The Seventh Seal . When I was a younger actor, I made it a point to watch the Bergman movies. I felt that was part of my training. The takeoff on The Seventh Seal , that’s all the writers, Ed [Solomon] and Chris [Matheson]. That was their humor — he’s not playing chess; he’s going to play Battleship and Twister and Clue .

I feel like that’s the Bill and Ted joke in a nutshell: You take a highbrow reference and filter it through these California dudes. It was brilliantly written. The other interesting thing about that sequence was that it was my first day of filming. The first day I had all the makeup and the robes, the first time I had met Alex [Winter] and Keanu [Reeves], it was the day that we shot the game sequence, “best two out of three.” There’s always some nerves around the first day, and I think the producers, the director, and so on, they were a little bit nervous that this was all going to work. I remember everybody gathering around the set as we shot the game sequences. Then, the next day, when they had seen the dailies, there was a noticeable relaxation. Everybody went, “Oh yeah, that’s going to work.” I could finally relax.

I’m curious: What were your impressions of Alex and Keanu? They were lovely to work with. We didn’t really socialize much. They were bigger stars at the time, even before The Matrix . I looked up to them. Also, there was this constant flurry of makeup folks and costume folks around my character because the white makeup kept getting on the black robes. So there was the endless picking and wiping and rubbing and then we would break for lunch. Everybody else would go and eat. I couldn’t lie down because of the bald cap and the makeup, so I ended up having to stay to myself, more or less.

Was that lonely? Yeah. I would love to have sat with the rest of the cast and the crew and eat. You know what I mean? You had to drink from a straw, and you had to be careful. It takes so damn long to get it all on that I was always really super-careful not to screw it up. In fact, by the time we got to the wrap party, there were people in the crew who didn’t recognize me. They had never seen me without the bald cap and the boots that made me six-foot-two. That was fun.

Tell me about those boots. They were probably six or seven inches. Very big but well designed. There was a bit of a rounded bottom so you could walk. You could roll through your steps. I practiced with them and got pretty good at it. It was harder the second time around, 30 years later. I wasn’t quite as athletic when the time came to do it again.

Do you have a favorite memory from the set? That opening sequence, the following day, when they had seen the dailies and everybody relaxed, I think that was one of my favorite moments.

Oh, why am I forgetting this? George Carlin! One of my favorite things on the set was getting to hang out with George Carlin for hours and hours. We would joke, talk about our families. I had been writing songs and performing them in coffeehouses around Los Angeles. I made a cassette tape with 12 of my songs on it, and I gave it to George. We finished filming and we said good-bye, and everybody went off and did other things. About ten years later, I was living in New York, and I got a phone call one morning from George Carlin. He said, “Bill, you remember that cassette you gave me of your songs?” I barely remembered, but I said, “Yeah, yeah.” He said, “I wore it out. Can you send me another one?” To this day, I honestly don’t know whether he was just using that as an excuse to get in touch with an old friend or if he actually played the tape so much that it broke, but I sent him another one. And then we lost him shortly thereafter. That was a wonderful memory from Bogus Journey .

What was Carlin like off-camera? He wasn’t “on.” He had a performance mode. If you’re just sitting around in chairs waiting for your scene, he’s relaxed. He’s having as much fun doing this as you are. We hit it off well, I thought. He was a lovely man, and we had lots of hours to kill on the set, which is unusual for comedians. I don’t think he did a lot of filmwork, so it was all a little strange to him. I think he enjoyed having someone to talk to.

I was reading the old reviews, and it seems like most of them spotlighted your performance as the best thing in the movie. Did that have any impact on your career? I guess the reviews helped. I remember one compared me to the best of Peter Sellers, and I thought, Wow . It was one of the highlight reviews of my career because I was such an enormous fan of Peter Sellers. But as far as it affecting my career, I don’t know that reviews actually do, you know? I mean, they help. It doesn’t hurt for people to be saying, “Oh my gosh, he was wonderful in that.” But careers are long and funny things. I went from Bogus Journey to The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile and so on. I didn’t get pigeonholed playing Death over and over, which was good. They never came to me and said, “Do you want to do Reaper Madness ?”

It’s interesting that you took the role to prove you could do comedy, but you didn’t end up doing too many straight comedies after that. If you watch Shawshank carefully, that funny side of myself, I can’t keep a lid on it. It’s a serious film, but I feel like I’m the comic relief in that.

Otherwise, I’m not sure why that is. It’s a funny thing. Careers are strange. I never got typecast as a comedic actor. You hear actors complain, “They won’t let me play anything serious,” or “They won’t let me do a romantic role,” or whatever. I think you try to find the joy in all of it whenever it comes down the river.

Thirty years later, the original films have held up. They still have a fan base; they’re getting a sequel. To you, why do you think these movies work? I think it’s the innocent optimism that Bill and Ted both have. They’re killed, they’re murdered, and they go to hell, and the two of them look at each other and say, [ Bill and/or Ted voice ] “Whoa, we were totally lied to by our album covers!” You’ve got to love somebody who stays as buoyant as that in the face of a calamity. They just embody a hopefulness that we could use right now.

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Bill & ted's bogus journey, common sense media reviewers.

Slackers meet Satan in not-quite-so-excellent adventure.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Some stereotypes upheld, but at the heart of Bill

Bill and Ted may fit the "slacker" stereotype, but

Some gnarly robot behavior, including pulling skin

Lewd reference to being excited when a character s

Occasional language including "s--thead," "hell,"

Pepsi and Lite Beer cans and signage. Mountain Dew

Bill drinks from a can of Miller Lite before propo

Parents need to know that Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is the 1991 sequel to the better-known Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure . In this installment, evil robot versions of Bill and Ted are sent from the distant future to kill the real Bill and Ted before they have the chance to shape a positive…

Positive Messages

Some stereotypes upheld, but at the heart of Bill and Ted is the message to "be excellent to each other."

Positive Role Models

Bill and Ted may fit the "slacker" stereotype, but they've got their hearts in the right place, and they're decent guys. Death is a patient, scythe-wielding character who actually becomes kind of a lovable sidekick. The evil androids, who are trying to kill Bill and Ted, are malevolent and sexist. Women are largely seen as little more than "babes"/ trophies.

Violence & Scariness

Some gnarly robot behavior, including pulling skin apart to expose robot parts hidden underneath. Punching. A perilous fall that kills two main characters (who later come back as ghosts). Bill and Ted's princess girlfriends hang from the rafters of the arena where the Battle of the Bands takes place, on the verge of falling to their deaths. Androids try to force sex on teenage girls, demanding that they "put out," but are unsuccessful. Death is a key character in the story.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Lewd reference to being excited when a character sees a photo of a female. As ghosts, Bill and Ted look down the dress of a woman and gawk at her breasts. Passionate kissing after marriage proposals.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional language including "s--thead," "hell," "damn," "p--sweeds," "d--k," and variations of "d--k." Ted calls the Devil a "f-g." Evil robot Bill and Ted call the real Bill and Ted "f-gs." Middle finger gesture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Pepsi and Lite Beer cans and signage. Mountain Dew cans, and the brand sponsors the Battle of the Bands, along with Reebok. Doritos bags clearly shown in the mess of Bill and Ted's apartment. Just like the original, strange things are afoot in scenes set in a Circle K parking lot.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Bill drinks from a can of Miller Lite before proposing to his girlfriend. Cigarette smoking in one scene. Cigar smoking in one scene.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is the 1991 sequel to the better-known Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure . In this installment, evil robot versions of Bill and Ted are sent from the distant future to kill the real Bill and Ted before they have the chance to shape a positive destiny for humankind and the planet. While much of the dumb slacker humor holds up, some of it has not, including two instances of a homophobic slur being used, and evil robot Ted using slang to express his sexual arousal while looking at a picture of one of the English princesses who are their girlfriends. Expect some profanity, including "s--thead," and "d--k." Some sexualized female stereotypes. Drinking and cigarette smoking in one scene, and cigar smoking in another. There's also a fair amount of product placement, particularly from Pepsi and Miller Lite, and in this sequel, the Circle K is also a place where "strange things are afoot." Much of the movie takes place in Hell, where the guys (played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves ) meet Satan and face their fears. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (5)
• Kids say (9)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Raunchier than the first one

Still funny, what's the story.

In BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY, Bill ( Alex Winter ) and Ted ( Keanu Reeves ) are two teenagers who like to hang out and shred on guitar. That is, until an evil dude from the future threatens to kill their Utopian dream by sending back in time two evil androids who look like Bill and Ted but are so ... not them. When the evil Bill and Ted push the real Bill and Ted to their deaths, the two ghosts have to travel through Hell in order to regain their mortality and win the rock music contest that their destinies rely on.

Is It Any Good?

As the sequel to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure , this movie doesn't hold up to the first movie's fresh quality. Though there are some laugh-out-loud moments, Bill and Ted seem to be stumbling through the gates of Hell to get to the grand finale. Moreover, we don't get enough of George Carlin in this movie, whose character Rufus created a nice foil to the slacker pace in the first movie.

Perhaps, too, the airhead stereotype has been reprised so often that the 21st-century viewers can't appreciate how illuminating Reeve's' characterization of Ted was in the late '80s and early '90s. We now see echoes of this slacker character all the time, but his portrayal was one of the first to define a generation. Keeping that in mind, parents who grew up in the '80s might enjoy introducing their tweens to a little lighthearted fun care of the boys from San Dimas.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the "slacker" stereotype. What does that mean to you? Do you consider Bill and Ted to be slackers?

The "dudes" shred on guitar, and the "babes" are treated like prizes. Are those stereotypes ? If so, what message does that send to viewers?

Death -- AKA The Grim Reaper -- ends up being a pretty decent dude in this movie. How does playing down death and dying work as comedy? Where can it go wrong?

In two scenes, the guys use a homophobic slur. In many movies from the '80s and into the '90s, there are scenes in which gross stereotypes based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are used for the sake of humor, as well as humor rooted in fat-shaming and ageism. Besides being lazy attempts at humor, how do these jokes perpetuate hurtful stereotypes? Why do you think these kinds of jokes were accepted in our culture for so long?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 4, 1991
• On DVD or streaming : December 4, 2001
• Cast : Alex Winter , George Carlin , Keanu Reeves
• Director : Peter Hewitt
• Inclusion Information : Asian actors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander actors
• Studio : MGM/UA
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Adventures , Friendship
• Run time : 93 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• Last updated : November 10, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

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• 5 Reception
• 7.1 Posters

The music of Bill and Ted 's band, Wyld Stallyns , has created a utopian future society. Rufus now works as teacher at Bill & Ted University . He used the Time Booth to travel back in time to bring historical figures; Thomas Edison , Sir James Martin , Johann Sebastian Bach and Ria Paschelle to the future to teach his students. In one such lesson Chuck De Nomolos , who detested this society, steals the phone booth and sends two robots Evil Bill and Evil Ted back to the late 20th century to prevent Bill and Ted from winning the San Dimas Battle of the Bands . Rufus attempted to stop De Nomolos by leaping after the booth but seemingly becomes lost in the Circuits of Time .

In the present, three years after Bill and Ted first traveled through time, Wyld Stallyns is preparing for the contest. Though Bill and Ted's current fiancées and former 15th-century princesses Elizabeth and Joanna have become skilled musicians, Bill and Ted are still inept. Despite this, the organizer Ms. Wardroe assures them a slot in the contest as the final act. Bill's stepmother Missy divorces his father in favor of Ted's father , who threatens Ted with military school should they fail the Battle of the Bands. Evil Bill and Evil Ted arrive, and the robots eventually replace Bill and Ted, killing them by throwing the two over the side of a cliff at Vasquez Rocks. The robots behave rudely to the princesses and work to ruin the duo's fame.

Bill and Ted's souls are met by Death who challenges them in a game for their souls. Bill and Ted escape after giving Death a " Melvin ". They attempt to alert their families, but their ethereal forms prove difficult, and at one point, are cast down into Hell at a séance held by Missy. In Hell, they are tormented by Satan , made to face their own fears, manifesting as Col Oates , the Easter Bunny , and Granny S Preston , and realize their only escape is to take Death's offer. Taken to Death's chambers, the spirit gives them the option of what game to play. Bill and Ted, to Death's dismay, select modern games like Battleship, Clue and Twister, easily beating Death. Death admits defeat and unwillingly becomes their servant. Bill and Ted recognize they need to locate the smartest person in the universe to help build robots to counter De Nomolos' evil robots. Death escorts the two to Heaven, and with God's help, are directed to an alien named Station who has the ability to split into two identical twins, and readily offers to help Bill and Ted.

Death brings them back to the mortal world, where it is the night of the Battle of the Bands. Bill and Ted take Station to a hardware store, and then race in their van back to the concert while Station constructs good robots. Just as the evil robots take the stage, Bill and Ted arrive, and Station's robots easily defeat the evil ones. De Nomolos appears in the time booth, ready to defeat Bill and Ted himself, and overrides the broadcasting equipment to send the video footage of this to everyone on the planet. The two recognize they can later go back in time to arrange events for De Nomolos to be trapped in the present, aided by Death and Station; though De Nomolos is apparently able to do the same, Bill and Ted gain the upper hand with the explanation that it is only the winners who get to go back, and De Nomolos is arrested by Ted's father, after suffering a "Melvin" at the hands of the Reaper. Ms. Wardroe reveals herself to be a disguised Rufus, having assured Bill and Ted's spot in the concert, and urges them to play.

As Bill and Ted reunite with their fiancées, they realize they are still terrible musicians, and the four use the time booth; though they return immediately, "an intense 16 months of guitar training plus a two-week honeymoon" have passed for them, they have married the princesses, and each is raising a young infant " Little Ted " and " Little Bill ". They begin to perform a stunning rock ballad, joined by Death, Station, and the good robots. The worldwide broadcast set by De Nomolos continues, and Wyld Stallyns' music is played across the globe, creating harmony. Over the credits, it's shown through newspaper articles that the band, along with Death, go through many perks of fame before eventually taking their act to Mars.

• Keanu Reeves as Theodore "Ted" Logan / Evil Ted
• Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston, Esq. / Evil Bill / Granny S. Preston, Esq.
• William Sadler as Death
• Joss Ackland as Chuck De Nomolos
• George Carlin as Rufus
• Pam Grier as Ms. Wardroe
• Annette Azcuy as Elizabeth Logan
• Sarah Trigger as Joanna Preston
• Hal Landon Jr. as Captain John Logan , Ted's father
• Amy Stoch as Missy/Mom
• Ed Gale , Arturo Gil and Tom Allard as Station
• Neil Ross as Station Twin #2 (voice)
• Frank Welker as the voices of Satan , Easter Bunny and Station

Soundtrack [ ]

As was particularly common at the time, the soundtrack album focuses on the rock music heard throughout the film. An album of the full orchestral score by David Newman would not become available until 2007.

The song Bill and Ted play for the battle of the bands is "Final Guitar Solo" by Steve Vai, which he wrote to help blend into "God Gave Rock 'N' Roll to You II" by Kiss, although Bill appears similar in appearance to Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.

There's also a reference to the lyrics from "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison.

Adaptations [ ]

Marvel comics [ ].

To coincide with the release of the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Marvel Comics released a one-shot comic book adaptation of the film, hiring Evan Dorkin to adapt the screenplay and pencil the art. Like Archie Goodwin's adaptation of the first Star Wars film film, Dorkin worked from the original script, which included many deleted scenes such as the fears from Hell attempting to block Bill and Ted from the concert, and Evil Bill and Ted killing Bill and Ted before they remind the Reaper that they are owed lives from beating him so many times. Death was portrayed as the archetypal skeletal figure. Due to the popularity of the comic, Marvel commissioned a spin-off series, Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, which kept the talents of Dorkin, DeStefano, and Severin. The series ran for 12 issues, featuring original stories, such as Death taking a vacation, a medieval version of Bill and Ted, Bill and Ted gaining a band manager, a return by DeNomolos, an attempt to stop John Wilkes Booth, and meeting Little Bill and Ted from the future.

Reception [ ]

Critical reception to the movie was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reported that 54% of 50 surveyed critics gave Bogus Journey a positive review; the average rating was 5.93/10. The film's consensus stated: "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey has the same stars—and cheerfully wacky sense of humor—as its predecessor, but they prove a far less effective combination the second time around."

• Progressive rock/metal band Primus appear as themselves during Battle of the Bands, performing Tommy the Cat.
• The original title of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey was “Bill & Ted Go To Hell”.
• Another story idea for Bogus Journey had been to let them take an English test and have them get into books and whatnot.

Gallery [ ]

Posters [ ].

• 1 Wyld Stallyns
• 3 Ted Logan

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Reviews

With its greater resources, the film enjoys more sets, more props, and more computer animation - none of which increases the quality or the entertainment value.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jan 2, 2022

Having an actual bad guy changes the dynamic to something less fun and more serious... but the inclusion of Death as a wild card provides a new too-serious foil for Bill and Ted to happily torment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 1, 2020

An extraordinary grab bag of conceits and jokes, unified only in that Winters and Reeves treat everything with the same effortless merriment and slacker philosophy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 24, 2020

Wacky and weird and nonsensical, it's hardly satire but the sheer invention of their ludicrous journey will have most dudes rolling on the floor.

Full Review | Aug 4, 2017

William Sadler steals the film with his hilarious turn as The Grim Reaper ... but aside from a few chuckles, the remainder is overstuffed and overindulgent.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 2, 2016

Once Bill and Ted get out of hell, though, their film loses it -- in more ways than one.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 29, 2016

It is Sadler, as Death, who makes this film the partial pleasure it is.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 29, 2016

Sorry, dudes: This is a totally bogus sequel.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2016

Reeves and Winter are clearly having a wonderful time. The enthusiasm is contagious.

In Bill & Ted`s Bogus Journey, the laugh is on moviegoers. Teens may call it triumphant, but most folks will find the insipid film a totally non-non-non- non-heinous (i.e. egregiously bad) trip to nowhere... and beyond.

It's playful, funny and finishes far too quickly.

In almost every respect, Bogus Journey is better than the original: more imaginative, more opulent, wilder and freer, more excitingly visualized.

High-tech special effects come to the rescue of the party dudes in this uneven sequel that has some big laughs and plenty of repetitive jokes.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey goes awry, however, in seeking to entertain two different audiences -- fans of Excellent Adventure and the children who have become fond of the TV cartoon based on the successful 1989 original.

All things considered, I would rather play Twister.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 29, 2016

Bill and Ted have a guileless, immediate way of dealing with the world that makes them both very likeable and highly entertaining to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 29, 2016

Perhaps even smarter than the original as it expands the potential for the surreal and ties up all the loose ends, managing, quite remarkably, to give its own pointlessness a purpose.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2016

The new movie, which is about how the scruffy pair save the world (or something), sends them to heaven and hell and everywhere in between. The sets are impressive, but the joke has worn perilously thin.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 7, 2011

An anarchic motion picture, but reveals triumphant originality -- a sublime daredevil of a film that authentically assumes a great deal of risk. Not many sequels can lay claim to that.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 20, 2011

Slackers meet Satan in not-quite-so-excellent adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 14, 2010

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Time out says, release details.

• Duration: 98 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Peter Hewitt
• Screenwriter: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon
• Alex Winter
• Keanu Reeves
• George Carlin
• Joss Ackland
• William Sadler
• Sarah Trigger
• Amy Stock-Poynton
• Jeff Miller
• David Carrera

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, peter hewitt, keanu reeves, alex winter, william sadler, tim alexander, technical specs.

Bill and Ted are killed by their evil futuristic robot twins and must travel through hell and heaven to enact their revenge.

Richard Yuricich

Amy Stock-poynton

Larry lalonde, jeff miller, katharyn miller, george carlin.

William Shatner

Pasquale buffolino.

Joss Ackland

Ed cambridge, eleni kelakos, les claypool, david carrera, tanya newbould, michael chambers, chris matheson, brendan ryan, anthony schmidt, bruno falcon, valerie spencer, sarah trigger, annette azcuy, roy brocksmith, carol rosenthal, dana stevens, pat mcnamara, william thorne, chelcie ross, robert noble, janice alexander, brett allen, caroline allen, willy allen, kevin allison, rene alzuro, dale e. anderson, louette arrowsmith, kate axelrod, richard baily, russ ballard, gregg barbanell, william d barber, david bartholomew, robin beauchesne, barry bedig, carol bentley, kim berkner, les bernstein, tamu blackwell, edward t breathitt, kenneth h brilliant, james brown, betty burkhart, gary burritt, chris a butler, david p calvillo, yancy calzada, gene s cantamessa, steve cantamessa, tim caprarelli, christopher carlson, david caruthers, marilyn d chaney, todd a chaney, bill clevenger, stan cockerell, clarke coleman, robert consing, john convertino, michael coo, martin corralez, gilbert m correa, robert cort, scott m cort, ron cotterell, jimmy crawford, john cregar, peter t crosman, peg cummings, kathi danielson, valerie davidson, dane a. davis, sandy de crescent, suzanne degrandis, catherine demeis, robert deschane, patsy deshields, john desjardin, mark christopher donovan, antoine durr, russell eaton, donna ekholdt, mike elizalde, eurlyne epper, peter evangelatos, david finfer, arnold finkelstein, frank fleshman, steve fontano, kurt n forshager, karyn foster, marie france, nicola freegard, david freund, gerald gadette, rick galinson, elise garcia, vince garcia, melinda garey, scott garrett, jerry gaskill, tony gaudioz, leslie gerard, nerses gezalyan, giacomo ghiazza, scott giegler, rocco gioffre, david glazer, joseph goldstone, henry gonzales, amanda goodpaster, scott goodrich, marita grabiak, jered green, bruce greenfield, spencer gross, bonnie grossblatt, rhonda gunner, craig haagensen, hilbert hakim, james halty, tom hammond, milton hangum, tabby hanson, barbara harris, thomas e hayes, robert heine, donald g helderle, richard o helmer, mark herman, mecki heussen, joann hicks, mildred hill, david hofflich, richard hollander, mark hotchkiss, steve howard, tommy hubbard, mentor huebner, john hussein, michele imperato-stabile, louis infante, mark r jennings, joanna jiminez, robert k johnson, frank j keever, beth evin klein, sarah e. knowles, peter konig, richie kotzen, greg kozikowski, scott kroopf, dan krueger, brian kufberg, steve kurland, jeff kushon, t sano kwong, gemma lamana, gregg landaker, cara latzel, lance laurienzo, paul lazebnik, clare leavenworth, robert leveen, paul a levin, larry liddell, roger w. lifsey, lisa linder, peter lloyd, roland walter loew, brian lucas, neil a machlis, milton mangum, alan g markowitz, miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States Summer July 19, 1991

Released in United States on Video January 9, 1992

Feature directorial debut for Pete Hewitt.

Began shooting January 7, 1991.

Completed shooting April 1, 1991.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

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Where does Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is 16436 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 13996 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than S#x Acts but less popular than Robert Klein: Unfair & Unbalanced.

Amiable slackers Bill and Ted are once again roped into a fantastical adventure when De Nomolos, a villain from the future, sends evil robot duplicates of the two lads to terminate and replace them. The robot doubles actually succeed in killing Bill and Ted, but the two are determined to escape the afterlife, challenging the Grim Reaper to a series of games in order to return to the land of the living.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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The best Bill & Ted movie is the one that took them on a Bogus Journey to hell and back

Watch This o ffers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Coming 2 America   now available to rent from home, we’re offering our own belated sequel to a past Watch This theme and singing the praises of more good comedy sequels.  

Related Content

Bill & ted’s bogus journey (1991).

When Bill & Ted Face The Music was released last year to general critic and fan enthusiasm, it represented at least two anomalies at once: a decades-later comedy sequel that lots of people actually liked and a satisfying conclusion to the even-rarer comedy trilogy. But defying conventional wisdom has been part of the whole deal with this series since Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure became an unexpected hit in 1989. Given that the film squeaked in at the end of the ’80s, it makes sense that it would be followed by the kind of quickie, low-rent sequel that helped define that decade (and comedy sequels in general). But if the turnover was indeed fast (a cash-in second installment arrived just two years after the original), the creative returns were undiminished: Somehow, the best Bill & Ted movie is the second one.

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey almost sounds like a parody of a sequel, starting with the title swapping in one synonym and one antonym. The film certainly lacks the loopy purity of its predecessor, where two metalhead slackers must travel through time to gain historical knowledge, pass their history exam, and preserve a future where their bumbling two-man rock band, Wyld Stallyns, saves humankind. On one level, Bogus Journey offers more of the same, as a future terrorist sends robot doubles of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) back in time to destroy them and finish off Wyld Stallyns once and for all. (Amusingly, despite all the fuss, Bill and Ted remain the weak links in their own band; the medieval princesses they courted in the first film have grown into stronger musicians.) But in execution, Bogus Journey doesn’t rehash the original so much as one-up it.

The first major innovation in the screenplay by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson is that the evil robots succeed: Relatively early on, Bill and Ted are thrown off a cliff and killed. This sends them to meet Death (William Sadler), eventually leading to a celebrated parody of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal where instead of playing chess with Death, the boys challenge him to a series of contemporary board and party games. That’s just one sequence, though, in a plot that involves the duo visiting both heaven and hell; possessing the body of Ted’s father from the great beyond; and befriending a modular alien named Station, among other metaphysical misadventures. (The original, less cheerful title: Bill & Ted Go To Hell .)

This all has a certain stoner-comedy logic, but of course the Bill & Ted movies don’t actually involve mind-altering substances. Despite a few outdated bits of dialogue, they have an innocence that blurs the line between “teenage” and “boy”—like a sweet-natured flip side to the hilarious adult-tween aggression of Step Brothers . That’s true of all three Bill & Ted films; Bogus Journey stands out specifically because of its comedy, which is weirder, funnier, and more inventive than its siblings on either side. Deserved attention has been paid to Sadler’s Death, in possession of enough dour ego to keep challenging Bill and Ted to more games as his losses mount—a comedic gift that keeps on giving. But he’s not all the movie has to offer. Reeves and Winter are once again very funny, both as themselves and their malevolent robotic counterparts, and the movie deals with their sort-of demise with lightly mordant wit. Special shout-out to Winter for playing his character’s overly affectionate grandmother in Bill’s personal vision of hell; the movie is surprisingly committed to visualizing its jokes, rather than just relying on its stars’ slangy dialogue.

At times, the conceptual whimsy of Bogus Journey feels compatible with the work of innovative music-video directors like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, whose careers were starting up around this period. Certain details like Station the two-part Martian, a character perhaps more odd than truly funny, now feel like an inflection point between the dopiness of so many ’80s youthsploitation comedies and the scrappier alternative weirdness emerging in the ’90s. All three Bill & Ted movies ride that Spinal Tap -coined line between the clever and the stupid. Bogus Journey does it with the most triumphant confidence in its high-low trash-culture fusion.

Availability: Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is currently streaming on HBO Max . It’s also available to rent or purchase through Amazon , Google , Apple , YouTube , Fandango Now , Redbox , AMC On Demand , DirecTV , and VUDU .

Why 'Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey' Is An All-Time Great Comedy Sequel

Comedy sequels often fail spectacularly and rarely become classics worthy of their originals. Look no further than films like Major League II , Caddyshack II , Weekend at Bernie’s II , or The Hangover: Part II that all landed with momentous thuds. Many comedy sequels fail because they attempt to extend a one-joke premise, padding additional mythology on a story that worked due to its simplicity. The joy of seeing comedic banter develop can also deplete; if the unusual pairing of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones came as a surprise in the first Men in Black , it was tiresome by the time of Men in Black II .

However, these are common flaws that the Bill & Ted franchise managed to avoid. 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was a surprising hit, and it may have been easy to essentially replicate the first film’s premise and put together a hastily constructed follow up. There was an easy, safe route the sequel could’ve gone, with Bill S. Preston ( Alex Winter ) and Theodore Logan ( Keanu Reeves ) about to fail a college exam and forced to rely once again on their time traveling telephone booth to transport them across history. Thankfully, screenwriters Ed Soloman and Chris Matheson didn’t go that direction and constructed a darker, weirder sequel that took the Wyld Stallyns in a new direction without forgetting why the first film’s humor worked.

30 years after its debut, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey stands as one of the all-time great comedy sequels because it didn’t simply repeat the same jokes. The film only briefly brings back punchlines from the first installment in order to refamiliarize the viewer with the characters, and show why they’re such loveable losers. Bill and Ted’s musical abilities haven’t grown any stronger in the time that passes between the two movies, and they’re frequently outperformed by their brides from the 15th Century.

Any perceptions that the sequel would be covering too much familiar territory is shattered early on. Within the first act, Bill and Ted are murdered by cyborg clones of themselves and sent to hell, where they’re forced to bargain with Death himself, played brilliantly by William Sadler. In the land of the living, the cyborg replicants sent by an evil former gym teacher have taken over their bodies and wreak havoc on the Wyld Stallyns ’ plans to enter the San Dimas Battle of the Bands, a competition that would solidify the utopian futuristic society that is crafted within their image.

RELATED: ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ Review: A Most Triumphant High Note to End the Trilogy

Although the story is different, Bogus Journey understands exactly what elements made the original film fun. The optimistic energy is still there between Winter and Reeves, and the idea that these two seemingly dim-witted characters are the landmarks of a brighter future is maintained. Thankfully, the film doesn’t pit the two against each other with an unnecessary conflict, and the actual off-screen friendship that developed between Winter and Reeves makes their chemistry even stronger.

There’s also a ticking time clock they face, as the threat of losing the Battle of the Bands fulfills the same threat that failing the history exam did in Excellent Adventure. The stakes are raised even higher due to the robotic clones, whose entry into the contest adds tension to Bill and Ted’s escape from the underworld. The threat is also a personal one, as the clones torment Bill and Ted’s respective fiancees Elizabeth ( Annette Azcuy ) and Joanna ( Sarah Trigger ), right after they’ve proposed. If the two medieval “babes” were little more than trophies in the first film, they actually develop as characters in the sequel. It’s the rare comedy sequel that takes time to flesh out female characters that were ignored previously, and the two princesses aid in crafting the film’s show-stopping final number.

The nightmare sequences descend into some genuinely horrific imagery (it was originally titled Bill & Ted Go to Hel l) as Bill and Ted face off against traumatic memories. For Bill, it’s a kiss from his sinister-looking grandmother, and for Ted it’s a vicious Easter Bunny. The pair’s ingenuity is highlighted as they square off against the Grim Reaper in a series of games like Battleship, Clue, Electric Football and Twister. The clever parody of the chess match against Death in Ingmar Bergman ’s The Seventh Seal is another sign that these films are a lot smarter than they’re given credit for.

While comedy sequels like Caddyshack II failed to introduce new characters that merge with the existing ones, Reaper is a fun third wheel that tags along in Bill and Ted’s misadventures. Sadler delivers lines like a sad sack who has become depressed by his inability to frighten the duo, and the empathy Bill and Ted give him reminds of how open-minded they are, and thus why they’re the basis of a utopia. The great makeup work and Sadler’s performance add physical comedy that wasn’t there previously, particularly when the trio attempts to navigate their way through Heaven.

The film also leans into weirder sci-fi elements, particularly as the gang recruits the genius alien duo Station, allowing Bogus Journey to distinguish itself from the lampooning of historical figures in the first film. It also sets up a different type of finale; Excellent Adventure ends with Bill and Ted expressing themselves and solidifying their ideal future, while Bogus Journey comes down to an epic musical battle between good and evil.

The ending montage set to KISS’s “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You” is purely infectious and ties up loose story ends. Bill and Ted show development as characters and musicians, growing into their responsibilities as leaders and finally learning to play their instruments. It’s ironic that most comedy sequels forget that characters actually need to develop, and Bogus Journey pits its titular leads against a challenge that they overcome and learn from. The intergalactic rock concert that follows (and Reaper’s subsequent lip-syncing scandal) comes as the fun reward.

Last year’s Bill & Ted Face The Music was heralded as a novelty, as it’s rare for a trilogy to end with three equally strong installments, and it’s even less often that this happens with a comedy franchise. The Bill & Ted trilogy contain three installments bound by their optimism and wit, yet distinguishable for their different approaches to the material. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey proved this franchise was sustainable, and three decades later it stands as one of the greatest comedy sequels of all-time.

KEEP READING: Facing the Music: Why It Took Over a Decade to Make ‘Bill and Ted 3’

13 Excellent Facts About Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

By roger cormier | jul 19, 2016.

Writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon invented the characters William "Bill" S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan way back in 1983 , while performing improv with their UCLA classmates. Two years after Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure hit theaters in 1989, Matheson and Solomon decided to put their creations in front of brand new hurdles and challenges in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey , a sequel that some regard as the superior movie of the two. In the latter, our heroes are murdered by their evil robot selves from the future and must go through hell and heaven to get their vengeance. Here are some facts about the film, which was released 25 years ago today.

1. ORION PICTURES INITIALLY INSISTED ON BILL AND TED KIDNAPPING CHARACTERS FROM FAMOUS BOOKS.

While Matheson and Solomon wanted to write about Bill and Ted dying and going to hell, the studio wanted the leads to enter famous works of literature to pass an English test. "The literature idea sounds different from time travel," Solomon said , "but it ends up being the same thing: Bill and Ted go into historical settings and meet famous characters, except now the characters are fictional." The two tried to write that version before telling Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter their initial idea, which the actors preferred. Reeves and Winter told the studio that Matheson and Solomon's movie was the one they wanted to make.

2. IT WAS PETER HEWITT'S FEATURE DIRECTORIAL DEBUT.

Despite never having directed a feature film, British director Peter Hewitt beat out 50 other directors for the chance to replace Excellent Adventure director Stephen Herek (who directed 1991's Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead instead). "To this day I don’t know why," Hewitt admitted in a 1992 interview . "I think I never imagined they’d consider me so I decided to say exactly what I thought about their script ideas: what I didn’t like and would want to change as much as what I wanted left in to build on. Perhaps they admired my honesty and the fact I wasn’t scared to speak my mind."

Though he had never directed a feature film, Hewitt had plenty of veteran help. Special effects supervisor Richard Yuricich ( Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Blade Runner ) teamed up with Kevin Yagher, who designed the Chucky doll in Child’s Play (1988) and who was also responsible for designing and applying make-up in three of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, to help Hewitt execute Matheson and Solomon's vision.

3. PRODUCTION WAS DELAYED TO ACCOMMODATE KEANU REEVES' BUSY SCHEDULE.

Orion wanted the film to be released in the summer of 1991, but the 10-week shoot had to be delayed until January 7, 1991. Reeves couldn't make it until then because he was working on My Own Private Idaho (1991). They stuck to the 10-week schedule by editing the movie as they went along, shooting five days a week and editing on Saturdays.

4. THE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS BILL & TED GO TO HELL , WHICH POSED A MARKETING PROBLEM.

Producer Scott Kroopf explained to The New York Times why they ultimately decided against using a title with the word 'hell' in it: "The problem was—and it was a real one—we couldn't advertise on TV until after 9 o'clock."

5. THE WRITERS FOUND THEIR WAY INTO THE FILM.

Solomon (with glasses) and Matheson (white shirt) appear as New Agers at Missy's seance. The Nomolos in the character name of the evil Chuck De Nomolos is Solomon spelled backwards.

6. THEY KNEW THEY WERE PARODYING INGMAR BERGMAN AND THE SEVENTH SEAL .

"The biggest set piece in the movie is that in order to get back to life, Bill and Ted have to play Death in games," Kroopf explained . "And the games they play are Battleship , Clue , Twister . So your life is on the line; you're playing with Death, but you're playing games that Bill and Ted know how to play. This is a clear parody of Bergman."

7. WILLIAM SADLER HELPED WITH SOME OF THE LINES.

"I think I had more fun doing Bill and Ted than I’ve ever had making anything I’ve ever shot," William Sadler, who played the Grim Reaper, said in 2015 . "It was, once I came up with the Czechoslovakian accent and had the funny make-up done, and the idea that he’s almost effeminate. He starts off as a scary dude and almost immediately it all unravels and he becomes this kind of insecure doofus who all he really wants is for them to like him. At the end it was so sweet. I also got to be creative, I wrote the Reaper Rap. I kept having ideas, like when he goes by—I said to Peter Hewitt the director, 'Wouldn’t it be great if he walks past somebody who’s smoking and says ‘See you real soon’ as he goes by, and the person who’s smoking goes ah and puts it out?’ Peter liked the idea and said bring the camera over here, that’s Peter Hewitt as the smoker. We didn’t have an actor to play it, the idea happened on the set, while we were shooting other stuff."

8. THERE WERE STAR TREK CONNECTIONS.

Bill & Ted University was at the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, California. It was later used for Starfleet Academy in Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001). Bill & Ted give Death a melvin at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park near Agua Dulce Springs. It was shot there because shooting the scene in Utah was too expensive. When Hewitt first came across the jagged rock at Vasquez he turned to his first assistant director and said , "Isn’t this the alien planet in every Star Trek episode?" Hewitt rented a VHS of the "Arena" episode from the original series, froze the shot, and worked out the exact place for the crew to place the camera.

9. THERE WAS A CIRCULAR MOTIF THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE.

Production designer David L. Snyder and Hewitt worked it out so that 25 sets were built on three soundstages and other outside locations, each with circular shapes . "I chose a through-line of curves and circles in a desperate need to tie it all up stylistically," Hewitt explained . "Each place is instantly recognizable, but not stereotypically otherworldly. Otherwise Bill and Ted would have had to have said at some stage, ‘Where are we?,’ as they aren’t the smartest guys in the world."

10. AN ALTERNATE ENDING INVOLVING A CAR CHASE BETWEEN BILL AND TED AND THEIR BIGGEST FEARS WAS CUT.

Alex Winter said it was "insanely funny." It was storyboarded . To get rid of their reanimated "Personal Hells," Bill gives his Granny a kiss on the cheek, Ted calls his brother and apologizes for stealing his Easter candy, and both of them are nice to Colonel Oats.

In the original ending, Bill and Ted brought themselves back from the future every minute for 10 years to make full armies of themselves. Preview audiences didn't like it , and a new ending was shot over 10 days.

11. THE DIRECTOR'S CUT WAS MUCH DARKER.

Hewitt claimed the first cut of Bogus Journey was much darker . "That’s a definite British trait," he added. "The humor was black comedy almost. The Evil Us’s were really evil! I went for it and had them running riot doing despicable things. But test screen audiences couldn’t take it ... My original cut would have played well in Britain."

12. JOSS ACKLAND REGRETS BEING IN IT.

Joss Ackland played Chuck De Nomolos. He said that many of the roles in his 50-plus-year acting career were taken just for the money or to settle bets . "I do an awful lot of crap, but if it's not immoral, I don't mind," he explained. "I'm a workaholic." As for Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey ? "I can't tell you how embarrassing that was," he told BBC News .

13. ALEX WINTER SAID A THIRD MOVIE IS COMING SOON.

In April 2016, Winter said that a third film was imminent—and that both he and Reeves would be reprising their roles: “We have a script, we have a director, we have a studio—we’re just trying to nail down a start date.”