Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - Deleted Scenes

 From billandted.org which is now closed, but archived here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051230013805/http://www.billandted.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20111102034337/http://www.billandted.org/index.htm

For a scene to be considered "omitted," there must be strong evidence that it was actually filmed but not included in the movie.  Bogus Journey is noted for its large amount of omitted footage, and since the scenes were not replaced until the last minute many of the tie-in products which came out for the movie actually followed the original cut, offering us a rare insight into the movie that might have been (and many still feel should have been.)  In these pages we will piece together these scenes using material from the novelization, the comic book adaptation, the Pro Set trading cards, original storyboards and behind the scenes footage from news reports.

Breaking up rocks and the rat-eating demon guard

The first notable missing scene from Bogus Journey occurred when Bill and Ted first land in Hades.  They are confronted on their rock by a demon guard who provides them with sledgehammers and orders them to break up their own rock.  To further intimidate them, the demon guard pulls a rat out of his mouth.  But instead of being scared, Bill and Ted are amazed, and Ted proclaims they once knew a guy who got a rat in his bucket of chicken (a classic urban legend).  Finally they do start working, and Ted finds he enjoys breaking rocks.  The rat segment can be seen briefly in the movie trailer for Bogus Journey included on the MGM / UA DVD release.  Segments of this entire sequence can also be heard during the Reaper Rap which plays over the end credits of the movie, also featured on the soundtrack album and CD.

Some existing footage from this sequence exists from the theatrical trailer and behind-the-scenes reports about the movie, as well as audio clips that were included in The Reaper Rap:

Production storyboards also illustrate how this scene played out originally:

This scene was also included in the novelization as follows:

"Ted, look!" Bill pointed into the fumes.  "Someone’s coming.  Sort of like a demon-dude.  We’ll ask him how we get – "

An enormous red pitchfork slammed into the rock, between Bill and Ted, the force throwing them to the ground.  When they had picked themselves up again, a giant demon -- dressed in a red work apron and wearing a visor, looking like a devil-blacksmith - - was standing over them.  Without a word he dropped two huge sledgehammers on the rock in front of them.

"Non-non-non-triumphant," said Bill and Ted slowly.

The demon pushed them toward a pile of rocks and pointed, first at the hammers and then at the boulders.  Bill and Ted stared blankly at him.  Agitatedly, the demon pointed again, first to the rocks, then to the sledgehammers, then back to the rocks.

"I think he wants us to break the rocks with the hammers," said Ted after a moment to consider the meaning of the demon's actions.

"Why would he want us to do that?"

"I dunno, but do you want to argue with him?"

"No way," said Bill.

"Let's break the rocks.  Maybe he'll get a little friendlier."

They hefted their hammers.  Bill hit a rock.  Ted hit a rock.  Then Bill again.  Then Ted.

"Dude," said Ted, "look, I totally broke a rock."

"Way to go!" said Bill.

The demon nodded and sort of smiled, and they began to get the feeling that maybe, as demons went, he wasn't such a bad dude.

They broke a few more rocks, just to get on his good side.  Rock breaking seemed to be the demon's thing.  To Ted's surprise, it seemed to be his too.

"You know, Bill, I kinda like this."

"You wanna do it for all eternity?"

That was a tough one. Ted thought a moment.  "No," he said with an air of finality.

"Me neither," said Bill.  "In fact, I haven't quite taken to it the way you have.  How about we quit?"

"Yah."

Bill tapped the demon on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, Mr. Demon sir, but how long we gotta do this for?"

"Yah.  It's been fun, but we have to get back to San Dimas.  It is most urgent."

"We'd love to stay . . . " said Bill, trying to avoid hurting the demon's feelings.

The demon stuffed one of his hands into his own mouth and pulled out a giant black rat.  Holding it by the tail, he dangled the creature in front of the guys' faces.

"Whooaa!" they said, thrilled at such a feat.

"Not bad!" said Bill, full of admiration for anyone capable of pulling large black rats out of his own mouth.  Such a skill would have come in quite handy in high school - - and he was already thinking of ways of working it into the Wyld Stallyns' act.

"We totally knew this guy, in San Dimas, you know," said Ted, "and he like got one of those in a bucket of chicken.  Deep fried."

"This is better, though," said Bill.

"Do something else, dude," urged Ted.

"Yah!  Do the rat thing again!"

The guard shook his head and slowly pushed them back to their rock pile and pointed.

"Okay, okay, we know.  Break the rocks, right?"

The demon nodded, and Bill and Ted had no choice but to return to their labors.

Ted didn't mind all that much.  "Dude, I'm telling you, I like this."

"Ted, you can break rocks when you get home.  You can go into the rock breaking business."

"Yah . . . I suppose, but I think I'd maybe rather keep it as more of a hobby."

After a while, Bill stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead.  He looked around and saw, high up in the vault of the cave, a hideous stone sculpture - - whoever decorated the place went very much for the rock look - - a gargoyle, half-man, half-dragon, and standing atop this creature was a towering figure, the head man himself, surveying his evil domain.

"Ted, dude, check this out."

"Who's that?"

"Ted.  Who do you think it is?"

Slowly the truth dawned on him.  "Whooaa . . . We gotta get his attention, Bill.  He's the dude who can get us out of here and back to San Dimas."

They looked at each other for a moment.  "Sign of the Devil, Dude!"  Bill and Ted thrust their arms back and forth, index and little fingers raised in the Sign of the Devil, so beloved of right-thinking fans of heavy metal the world over.

"Down here, dude!"

"Yah! We are totally signaling you, dude."

The Evil One noticed and pulled a lever at his side.  Suddenly, there was the sound of the grinding of machinery, and slowly Bill and Ted's rock began to rise toward the gargoyle.

They clambered off their rock onto the nose of the statue and across its red stone back to the base of a hazy red stairway that led to the throne.

"So," said Bill, "how's it goin', Beelzebub?"

"Excellent rocks," put in Ted.

"We totally broke some."

"Totally."

This did not seem to impress Beelzebub overly - - which was not surprising, considering the amount of rock breaking activity that went on in his domain on a daily basis.

"So," said Ted, "we broke the rocks . . . so . . . okay.  Can we go now?"

"Yah, 'cause, see, this is all a mistake.  It all started with my ex-stepmom - - "

"Who's now my stepmom -- "

"Yah. See, she - - "

That was as far as they got with their explanation.  Their flow of words was cut short by a low, heavy chuckling - - he laughed just the way you'd expect him to.

The comic book adaptation also included this scene:

Trashing the Apartment

Another scene which was supposed to be a bit more elaborate than what eventually appeared on screen was when Evil Bill & Evil Ted trash Bill & Ted's apartment.  The Evil Robots were originally scripted to cause all kinds of havoc in the abode, such as throwing Ted's fish down the garbage disposal and tossing the boys' elderly landlady off the second story walkway and into the swimming pool below.  It was feared that kids might want to emulate these actions and the more aggressive footage was dropped, leaving them just playing basketball with their heads (something kids probably wouldn't be able to copy even if they wanted to.)  This is best seen in the Script Variations (coming soon!) covering this scene.

Some photos from the scene better show the extent of the trashing that took place (note the fishbowl on the counter to the right of Evil Ted . . . since the fish is seen alive in the bowl when Evil Bill is making the 'upside-down cake' in the kitchen in the final film, we can assume the cake bit replaced the fish-killing scene and that was never actually filmed.)

My Note: The 2nd photo (bjevilrobotsnewb.jpg) was not available on the waybackbachine

Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves alluded to these missing scenes in this interview with MTV's The Big Picture:

Production storyboards also illustrate how this scene played out originally:

A small segment of this extended scene was included in the novelization:

Bill and Ted weren't the best housekeepers in the world.  Evil Bill and Evil Ted were even worse - - horrible, in fact.  They were also totally into mindless destruction, and while Good Bill and Good Ted had their faults, destroying for destroying's sake was not one of them.  Of course, they knew that once they got the Wyld Stallyns off the ground, they would have to destroy a few thousand dollars' worth of equipment whenever they played some live gigs in mega-arenas - - the fans would expect it - - but that was in the future, when they could afford it.

With Evil Bill and Evil Ted, on the other hand, it was not only their life's work, what they had been totally programmed to do, but it was their hobby as well.  Now, having destroyed the relationship between Good Ted and Good Bill and the princesses and murdering Bill and Ted into the bargain, Evil Bill and Evil Ted were addressing themselves to the question of trashing Bill and Ted's apartment.  They were very good at it.  Pros, you might say.

They had already had a certain amount of fun tearing up what there was of Bill and Ted's meager wardrobe, flushing smaller household items down the toilet and totally scratching and smashing their prized collection of Aerosmith and Iron Maiden records.  The stereo and the TV were just smoking shells, the posters had been stripped from the walls, the rug ripped up from the floor, the curtains destroyed, the furniture hacked to splinters.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted now turned to the kitchen and found that that was a very entertaining venue, opening up many opportunities for creative and imaginative ways of destroying things.

Ted threw open the door of the refrigerator and yanked out a can of soda.  He shook it furiously and then fired a long stream of sticky liquid at Evil Bill.

"You look thirsty, dude!" cackled Evil Ted.

"And you look hungry!" yelled Evil Bill.  He grabbed a handful of eggs from the rack in the door of the refrigerator and pasted Evil Ted in the side of the head with two of them.

"Yah!" Evil Ted squeezed some of the yolk from his hair.  "And I know what you want!"

"What?"

"Dessert, dude!"  Evil Ted pulled out an aerosol can of whipped cream topping and blasted away at Evil Bill.  Cream, eggs and soda made the kitchen floor sticky underfoot, and just for the heck of it, Evil Bill and Evil Ted pulled all the food out of the refrigerator, tossed it to the ground and trampled it into paste.

Then they turned their attention to the kitchen cabinets, inventing, on the spur of the moment, a new kind of basketball.  Instead of using a ball, like normal people, or even normal robots, they played with all the glassware – plates, glasses, saucers -- that they found in the cabinets.  True, you couldn't dribble a plate – no bounce, right? -- but it did make for a very satisfying slam dunk.

You see, Bill and Ted had a little indoor basketball net over their kitchen door, and sometimes, when they had to have some very serious and deep conversation, they would sit at their kitchen counter, talking about the Wyld Stallyns, their babes, their future and other serious things, shooting a nerf ball at the hoop.  It helped them concentrate and it didn't do any harm.

That just wasn't Evil Bill and Evil Ted's kind of game.  Evil Ted had a big water glass in his right hand, and he was backing in toward the basket, his left arm out to keep Evil Bill out of the way.  Evil Bill, for his part, was working hard to block, in Evil Ted's face, trying to prevent the attacker from getting a look at the basket.

"No way, dude," said Evil Bill, "you'll never get through my totally non-heinous and most resplendent blocking."

"Yah?" Evil Ted powered in a few feet and hooked the glass at the basket.  It sailed through the air, end over end, whiffed through the basket and exploded with a crash on the tile floor.

"Two points, dude!"

"Lucky, dude, that's all.  My turn."  He scooped up a dinner plate, faked right, went left and blew by Evil Ted, leaped for the hoop and jammed, slamming the plate to smithereens.

"He shoots!  He scores!" yelled Evil Bill.  "The man, er, robot is unstoppable!"

Evil Ted had an armful of glasses, and he was standing about where he imagined the free throw line to be, pitching them toward the basket.  Not all of them swished - - a couple of them just smashed against the kitchen wall, showering glass over everything - - but most found their target and then shattered.

Evil Bill did his best to help out, goaltending, tipping in a few of the rim shots.  It sounded as if it were raining broken glass in the wreckage of Bill and Ted's apartment.

Then, abruptly, it stopped.

"More!" demanded Evil Bill.

Evil Ted was peering into the cupboards, rummaging around, throwing out cans and cereal boxes, rifling the shelves, like a thief searching for hidden valuables.

"Bad news, dude."

"What?"

"Game's over.  We are totally out of dishes!"

"Heinous."

They looked for a moment over the extensive wreckage, smiles of satisfaction on their faces.

"Well," said Evil Bill.  "It was fun while it lasted.  I just wish those other us's had more stuff to wreck."

"Well, we didn't make all that much at Pretzels 'n' Cheese, dude."

"Yah, but I wish we had spent more on decorating."

Later in the novel is more destruction:

You had to hand it to De Nomolos - when he built the Evil Bill and the Evil Ted, he certainly made exact copies of Good Bill and Good Ted.  He could have fixed it that his creations could play the guitar a little better than the originals, but he didn’t.  Evil Ted was wandering around the Good Bill and the Good Ted’s now-totally-trashed apartment, thundering away on Ted’s guitar.  Awful - really terrible - music wailed, so loud it shook the windows and could have been heard five blocks away.

Evil Bill had to shout to make himself heard on the phone.  He was talking to Good Bill’s Uncle Milton, a harmless soul who had always stuck up for his nephew.  Uncle Milton was shocked at what he was hearing.

"I never liked you, Uncle Milton," said Bill venemously.  "You were always, like, a total pain in the neck."

"Bill," said Uncle Milton.  "I can’t believe my ears."

"Well, believe ‘em, dude."

"You know I’m going to have to talk to your father about this."

"Like I care, Uncle Milt.  Listen, just flake off, okay?"

Bill slammed down the phone.  He shouted over Ted’s incredibly loud "music."

"Okay.  I totally blew off Good Bill’s Uncle Milton.  And let me tell you, dude, it was fun.  I can’t wait to do it again.  Who’s next?"

Evil Ted stopped "playing" for a moment.  The silence was totally golden.  "uh . . . what about that teacher in high school?  The dude who was nice to them . . . the History-Social Studies-dude.  What’s his name?"

Evil Bill snapped his fingers.  "Good idea, Evil Ted.  Ryan.  Mr. Ryan would be totally blown away to hear from us."  Evil Bill snatched up the phone and quickly punched in a number.

Mr. Ryan answered on the first ring.  "Hello, Mr. Ryan?" said Evil Bill.  "Bill S. Preston here."

"How’s it going, Bill?  I hear you and Ted made it into the Battle of the - "

"You stink, dude," said Bill, cutting him off.

"What?  What did you say?"

"You heard me." Bill slammed down the receiver.  "That was one surprised dude, dude."

Ted unhooked his guitar and flung it away.  It fell with a wild, howling jangle as it slid strings across the floor.  "Cool . . . " observed Ted.  "Now, let’s do something else totally bad."

"Yah," said Evil Bill.  "But like what?"  He counted off every evil thing they had done so far.  "We killed them already."

"And most resplendently loogied them, don’t forget," put in Evil Ted.

"Yah.  And we trashed their apartment and messed things up with the princesses.  And totally wrecked their relationships with their family and friends.  Let’s do something else totally heinous."

Evil Ted’s eyes lit up.  "I know!  Let’s get them in trouble for insider trading!"

"We don’t got the time, dude.  De Nomolos wants us to nab the females and get to the concert."

Evil Ted looked very disappointed. " Awww . . . It would be so triumphant."

"Look - I tell you what.  We’ll take the Porsche and cause trouble on the freeway."

"Like what?"

Evil Bill thought for a moment.  "Like driving slow in the fast lane."

"Insider trading would be more fun."

"Gotta improvise, dude."

This scene was only mentioned on the Pro Set trading cards, although they did include a picture of Evil Bill trashing music which isn't in the movie:

My Note: the comic adaptation includes a panel showing Ted holding the goldfish over a blender:

My Note: could this behind the scenes show be from the deleted scene where Bill throws the elderly landlady off the second story walkway and into the swimming pool below:

Evil Bill & Ted Evil Ted bag the Princess Babes

The scene in which Evil Robot Bill & Ted kidnap the Princess Babes to take them to the Battle of the Bands was notably different for several reasons.  First, the robots knock Missy out, not with their breath but with Evil Bill's fist!  In early drafts of the script, Captain Logan also confronted the robots, only to be pushed up into the ceiling by them.  The robots then pull an outrageous bluff by unzipping their skins to reveal themselves to be disguised . . . as each other!  (This would have tied in with Rufus' revelation of actually being Ms. Wardroe at the end of the movie.)  And finally, after talking to Bill & Ted on the phone and then De Nomolos, they leave behind ominous cylinders which would have led into the facing the fears scene also cut from the final film.

Production storyboards also illustrate how this scene played out originally:

These behind-the-scene photos show what it would have looked like when Evil Bill & Evil Ted reveal that they are actually disguised as each other:

If you look closely while watching the movie, you can see the discarded skins on the floor behind Evil Bill & Ted as they talk to Bill & Ted on the phone!

In the final film, the footage of Evil Robot Bill & Ted opening their skin to reveal their inner workings was used to scare the Princesses instead of when they would reach inside themselves to retrieve the cylinders.

This scene was also included in the novelization as follows (the photos are not from the novel but included for illustrative purposes):

The Porsche was pretty beat up by now, but it still went fast, so fast that the game of trying to annoy people on the freeway turned out to be no fun at all.  With the tape deck cranked up as high as it would go, Evil Bill and Evil Ted wanted to go fast, not slow, no matter how steamed it made the other drivers on the road.  They had to content themselves with trying to run over cats on the streets around Missy’s house.

Evil Bill was driving and Evil Ted was keeping a sharp lookout for any small creature they could run over.  While they had originally thought of cats, anything would do, actually - squirrels, poodles, raccoons - they weren't particular.

Suddenly Ted pointed.  "Whoa!  There’s one, dude!"

"Where?"

"There!"

Evil Bill yanked the wheel and the car careened wildly across the street.  There was the sound of screaming tires and a cat - it would never know how lucky it was - yowling in the night as it scrambled to get out of the way.

"Just missed!" yelled Evil Bill.

"Dang!" shouted Evil Ted.  He immediately looked around for more cats or, failing that, some other way of having fun.  But they were running out of time; Missy’s house was just up the street.  "Dude, we’re there!"

"Okay," said Evil Bill.  "I have a truly triumphant idea.  Take off your seatbelt."

"Why?" asked Evil Ted as he unclipped the harness.

"Because, dude, we’re gonna make an entrance!"

"Outstanding!"

Evil Bill steered the car directly at the Logan house, aiming for the picture window in the front of the house - then he slammed on the brakes.  The car screeched to a halt, jumped the curb and ploughed onto the lawn.  Evil Bill and Evil Ted smashed through the windshield and were headed for the picture window like two circus dudes shot from a cannon, air-guitaring as they went.

In the living room were three very worried young women, each with her own close connection to Bill and Ted - the princesses, Joanna and Elizabeth, and Missy, who at one time had been stepmother to one or the other of the two boys.  They were too deep in conversation to notice the sound of the powerful Porsche engine in the street outside.

"We’re worried about them," said Joanna.  "They are just not the Bill and Ted we know."

"And love," said Elizabeth, softly.  "They seem so . . . so completely different."

No one noticed the screech of brakes.

"You know . . . ," said Missy, "I had a strange experience with them myself.  It was . . . weird."

"Well, we’re not saying that things wouldn’t be strange with Bill and Ted."

"Yah," said Elizabeth.  "Things do tend to get quite totally strange when Bill and Ted are around."

"But they are never rude.  And never inconsiderate."

"Never," agreed Elizabeth.

Just then, Evil Bill and Evil Ted came crashing through the living room window.  Glass scattered everywhere and Joanna, Elizabeth and Missy dove for cover.

"Whooooooaaa!" yelled Evil Bill and Evil Ted as they sailed into the room.  They crashed to the floor and slid across it, smashing their indestructible metal heads against the fireplace.

Joanna, Missy and Elizabeth peeked out at them, staring, aghast, as Evil Bill and Evil Ted picked themselves up unharmed and dusted themselves off.

"How’s it goin’, lady humans?" said Evil Bill with a nasty smirk on his face.

Ted kicked a coffee table out of the way, Missy’s crystals and tarot cards scattering all over the place.  "Hey, Mom, how’s about a kiss where it counts?"

Missy jumped to her feet and, unable to restrain herself, slapped Ted hard in the chops.  "Don’t you speak to me like that!  Just wait till your father gets home."

"Whoa . . . am I scared."

Evil Bill and Evil Ted each grabbed his respective princess, holding her tight around the waist.  The girls tried to pull away.

"Ready for the big night, babes?" said Evil Ted with an unpleasant leer.

"No!" shouted Elizabeth, her pretty blue eyes wide with fear.

"We’re not going!" said Joanna.

"Sure you are," said Evil Bill.  They started dragging the struggling girls toward the door.  Missy blocked their way, putting out both hands to stop them.

"I think you guys better stop right there.  We are going to get some things settled right here, right now.  Do you hear me?"

Evil Bill and Evil Ted exchanged looks.  They may have heard her, but they had no intention of doing anything Missy had in mind.

"Listen," said Evil Bill.  "We gotta go."  He slugged Missy hard on the chin, knocking her out.  "So, catch you later, future wife."

Missy tumbled to the ground.  The princesses gasped and stared, first at Missy, then at Evil Bill and Evil Ted.

"Who . . . who are you two?"

Evil Bill and Evil Ted both assumed completely false looks of earnest sincerity.

"Well, you see, girls," said Evil Bill, "it’s kind of sort of hard to explain . . . "

"Yah," said Evil Ted.  The two exchanged winks and then unzipped their bodies, revealing that, over their electronic skin, Evil Bill had, in fact, been wearing an Evil Ted suit, and Evil Ted had, in fact, been wearing an Evil Bill suit.  That each of them was, in fact, the other, plus the sight of the wires and circuitry that actually formed them - it blinked and clicked like a manic computer - was, to say the least, a little hard on the girls.  Joanna and Elizabeth stared wide-eyed and horrified; then, like wilting flowers, they both fainted dead away.

"Whoa . . . " said Evil Ted, "a brilliantly pointless surprise there, Evil Bill."

"Totally," agreed Evil Bill.  "Now, let’s bag these babes and take Missy’s car."

"On to the Battle of the Bands."

With the princesses slung over their shoulders like sacks, the two robots were about to air-guitar into the night and on to the next and most heinous stage of their evil plan.  But just then the phone began to ring.

"Do you think we should answer that?" asked Evil Ted.

"Nawww, what for?"

"Maybe it’s someone calling for them, someone we could insult most heinously, further destroying their relationships with their family and friends."

"Good thinking, dude," said Evil Bill.  He tossed away his princess as if she were a bag of dirty laundry and raced to answer the phone.

There was no answer at the princesses’ apartment.  "Where could they be?" said Ted.

"Maybe they went over to our place looking for us.  I mean, we’ve been gone a long time - they must have figured out that something weird is going on, right?"

"Good thinking, dude."  Ted dialed his own number and listened as the phone rang and rang.  Finally, he hung up and looked grim-faced, at Bill.  "Nope, they’re not there."

"They’re not at their place and they’re not at ours," said Bill.  "Maybe they went to talk to Missy.  Why don’t you try your dad’s number?"

"Good idea," said Ted, hoping that Missy or one of the princesses, not his father, would answer the phone.  It would be kind of hard to explain to him where they had been for the last couple of days.

All things considered, though, Ted would have preferred to talk to his father than to the person who actually did answer.

"Logan residence, Evil Bill Preston speaking," said Evil Bill.

"Whoa," said Ted.  "Bill, it’s the evil you!"

"Bogus," said Good Bill.  "What’s he doing at your dad’s house, dude?"

Evil Bill was kind of surprised to hear from a person he had pushed off a cliff in a desert a long way away and then loogied into the bargain.  "Check this out, Evil Ted," he said to his evil partner.  "It’s them.  They’re back from the dead."

This didn't seem to faze Evil Ted a bit.  "Oh," he said with a shrug.  "I guess we get to have all the fun of killing them again."

"Excellent!" said Evil Bill.  "You guys are really dead meat this time, dudes."

"No way," insisted Good Ted.

"Yes way," said Evil Bill.

Good Bill snatched the phone out of Ted’s hand.  "We’re gonna get you dudes," he yelled.  "This time we’re ready for you!"  He glanced over his shoulder.  The Grim Reaper and the Stations were furiously ripping through the store, their cart piled high with all kinds of stuff suitable for building good robot versions of Bill and Ted.

Good Ted wanted to get in some threats of his own. He grabbed the phone from Bill.  "Yah!  You dudes don’t stand a chance.  And where are the princesses?  If you two have done anything to Elizabeth and Joanna . . . . "

"They’re right here, dude," said Evil Bill.  "And don’t worry about a thing.  Nothing’s happened to them . . . yet."  He laughed and slammed down the phone, tearing it off the wall.  It fell to the debris-strewn floor in a shower of sparks.

"What did he say?" asked Evil Ted.

"Just that they’re gonna be ready for us."

Evil Ted smiled one of his evil smiles.  "Well, I think we can be ready for them too."

"Yah.  They’re never even gonna make it to the concert.  We’re just too smart for them."

"Totally," said Ted with a little flourish of air guitar.  But he stopped mid-note and got a very strange look on his face; his eyes started spinning.  It could only mean one thing.  A second later and a very angry-looking De Nomolos appeared in his eyes.

"Hail, Evil Genius Leader-dude," said Evil Bill.

De Nomolos was not interested in exchanging pleasantries, particularly not with an electronic moron of his own creation.  "What was that all about?"

"Well, uh, seems they didn't die when we pushed them off the cliff.  Sorry."

"Ignoramuses.  Both of you."

"Yah.  Totally."

"And what did they mean when they said that they were ready for you?"

"Dunno, boss."

De Nomolos snorted derisively.  "Begin the emergency plan.  You are capable of that, aren’t you?"

"Totally," said Evil Bill.  "Emergency plan.  You got it, Great One."

De Nomolos leaned forward and stared hard at them, his eyes seeming to bore into Bill’s metal skull.  "Do not fail me, you metallic buffoons."  Then he vanished from Evil Ted’s eyes, leaving behind only a cloud of fuzzy static.

Evil Ted shook his head vigorously, clearing the interference from his vision.  "I totally hate it when he does that.  No warning, no nothing.  And then he totally insults us through my eyes."

"Emergency plan, Evil Ted.  You heard the boss-dude."

"Yah," said Evil Ted.  "Let’s do it."

Evil Bill and Evil Ted pulled up their shirts and reached deep into their electronic guts.  Buried deep within them were secret weapons, three canisters full of so much scary stuff that not even Evil Bill and Evil Ted felt comfortable carrying them around.  The robots dropped the metal tubes on the floor.

"I’m glad to get rid of these things," said Evil Ted.

"Definitely."  Evil Bill shuddered as he looked at the tubes, which were beginning to split open.  Three small creatures - but growing fast - were trying to get out.  "Let’s go, dude.  These things give me the creeps."

They shouldered the princesses and raced out the door, leaving behind them on Ted’s dad’s living-room floor three growing, breathing horrors.

The comic book adaptation also included this scene:

Facing Their Fears

This is the most extensive and noted scene which was omitted from the final cut of Bogus Jouney.  After the Evil Robot Bill & Ted leave behind smoking cylinders at the Logan household on De Nomolos' orders, they emerge as Bill & Ted's Fears from Hell, only more exaggerated and scarier than ever!  Colonel Oates is even more menacing and threatening with huge weapons, Granny S. Preston, Esq. is a wildly exaggerated version of herself tooling around in a hopped up wheelchair, and the Easter Bunny is a eight-foot high behemoth with razor sharp teeth and claws!  These fears confront Bill & Ted in the van as they are on their way to the Battle of the Bands.  At first Bill & Ted try to run, leading to a wild car chase, but eventually when they are cornered they realize the only way to survive is to face their fears, which they force themselves to do.  As they do, their fear disappear, one by one.

Oddly enough, there was a small scene which happened just before this larger segment which was reinstated into the movie during its syndicated showings in the United States:

Production storyboards also illustrate how this scene played out originally:

This behind-the-scene photo shows the maquette of the giant Easter bunny!

This scene was also included in the novelization as follows (the photos are not from the novel but included for illustrative purposes):

From the back of the van Ted shouted.  "Bill!  Check it out!"

Bill craned around for a quick look.  The two Good Robot Bill and Teds were far from finished - they were still a rough patchwork, a loosely constructed pair of beings of wire, metal and cloth, as well as some small household appliances, like a blender and a DustBuster - but they had sat up, jerkily, like a pair of marionettes.  They were performing their first attempts at air guitar, which sounded terrible - just like Bill and Ted’s attempts on the real thing.  The best thing about the two robots was that, like their human prototypes, they had that forever optimistic and friendly look in their eyes, the mark of the real Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted "Theodore" Logan.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Bill.  "Not bad!"

"Excellent!" said Ted.

"Booo-gusss!" said the robots.

"What?"

The look on the robots’ faces had changed dramatically.  They were staring fixedly through the windshield of the van.  Their bodies jerked spasmodically, and their still unfocused eyes were filled with what appeared to be fear.

"Booo-gusss!"  One of them managed to get his arm up, and he pointed out at the highway before them.

"What’s goin’ on, guys?" asked Ted.

All of them stared at the highway.  In the middle of the road three figures stood facing them, and behind them was Evil Bill and Evil Ted’s Porsche parked across the road, blocking it completely.  Bill and Ted couldn’t make out the three figures, just their outlines.  One was tall, very tall, and shaped like a pear.  He had very long, slightly floppy ears.  The figure in the middle was small, withered and hunched over and, strangely enough, given that this was the middle of the street, seated in a wheelchair.  The last figure was stout, powerfully built and stood hands on hips.  There was something very familiar - and scary - about these guys, something that Bill and Ted couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Whatever it was, the robots, with their superior brains, had sensed it immediately.  They were still in the backseat, trembling with fear.

Bill hit the brakes.  "Looks like a roadblock."

"But . . . but that’s not the police . . . it’s . . .  Turn on the brights, dude."

Bill flicked on the high beams, flooding the street with the white light.  Bill and Ted screamed the scream of the damned - for their path was blocked by their worst nightmares: Granny S. Preston, Colonel Oats and a seven- foot-high pink Easter Bunny.

 

"No waaaaay!" shrieked Bill and Ted, totally unable to believe their eyes.

When it came to scaring people, De Nomolos certainly knew what he was doing.  He was a master.  In the underworld, Oats, Granny Preston and the Easter Bunny had been horrible enough, but here and now in quiet little old San Dimas they were worse, far worse.  Bill and Ted’s worst fears, as conjured up by De Nomolos and delivered by his evil robots, were terrifying, and they looked unbeatable, invincible.

Bill and Ted could only stare, horrified, at the terrible apparitions blocking their path.  Oats, Granny Preston and the Easter Bunny were no longer just their worst fears; they had been magnified a thousand times over, intensified to the point that they had ceased to be normal human fears and become instead King Kong-sized horrors, terrible monsters that paralyzed them with fear.  The three figures before them were Bill and Ted’s worst fears on steroids.

Colonel Oats’s muscles bulged in his combat fatigues, his face red and frenzied and a mask of fury.  He carried a bazooka the size of a length of sewer pipe.  Granny S. Preston was scarier-looking than Bill had ever seen her (and he had once caught a glimpse of her early one morning, before she had her face on - the sight had made him shudder for weeks).  The stark white hair on her head stood up straight, sort of like the bride of Frankenstein, but not as neat, and the bristly hair on her upper lip and on her chin was as thick and as rough as barbed wire.  The Easter Bunny was as tall as Minut Bol but a lot more menacing, mainly because of his teeth, which were big and stainless steel.  It looked as if he had a mouth full of garden shears, which was not a feature you normally associated with an Easter Bunny.

"No!" screamed Bill, "it can't be!  We left them behind in the underworld."

This was true.  Even the Grim Reaper looked puzzled - when he wasn’t looking terrified, that is.  Scaring Death was something that didn’t happen every day.

"No way!" yelped Ted.

Oats stepped forward and pointed the bazooka at them.  "Yes way, you pitiful sissies," he snarled.  "Now get out of that van.  And I mean now.  That’s an order!  And when I give an order, then little worms like you obey it."

Now, Bill and Ted could not be certain of much in their crazy lives, but right then they were absolutely, positively sure of one thing: There was no way on earth they were getting out of that van.

Bill didn’t have to think about it; he reacted instinctively.  He threw the van into reverse and stood on the accelerator, flooring it.  As if the tired old van itself were terrified, a bolt of power surged into the clapped-out engine and the vehicle shot backward.  Then Bill cranked the wheel, throwing the van into a perfect 180-degree turn.  The bald old tires screamed and smoked as the car whipped in a circle, and inside the van the Grim Reaper, Station and the good robots were thrown around until they were a tangle of arms and legs.

"They’re getting away!" stormed Oats.  "Let’s get ‘em."

The Easter Bunny hopped over to the Porsche and bit into the roof, puncturing it as if it were a tin can; then he took his giant, powerful pink paws and tore the whole sheet of metal off.  In a matter of seconds the Porsche was a convertible, and it had a seven-foot Easter Bunny in the backseat.  Colonel Oats dove into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine.

"Throw the old lady a rope," he ordered the Easter Bunny.  "Now!  You hopping pink stuffed toy."

The Easter Bunny whipped out a rope and tossed it to Granny S. Preston, who caught it neatly.  "Hit it!" she yelled.

"Rolling, you four-and-a-half-foot gray-haired little shriv!" Oats snarled at Granny Preston.

"Drop dead, Oats," Granny Preston snarled right back.

Oats fired up the engine, gave it all the gas he had, all at once, and the powerful car lurched forward, rocketing down the street as if it had been fired from a piece of heavy artillery.  Granny Preston, still sitting in her chair, was yanked along behind.

This was certainly not the Granny S. Preston Bill had known his whole life.  He was watching their pursuers in the rearview mirror.  He gripped the wheel, white-knuckled and more scared than he had ever been before in his life.  This just could not be happening to them.  No way.

Ted, at the rear of the van, watching through the back window, gulped.  "Go faster, dude!" he yelled to Bill.

No matter how scared you might be, no matter how much you might want to get away, it’s a simple fact that a twenty-year-old van that has never really run right cannot outrun a new seventy-five-thousand-dollar Porsche.  In a matter of seconds, the supercharged black sports car was right on the tail of the van.  Ted watched as Colonel Oats yanked the wheel to the right, causing the car to veer and whipping Granny S. Preston to the left.  She swung like a tetherball, catching up with the van.  She rolled along next to the driver-side window.  She leaned in close, her lips all puckered up.

"Hello, Bill," she screeched.  "How about that kiss for your little old Granny?"  She made these really disgusting little kiss-kiss sounds.

"Yaaaarghgh!" Bill screamed, and he cranked the wheel to the right.  The van careened into the other lane, then up onto the shoulder, and totalled a road sign: SAN DIMAS CIVIC AUDITORIUM - ONE MILE.  PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY.

Back in the Porsche, Colonel Oats was busy with phase two of his plan.  "Get out there," he screamed over the rushing wind and the roar of the engine.  "Get out there, you great bouncing, furry egg-delivering behemoth."

The Easter Bunny stood in the backseat and hopped through the torn-up roof, landing on the hood of the car.  He paused a moment to get his balance and then hopped again and thumped down hard on the roof of the van, the thin metal buckling under his weight.

 

The force of the Easter Bunny hitting the roof threw Station and the robots and the Grim Reaper flat on the floor of the van.  Robot Ted smacked his head on the wheel well and his eyes spun crazily.

"Howwwws it dooooooinnnnn’?" Robot Ted croaked.  He did not look well, what with being only half-finished, rocked and rolled and terrified into the bargain.

"No so good, Robot me," said Ted frankly.  "But thanks a lot for asking."

"Boooogusssss," said Robot Ted.

"Station, are they okay?"

"Station," said Station with a shrug.  Now Ted really was worried, mainly because he had never seen Station looking worried.  Station had that look on his face, like a doctor who thinks he might be about to lose a patient.

"Bill, what are we gonna do?  Our robots are getting totally thrashed!"

"I dunno!" yelled Bill.

"Kissy-kissy, Billy," yowled Granny S. Preston, still right there outside the window.

But things were, if you can believe it, about to get worse.  Suddenly, two great yellow steel fangs slammed through the roof of the van, slicing through the metal as if it were nothing stronger than aluminum foil.  The flashing blades missed the Grim Reaper’s head by inches.

 

The Easter Bunny clawed at the roof and then peeled back the sheet of steel, as if opening a sardine can.  He leaned down into the van and glowered at Ted, his hideous face close, as if he were about to bite his head off in a single snap of those murderous teeth.

Spittle dripped from his lips and he leered menacingly, staring into Ted’s frightened eyes with fury.  "You stole little Deacon’s Easter basket."

The words, delivered by an Easter Bunny with murder in his heart, were enough to make any man, Martian, underworld ghoul or robot quail.

Ted and the Grim Reaper screamed.  Screaming wasn’t yet in Good Robot Bill and Ted’s vocabulary, but they expressed themselves the best they could.

"Nooo waaaay!  Noooo waaaaay!  Noooo waaay!" they yelled, flailing around on the floor of the careening van.

The amphitheater loomed up ahead of them, so Bill raced the van into the parking lot and slammed on the brakes, laying down yards of smoking rubber.  The van came skidding across the lot, shooting like a large, black torpedo straight for a pristine, picture-perfect BMW.  The owner of the BMW stared at the van hurtling toward him, and Bill stared back, wondering if his meager insurance would cover the total he was about to inflict on the expensive car.  He decided it wouldn’t, and at the last possible split second he cranked the wheel, throwing the van into a sideswipe, stopping just short of the BMW.

"Close," said Bill.

Granny S. Preston whirled around the van, roping the doors shut, slamming to a halt right where she had started - just outside Bill’s window.

"Hello, Bill," she cooed.  "Kissy-kissy for your Granny S. Preston?"

Bill quickly rolled the window shut.

Now things were pretty serious - even Bill and Ted, who, by nature, were inclined to look on the bright side of things, could see that.  Their future wives had been kidnapped by evil robots, the Battle of the Bands was about to begin, a homicidal Easter Bunny was trying to claw his way through the roof of their mortally wounded van, and Granny S. Preston had them trapped and was waiting for her kiss - it was hard to see the silver lining in this particular bank of clouds.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Ted in a panicky voice.  "We can’t shake ‘em."

Bill saw that there was only one thing they could do.  The very thought filled him with horror.  He put a hand on Ted’s shoulder.  "Ted, there’s only one thing we can do . . . "  He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to say.  "We gotta face ‘em."

Ted gulped.  "Bill, you’re right.  We gotta do it."  He looked at the Easter Bunny.  "I’ll be with you in a moment, dude."  He leaned out of the passenger side window and tapped on the glass of the BMW.  "Excuse me, dude - I gotta use your car phone. Don’t worry - local call."

The BMW driver was still staring, bug-eyed, at the van, and he could be forgiven for not quite believing his eyes.  After all, it wasn’t every day you came across a van besieged by an elderly woman in a wheelchair, not to mention saw a giant Easter Bunny attempting to devour any kind of vehicle.

Stunned, he passed the phone through the window.  "Sure," he said in a faraway sort of voice.  "Help yourself.  Take your time.  No hurry."

"‘Preciate it," said Ted.

Bill was ready to face the music.  He took one last look at Granny S. Preston and slowly rolled down the window.  He looked like a man headed inexorably for the gallows . . .

Ted dialed his home number, and when his little brother, Deacon, answered, he spoke in a rush, a great torrent of words.

"Hello, Deacon, it’s Ted.  Listen, dude, ten years ago at Nana and Pop-pop’s house, I totally stole your Easter basket and ate all your candy."

Deacon knew his brother Ted to be a slightly, well, unusual person, so this sudden confession of a petty theft committed some ten years before didn’t startle him all that much.

"You did, huh?" said Deacon.

"Yes, me," said Ted, his voice full of contrition.  "I did it.  I did it and I’m sorry."

"Fine," said Deacon.  "Now we know who pulled off the crime of the century."  He hung up, wondering how it was that he and Ted were related.  It just didn’t seem possible sometimes.

The instant Ted confessed his crime, the Easter Bunny stopped moving, stopped clawing at the roof of the van.

Bill had placed his lips against Granny S. Preston’s leathery, hairy skin and, with super-human effort, managed to give her a little smack on the cheek.  Then his grandmother got a very sweet look on her face - she wasn’t really a heinous old lady, just a little scary if you had to kiss her regularly - and patted Bill on the knee.

"Now," she said in that old lady voice of hers, "that wasn’t so bad, was it, Billy?"

"No, Granny S. Preston," said Bill dutifully, as a good grandson should.

The Easter Bunny was gone, replaced by the evil-looking tube from whence he came.  It rolled off the roof and fell to the asphalt of the parking lot, shattering into a million pieces.  A split second later, Granny S. Preston turned into her own cylinder and dropped, it too shattering the minute it hit the ground.

Bill and Ted heaved huge, deep sighs of relief.  The Grim Reaper, Station and the Good Robots couldn’t be quite so restrained.

"Station!" screamed Station.

"EEEEEXXXCCCEEELLLEEENNNTTT!" yelled Good Robot Bill and Ted.

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. In their euphoria, they had forgotten that there remained one powerful, determined enemy, meaner and tougher than the Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston combined - Colonel Oats.  Bill’s spirits plunged and fear coursed through him when he saw, in the rearview mirror, the Porsche screech to a halt and Colonel Oats emerge toting that big bazooka of his.  He walked slowly toward the van like a bad guy in a western.  The guy was definitely trouble.

"Uh . . . Ted," said Bill.

Ted followed the line of Bill’s worried gaze.  "Uh-oh . . . "

Colonel Oats did not look happy.  He hated being let down by an Easter Bunny and an old lady - they would not have been his first choice of allies.  "Useless hippity-hoppin’ pain in the neck," he muttered, loading his artillery piece.  "Stinkin’ no-good rolling little shriv.  I’m gonna have to do this all by myself."  He slammed a shell into the chamber and cocked the weapon.

Bill and Ted looked at each other and gulped.  The Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston were pussycats compared to an angry creature from the underworld carrying a large-caliber weapon.

"How are we gonna get rid of him?" yelled Ted.

"Dude," said Bill, "there is only one way to get rid of a guy like this."

"There is?"

"Yah.  We gotta use the one weapon that we have that he has no defense against."

"We do?  What?"

"We gotta kill him . . . "

"Totally," agreed Ted.

"Kill him with kindness, dude."

"Oh.  Yah.  Right.  Kindness."

"Okay," said Bill authoritatively.  "Everybody - Death, Station, Robot Us’s - we gotta be totally nice to this dude, got it?"

"But," protested the Grim Reaper, "he has a gun.  A very large gun."

"Ignore it," advised Ted.

"Okay," said Bill.  "Everyone look friendly."

Bill pushed open the sliding door of the van, while the rest of them organized themselves into a nice little conversational group and did their best to smile at the man pointing a bazooka at them.

Colonel Oats looked down the long barrel, sighting the weapon squarely on Ted.  "Decided to give up, huh?" he barked.  "Better this way.  Puts you outta your misery."

Ted smiled pleasantly.  "Colonel Oats, this is a pleasant surprise.  Great to see you.  Come in, dude."

"Huh?" said Colonel Oats.  "Why aren’t you scared?  I like to see the fear in their eyes before I waste my victims."

"Scared?" said Ted with a laugh.  "Why would we be scared of you, Colonel Oats?"  Bill and the rest tittered politely, as if they were well-mannered guests at a sedate little tea party, astonished that anyone would think that they would be scared of a gentle soul like Colonel Oats.

"Yah," said Bill.  "We couldn’t be scared of an old teddy bear like you, Colonel."

"It’s like you’re a member of the family," added Ted.  He was rooting around in the glove compartment of the van and had come up with a small, rather worn selection of junk food.  He held out a cake wrapped in cellophane as if trying to feed a skittish animal.  "Twinkie?" he asked.

"Family . . . ?" said Colonel Oats, his voice quavering.  "And a Twinkie?"

"Or perhaps our guest would prefer a Ding Dong," said Bill "or a Snow Ball."

The Colonel Oats from Hell felt a strange, warm and not altogether unpleasant sensation creep over him.  It was the uncommon feeling of having someone like him, of having someone be kind to him.  He let go of his heavy weapon, and the bazooka clattered to the ground.

"There," said Ted soothingly, "that’s better, isn’t it?"

"Come on in, pal," said Bill, "have a seat, have a Ding Dong and unburden your soul to us."

"Your friends," added Ted.

"Friends?" said Colonel Oats, his jaw quivering.  He allowed himself to be drawn into the van and settled on one of the seats.

"Eat, Colonel Oats," said Bill. "You must be terribly hungry.  It’s been a long day."

"Yes . . . ," said Oats wearily.  He heaved a tremendous sigh and brushed a hand through his sweaty, matted hair.  "I’m so tired."

"There, there," said Ted.

"Yah.  Relax.  You’re among friends, dude."

"Friends," said Colonel Oats, dreamily, as if the word were part of a magic incantation.

"Friends," reiterated Ted.

Colonel Oats looked from one friendly face to the next and felt a lump rise in his throat.  He took a large bite from the Ding Dong, spilling crumbs down his chin and onto his battle fatigues.  It tasted wonderful.

"I . . . I . . . I wasn’t always like this . . . ," he said sadly.  He looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  "I wasn’t always a bad person."

"You," said Bill, "bad?"

"Pshaw," said Ted.

Suddenly, Colonel Oats found that he was seized by an overwhelming desire to confess, to unburden his soul as Bill had suggested he do.

"You see, when I was a teenager - scarcely more than a little boy, really - my father used to spank me . . . he used to spank me with an ammo clip.  He . . . he frightened me."  Suddenly the hurt and fear of those days, feelings so long suppressed, came flooding back into Colonel Oats’s tortured psyche.  His eyes filled with tears and his voice shook.  "Now I realize that what I have been doing for the past twenty years was just an attempt to be the kind of boy Daddy wanted me to be . . . "

"Sadistic," suggested Bill helpfully.

"Twisted," said Ted.

Colonel Oats nodded sadly.  Robot Bill stroked his hair and Robot Ted patted him gently on the shoulder.  Even the Grim Reaper looked touched.  He, of all people, knew what it was like not to be liked.

Colonel Oats didn’t realize it, but, like the Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston, he was losing his effectiveness, under the influence of the unrelenting kindness of Bill and Ted and his other newfound friends.

"What I’ve been doing for the past twenty years is terrorizing young people - all to please my daddy."

Ted nodded.  "That’s an important epiphany, Colonel Oats."

"Yah," said Bill.  "But you don’t have to do that anymore now do you?"

"No," said Colonel Oats in a very small voice.

"Promise?" said Ted.

"Yes," said Colonel Oats.

"Good," said Bill.  "Catch you later, dude."

And, in that instant, Colonel Oats transformed back into one of the evil tubes and shattered.

"Well," said the Grim Reaper.  "I’m sure glad that’s over."

 The comic book adaptation also included this scene:

Audio clips from this omitted scene were also included near the end of The Reaper Rap on the Bogus Journey soundtrack.  The words and sounds are hard to pick out, but the dialogue used includes these lines:

Colonel Oates: Get ‘em Granny!

Bill & Ted: We’ve got to face them.

Colonel Oates: Now get going!

Various moans and groans of fears being defeated.

And then at the end we can hear Colonel Oates crying.

The Fight at the Battle of the Bands

Second only to the scene where Bill & Ted face their fears, the original Battle of the Bands fight scene was the most notable omission and change to the final movie.  Originally the scene was much more complicated, with Good Robot Bill & Ted running away when ordered to "save the babes."  Bill & Ted must confront Evil Bill & Ted on their own with Death trying to entertain the audience.  Poor Bill & Ted are thrashed around by their evil robot counterparts until Bill strikes upon the idea of letting the robots kill them, which they do by smashing their heads with microphone stands.  But Bill & Ted beat Death at so many games they have won the right to come back to life several times, and so when Death reanimates them they are able to sneak up on the Evil Robots and pull their heads off.  De Nomolos arrives to kill Bill & Ted and shoots at them, but Bill and Ted are able to deflect the shots with the Evil Robot heads.  Bill and Ted then find self-destruct buttons on the robot heads and push them before lobbing them at De Nomolos, who is blown up.  And what about the good robot Bill & Ted and the Princesses?  Just as the princesses start to fall from the rafters  when their ropes break, good robot Bill & Ted burst through the back wall of the stadium and catch them!  They had to run clear around the world to build up enough momentum to break through the wall!

Production storyboards also illustrate how this scene played out originally:

This scene was also included in the novelization as follows (the photos are not from the novel but included for illustrative purposes):

Good Bill, Good Ted, the Grim Reaper and Station clustered around the Good Bill and Ted robots.

"Well," said Ted, "this is it."

"Okay, robots," said Bill, like a coach prepping his team before the big game, "you know what you have to do."

"Saaave the baaabes," said the good robots.

"That’s right.  Station, think they’ll be able to pull it off?"

Station did his best to look confident.  "Station," he said.

"Yeah, I figured you might say that," said Ted.

"Good luck," said Bill.

"Yah," said Ted.  "Totally!"

"Go get ‘em!" yelled Bill, like a starter beginning a pair of runners in a fast forty.

And then the robots were off, shooting away like bullets.  They took off incredibly fast, so fast that their long, awkward metal strides left fiery footprints smoking and glowing behind them in the parking lot asphalt.  They took off so fast, in fact, that it took a second or two for Bill and Ted to realize that the robots had made a terrible mistake.  Truly the bugs had not been worked out of their systems.

The robots had taken off in the wrong direction, running away from the auditorium instead of toward it.  In a flash they were gone - too late for Bill and Ted to stop them.

"Hey!" shouted Bill.  "Wait!"

"Where are they going?" yelled Ted.

But the good robots were covering so much ground so fast that they were out of earshot almost instantly.  Bill and Ted stared, dumbstruck, through the billowing smoke the good robots left in their wake.

"Back to the drawing board," said Ted, sadly.

"Station!  What’s going on dude?"

But Station had changed, too.  The calm, confident Station, the one who had built the malfunctioning robots, was gone, replaced with his old two selves.  But they seemed different, too - they were drained of energy, as if the effort of building the robots had been too much for them.

"Look," said Ted, "they are totally wiped out."

"Station," croaked the Stations dully, nodding in agreement.  Then they turned and, mustering what little energy they had left, pitter-pattered away, following in the footsteps of their good robot creations.

Bill, Ted and the Grim Reaper stared after them.  It seemed as if the plan was not going to work, that all the trouble and terror they had been through had been worth nothing.

"Now what do we do?" asked Ted.

"We still gotta stop them."

"Yah.  But how?  I mean, it was going to be hard enough to stop two evil robot dudes who had already killed us once even if we had help from good robots. But now . . . "

"Well, we still gotta try."

Ted’s jaw set in a determined line.  "You’re right, Bill.  It’s the least we can do."

They took off at a run for the auditorium, the Grim Reaper huffing and puffing along behind them.  The backstage entrance was marked, Artists Only.

"Artists," said Bill, "I like that."

The security guard on the door didn’t even bother to check their names on the master list of performers - all he had to do was take one look at the Grim Reaper, dressed as he was, to know that he had a heavy metal band on his hands.

The Grim Reaper might have gotten them in, but he was slowing them down.  He was a lot older than Bill and Ted - by about thirty thousand years - so he wasn’t as fast on his feet as he could be.  By the time he got backstage, he was sweating profusely and completely out of breath.

"Come on, dude!" yelled Ted.

"Hurry," urged Bill.

"I’m coming, I’m coming," panted the Grim Reaper.  "Give a guy a break."

"Death," said Bill urgently, "you gotta help us stall for time."

"Yah.  We gotta check things out.  Find the princesses.  Make a plan."

All this totally flustered the Grim Reaper - which puzzled Bill and Ted, as you would have thought that a guy in his line of work would be used to improvising in unusual situations.  They dragged him toward the wings.  The sound of the crowd was much louder now, a low roar like the breaking of surf on a beach.

"How?" stammered the Grim Reaper.  "I don’t understand . . . I’m not really prepared for . . . I mean, I haven’t worked up anything to say . . . I haven’t got a thing to wear . . . "

"This is important, dude," said Ted seriously.

"You gotta cover for us while we try to figure out what to do.  It’s a matter of life and, well, death."

Ted took the Grim Reaper by the shoulders and looked into his bloodshot old eyes.  "Death.  We need your help.  In the van I heard you telling Bill that you wanted to help us - well, here’s your big chance, dude."

"But . . . I am frightened," said the Grim Reaper unhappily.  "All these people . . . you know how I work, fellas.  I’m a lot better one on one."

Bill and Ted couldn’t waste any more time convincing the Grim Reaper.  They shoved him out on to the stage.  "You’re going out there, Death . . . "

"And you’re coming back a star," said Ted.

They shoved the Grim Reaper into the glare of the lights and left him to do his best.

Mrs. Wardroe was doing her thing at the microphone, ushering out the band that had just finished and preparing her introduction of Evil Bill and Evil Ted.

"Let’s give a big hand to the last band, Primus, weren’t they great?"  Actually, Mrs. Wardroe and the crowd knew that Primus wasn’t all that great, but she had to say something encouraging - it was only polite.  There was a spattering of applause from the audience, not exactly a ringing endorsement.  But Mrs. Wardroe couldn’t help thinking that if Wyld Stallyns got as good a response, Bill and Ted would be very, very lucky.

"And now for our final act of the evening . . .  Please give a warm welcome to Wyld Stallyns!"

Evil Bill and Evil Ted strode onto the stage, their guitars slung over their shoulders like weapons.  Both evil robots wore nasty little smirks, so delighted were they with the thought of the havoc they were about to wreak on Bill, Ted, the princesses, the Battle of the Bands and on history itself.  It was a great day to be in the business of doing total evil.

The crowd clapped, but not with a lot of enthusiasm.  If the Wyld Stallyns had achieved any measure of fame in San Dimas, it was as the worst garage band going, bar none.  Some of the audience groaned when they heard the band name, others started toward the exits.

Evil Bill stepped up to the microphone and looked with disgust at the entire audience.  "How’s it goin’, worms?"  His amplified voice boomed through the auditorium.  "I am Bill S. Preston, Esquire."

Evil Ted leaned into his mike.  "And I am Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan.  And we are . . . "

"Wyld Stallyns!"

"We know!" shouted one of the spectators down front right by the stage.

"Don’t remind us," yelled someone nearby.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted ignored this heckling - hurt feelings were not part of their programming.  Evil Bill shouted:

"And we’re hear to say . . . "

"All hail, Mr. De Nomolos," Evil Bill and Evil Ted yelled in unison.  They swung their guitars up and flailed wildly at the strings.  The manic thrashing at their instruments failed to demonstrate that Bill and Ted had improved in the music department.  Mrs. Wardroe covered her eyes with her hands.  More and more people started walking up the aisles toward the exits.  It looked like the Wyld Stallyns set was over before it had begun.

Then, strangely enough, the Wyld Stallyns’ act took a sudden turn for the better.  The Grim Reaper tottered onto the stage, staring at the crowd, smiling nervously.  "Hi . . . ," he said with a wimpy little wave.  Then, overcome with fear, he fainted and smacked his head on the synthesizer keyboard.  A musical vamp started out of the machine.  The crowd that remained was curious now.  It wasn’t every band that managed to get a guest appearance by the Grim Reaper, even if it was a brief one.

The Evil Bill and Evil Ted caught sight of the real Bill and Ted entering from the wings.  The evil robots stopped banging away at their guitars and stared.  Somehow - and it did seem kind of improbable - Bill and Ted had managed to outwit Colonel Oates, the Easter Bunny and Granny S. Preston - and that was the most evil De Nomolos knew how to conjure up.  No wonder Evil Bill and Evil Ted were surprised.

Suddenly, the auditorium was very quiet.  The crowd was intrigued - maybe the Wyld Stallyns really sucked musically, but there was something to be said for their showmanship.  After all, two sets of identical musicians plus the prostrate figure of Death on the stage were out of the ordinary.

"It can’t be," said Evil Bill into his open microphone.

"No way," said Evil Ted.

"Yes way," insisted Good Ted.

"You totally killed us, you evil metal jerks," said Good Bill.

His words drew a measure of applause from the members of the audience who appreciated a little psychodrama with their music.  Everyone seemed to be holding his or her breath, wondering what was going to happen next.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted had recovered from their shock and surprise and were beginning to realize that they were going to have the fun of killing Good Bill and Good Ted all over again plus the charge of doing away with their girlfriends at the same time.  This would truly be a night that San Dimas would not forget in a long time.

"We killed you," said Evil Bill with a sneer, "and we’re gonna do it again."

"Yah!" said Evil Ted, "and we’re going to kill your girlfriends!"

Evil Ted pulled a long knife out of his belt and sliced through a thick rope tethered just offstage.  The princesses dropped from the catwalk above the stage, plummeting toward the hard floor.  Joanne and Elizabeth screamed, but just as it looked as if they were going to smash the the ground, the roped jerked them back and they hung suspended over the stage.

The crowd roared its approval of this truly excellent display of showmanship.  Maybe the Wyld Stallyns had improved.  Even Mrs. Wardroe looked mildly impressed.

But to Good Bill and Good Ted, this wasn’t a show, this was real life.  Seeing their girlfriends treated so roughly was more than they could stand.  With outraged screams, the two charged across the stage.

"Joanna!" yelled Good Bill.

"Elizabeth!" shouted Good Ted.

"We’ll save you, babes!" said Good Bill.

"Yah!  Hang on!" said Good Ted.  Good advice but under the circumstances, there was little else the princesses could do.

But Evil Bill and Evil Ted had other plans for Good Ted and Good Bill.  The robots fell on our heroes, grabbed them and tossed them into the back wall of the stage as if they were about as heavy as pillows.

Boom!  Bill and Ted smacked into the hard bricks and slid to the floor, stars dancing in front of their eyes.  They shook their heads like boxers trying to clear their brains after a savage right, but even in their befuddled state, Bill and Ted realized that they were not off to a good start.  De Nomolos may have created these robots in their image, but he had made a little improvement - like superior strength.

The crowd, however, was eating it up.  Other acts in the Battle of the Bands may have played better music, but no one put on a show like this.  Applause filled the auditorium to the rafters.

The Grim Reaper heard the clapping and the cheering and awoke from his daze.  He saw his friends lying sprawled at the base of the wall, and he took in Evil Bill and Evil Ted’s look of total triumph and figured he had to act, no matter how scared he was of appearing before big crowds.  He mustered all the confidence he had and stepped up to an open microphone.  Even before he opened his mouth, the Grim Reaper got a big hand and that made him feel better.

"Hello, San Dimas!" he said, his deep voice booming out through the auditorium.  The crowd roared back.  But they weren’t quite sure where they should be looking.  On the one hand you had a dude dressed - very convincingly - as Death at the mike, on the other you had two dudes beating up on two dudes who looked just like them.  Evil Bill and Evil Ted were advancing on Bill and Ted, coming in for the kill, cornering them against the back wall of the stage.

"Got you!" snarled Evil Bill, in triumph.

"Prepare to die.  Again!"

"You good-for-nothing, lesser-developed human prototype versions of us!"

"Guys . . . , " said Ted weakly.  "Let’s talk."

The Grim Reaper was totally getting into the acclaim he was getting from the crowd.  He started snapping his long, thin fingers and immediately improvised:

"I am Death. I come from beyond.  I reap each soul with my boney wand . . . "

Evil Bill and Evil Ted had gotten hold of Bill and Ted now and, with a cruel, inhuman surge of brute force, threw our hapless heroes across the stage, body-slamming them to the ground as if they were wrestlers - but this was for real.  The crowd was screaming now.  This was a show!  There was a triumphant fight going on, a rapping Grim Reaper, not to mention two truly resplendent babes suspended over the stage.

The Grim Reaper was steadily gaining in confidence.

"Behold before you, two Bills and two Teds.  These two are good and real . . . "  He pointed to the Good Bill and Good Ted sprawled on the stage.  "These two, true metal heads.  And so my good friends - Oomphf!"  Evil Ted pushed the Grim Reaper away from the microphone, sending Death flying.

"Shut up!" he ordered.  "I need this."  Evil Ted grabbed the mike stand and tossed the microphone away.  Holding it as if it were a club, he stalked toward Good Bill and Good Ted.  Evil Bill got the same idea, grabbed a heavy microphone stand and started toward his own victim.

Seeing this development, Good Bill and Good Ted were, as usual, in total agreement.  "Bogus," they moaned.

No one seemed to be paying much attention to the princesses, but they were in as mortal danger as Bill and Ted.  The ropes that bound their hands were beginning to fray, and they were just seconds away from plummeting to the floor of the stage.

"Bill, I think we are about to be dead.  Again."

"Heinous."

"Totally!"

"We gotta think, dude."

"Dude, I can’t think of anything right now except for maybe death."

Death, it seemed, was thinking of his newfound career in show business.  He moonwalked - badly, but he was new to the business - across the stage and took his place in front of another open microphone.

"Tonight you will witness their ultimate battle.  The winner will rightly mount the Wyld Stallyns saddle."

Okay, so it didn’t rhyme exactly, but it was close enough and the crowd was eating it up.

Bill had been thinking, and he wasn’t much better at it than Ted.  "Ted . . . there’s only one thing to do."

Saved, thought Ted.  "What?"

Evil Bill and Evil Ted were standing over them now, their microphone stands raised high over their heads.

"Don’t move," said Bill.

"What!  That’s it?  Don’t move?"

Evil Bill and Evil Ted swung, and the heavy mike stands caught Good Bill and Good Ted square in their temples.  Their eyes turned up in their heads and for a second everything was black.

"We got ‘em," said Evil Bill.

"Totally.  Finally."

Indeed, it did look as if this were the end of Bill and Ted.  Their bodies were sprawled lifeless on the stage, not moving a muscle.  The crowd was real impressed, and even Mrs. Wardroe thought that the boys were doing an excellent job of acting.

The crowd was cheering wildly, stamping their feet and demanding more.  Evil Bill and Evil Ted faced their adoring public, drinking in the acclaim like champagne.

After a second or two, the spirits of Bill and Ted, looking just as they had the first time they died, rose out of their corpses and looked down at the bodies that had once been their mortal forms.

Ted did not look impressed.  "That was your idea?" he asked in disgust.  "Stand still?  We’re dead again, dude."

"Ted.  How many games did we beat the Grim Reaper at?"

It seemed like a long time ago.  "I dunno, four I guess - why?"

"And how many lives did we use to get back here?" asked Bill, as if patiently explaining an algebra problem to a student.

"Uh . . . two."  The full import of Bill’s plan sunk into Ted’s brain.  His eyes widened in delight.  "Whoa!  Yah!  The Grim Reaper still owes us two lives!"  He cupped his hands around his mouth and called over to the Grim Reaper, shouting to make himself heard above the thunderous applause.  "Hey, Death, you still owe us two lives, don’t you, dude?"

The Grim Reaper, though, was enjoying his moment in the spotlight, so into his own performance that he was oblivious to Bill and Ted’s predicament.

"Yo!  Death!" shouted Bill and Ted.

The Grim Reaper glared at them.  "Can’t you see that I’m performing?"

"But, dude . . . "

The Grim Reaper hated being annoyed, but he knew he had to honor his promise.  "Yes," he shouted over his shoulder.  "You can come back."

Bill and Ted jumped for joy and did a ghostly high five.

"Let’s get ‘em, Ted!"

"Go for it, Bill!"

They dove back into their bodies and leaped to their feet.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted were facing the audience, unaware that Good Bill and Good Ted had come back to life and were out for revenge.

"Remember the name," Evil Bill was screaming at the crowd.  "Mr. Nomolos De Nomolos!"

"The Greatest Man in History!" shrieked Evil Ted.

The two evil robots turned to each other and high-fived.  "We’ve totally won, dude!"

But they hadn’t.  Good Bill and Good Ted came up behind them, grabbed the evil ones by the ears and yanked, pulling the robot heads from the robot bodies.

"No waaaay!" yelled the heads.

"Yes way, evil Bill and Ted heads!" responded Good Bill and Good Ted.

Without their powerful bodies, the robots were much easier to deal with.  The headless bodies staggered around the stage wondering where their heads were.  "Over here!" yelled Evil Bill’s head, but as the bodies approached, Bill and Ted struck out at them, kicking the flailing, hapless figures off the stage and into the audience.

Ted cocked his fist and punched the Evil Ted robot head hard and square in the jaw.  "Take that!"  Pow!  He slammed him again.  "And that!" Cracking him in the nose.

Bill readied his furious fist.  "Got any last words, malevolent pate?"

Evil Bill’s eyes flicked toward the rafters.  "Yah!  Check out your girlfriends!"

Bill looked up.  "What?  Oh no!"

The ropes that bound the princesses’ wrists had just about frayed through.  In that instant, the strands gave way, Joanna and Elizabeth dropping in a sickening fall toward the stage and certain death.  All Bill and Ted could do was watch helplessly.

Then, suddenly, the back wall of the stage shattered in a shower of bricks and Good Robot Bill and Ted crashed through, running straight under the falling princesses, their metallic arms out as if they were wide receivers going out to catch a long, long bomb.

"SAAAAVE THE BAAABES!  SAAAAVE THE BAAABES!  SAAAAVE THE BAAABES!" they intoned.

And save the babes, they did.  The robots judged the falling princesses perfectly and so - boom-boom - each landed right on target in the robots’ outstretched arms.

"Whooooaaaaa!" said Bill and Ted in relief and admiration.  "Excellent!"

The Stations were not far behind the robots, and they were now climbing through the hole smashed by Good Robot Bill and Good Robot Ted.  The crowd was delirious now - there were two decapitated Bill and Teds, plus two kind of strange Bill and Teds, plus a set of normal Bill and Teds in the show.  Never mind the Grim Reaper and what appeared to be a pair of Martians.

Bill clapped the Stations on the shoulders.  "They did know what they were doing!"

"Yah!" shouted Ted.  "And they must have had to run around the whole world to get up enough momentum to burst through that wall."

Bill and Ted, the evil robot heads tucked under their arms, extended their free hands to the princesses.

"Ladies . . . "

Joanne and Elizabeth curtsied and took their fiancés’ hands, and together they stepped to the front of the stage to receive the applause and adulation of the crowd.

But then: the whole auditorium seemed to tremble, followed by a loud howl and a blinding flash of blue-white light.  Suddenly, crashing down onto the stage, came a time-traveling phone booth.  It landed in a shower of crackling, sizzling electricity.  The door slid open and there, robed in black, stood De Nomolos.  He did not look happy, but he managed a thin little smile when he caught sight of Bill and Ted.

"William S. Preston, Esquire?"

"Yah," said Bill.

"And Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan?"

"How’s it goin’, Circuits of Time-travelin’-dude?"

The crowd had gone very quiet all of a sudden, as if they were now witnesses to a scene of great drama.  They all knew that whoever the dude in the phone booth was, he was a dude to be reckoned with.

"Shut up," snapped De Nomolos.

"Who are you?" demanded Ted.

"Who am I?"  The question seemed to amuse De Nomolos.  In the future it would be a very silly question indeed.  "I am Nomolos De Nomolos."  He pointed to the evil robot heads.  "I am the master of those morons.  And I must see to it that you die."

Bill and Ted looked at each other.

"Die, dude," said Bill wearily.

"Again.  Don’t you dudes ever think of anything else, except trying to totally kill us?"

"No," said De Nomolos truthfully.  He swept aside his robe and pulled out a huge twenty-fifth-century-style handgun.

"Okay," said Ted.  "You’ve been trying to kill us for days now.  Maybe you’d like to tell us why."

"Yah," said Bill.  "Why, dude?"

"It is very simple," said De Nomolos.  "So that in my day - seven hundred years from now - I will rule.  All I need to do is kill you and return to the future.  When I arrive, I will be revered, am emperor.  A living god!"

"Oh," said Bill.

"Got you," said Ted.

"And now," said De Nomolos, "it is time . . . "  He cocked the huge weapon and aimed it straight out ahead of him, like a dueler.  He decided to kill Bill first, alphabetical order.

"Now what?" whispered Ted.  "Now we got no lives left."

Bill was fresh out of ideas.  All he could do was shrug.

"Gentlemen," shouted Mrs. Wardroe from the wings, "use your heads!"  She pointed to the robot heads still tucked under their arms. Evil Bill and Evil Ted were watching De Nomolos, and they were grinning expectantly.

De Nomolos fired twice, the big gun roaring and bucking in his hand.  Bill and Ted thrust the robot heads up, blocking the blast, the bullets ricocheting around the stage like hornets.  Then they cocked their arms back and rolled the heads toward De Nomolos, as if they were champion bowlers throwing perfect strikes.

De Nomolos gaped at the heads rolling toward him, the self-destruct buttons built into the robot crania having been activated by the force of the gun blast.

The evil genius could only smile feebly, weakly, as certain destruction rolled toward him.  "Guys . . . I was only joking . . . "

The two heads hit his legs and stopped.  There was a blinding flash and a sizzling zzzzzaaaaapppppp followed by three sheets of blue flame, and when that was gone, De Nomolos and the evil robot heads were gone.  In their place were three piles of smoking ash.

The crowd had never seen special effects like this before.  They were cheering, whistling, stamping their feet.  The applause was deafening.  To tell the truth, Bill and Ted had never seen anything like it before either.

"Dude," said Ted, awestruck, "where’d they go?"

"I dunno, dude."

The Grim Reaper brushed and buffed his fingernails and tried to look modest.  "Really, guys," he said, "I’m surprised you had to ask."

"They’ve been reaped?"

"Totally," said the Grim Reaper.

Bill pointed to the floor.  "So you’ll be seeing them later . . . down there."

"Yup," said Death.

"Well, let me give you a piece of advice, dude," said Ted.  "Don’t play Battleship with them.  It’s not your game."

"Don’t worry," said Death.

"So who was that guy?" asked Bill.

Mrs. Wardroe walked out onto the stage.  "Perhaps I can answer that question for you, gentlemen."

"Mrs. Wardroe . . . " said Bill.

"Thanks for the help," said Ted.

"Yah, we definitely – "

"Whooooaaaa!" said Bill and Ted.  "Another one!"

Mrs. Wardroe was doing an Evil Bill and Evil Ted, totally tearing apart her body, but instead of yet another enemy emerging, a very friendly and welcome figure appeared.  Mrs. Wardroe’s face disappeared, and in her place was Rufus, cool Rufus, Bill and Ted’s mentor and guide in all things having to do with time travel.

"Rufus!" yelled Bill and Ted.

"Rufus!" yelled the princesses.

"Ruuuufusssss!" said Good Robot Bill and Good Robot Ted.

"Station!" said you-know-who.

"How long have you been here, dude?" asked Bill excitedly.

"I got here just in time for your audition, William."

"So you were Mrs. Wardroe all along?"

"That’s right."

"Then who’s this?" asked Ted, mystified.

Rufus pointed to the pile of dust that had once been De Nomolos.  "That, amigos, was Mr. De Nomolos . . . my old gym teacher and the sit-up champ of the twenty-seventh century.  A man whose ideals were so incongruous with the times that he had to force others to share his world view . . . but, fortunately, thanks to you, he has failed."

Bill looked at the pile of smoking ash and shook his head.  "A most ignoble ending, Mr. De Nomolos."

"But we’re glad you came to it," said Ted.

The comic book adaptation also included this scene:

The Final Speech

Originally when Bill & Ted their final speech to the audience, they did it in their regular clothes and their dialogue tied in with the conquering of their fears earlier in the movie.  It was after the speech that they got into the phone booth to go back in time and learn to play their instruments, plus marry the Princess Babes and introduce their baby sons.

The following photos show how parts of this scene originally may have looked:

Some brief clips from the original final speech were seen on MTV's The Big Picture when they visited the set for a behind-the-scenes look.  And dialogue from the speech also made it into The Reaper Rap as it was released on the movie's soundtrack:

This scene was also included in the novelization as follows:

"And now, gentlemen, the stage is yours."  Rufus gestured toward the microphones and the crowd.

Bill and Ted gulped.  "Thanks, dude . . . "

The Wyld Stallyns were a much bigger band now.  Rufus picked up a guitar, Joanne crossed to the keyboards, Elizabeth to drums.  The Reaper took a stand-up bass, the Stations on percussion.  Even the good robots got in on the act, trying to clap along.  They were pretty lame, but their electronic hearts were in the right place.

Bill and Ted looked into the crowd.  It was the same old problem.  Time travel, evil robots, Easter Bunnies with murder in their hearts, Heaven, Hell, the Grim Reaper – piece of cake.  Talking to the crowd, playing their instruments – no way.

"Bill . . . what are we going to say?"

"I dunno.  But it better be good."

All eyes were on them, the crowd figuring that a little music shouldn’t be too hard for dudes like Bill and Ted to arrange.  After all, they had gone to a lot of trouble with the rest of the show.  The guys looks at each other for a moment, their brows furrowed.  Then Bill looked over at the Grim Reaper and got an idea.  Once he had been scared of Death.  Now they were pals.  There was a moral in that – if only he could find it.

He stepped up to his microphone.  "Kiss your fears, dudes," he blurted out.

"Yah, or just call ‘em," said Ted, picking up the thread of Bill’s thought.  "Call ‘em up and offer ‘em a honey bun or something.  And maybe they’ll get smaller, and maybe even go away."

"Yah," agreed Bill, thinking of Granny S. Preston.  "They’re not that bad."

"Here’s what’s bad: evil robot versions of you."

"Yah," said Bill.  "Never allow yourself to get programmed by anybody other than yourself."  Bill glanced over his shoulder at the Stations and the good robots.  "Unless maybe a Martian."

The Stations clapped happily.  "Station!"

"Beyond that," said Ted, "all we can say is . . . "

"Let’s play!" yelled Bill and Ted together.

The crowd roared as Bill and Ted launched into their first number.  It was a good thing the crowd was making so much noise, because otherwise they would have heard how terribly the band was playing.

Bill and Ted could tell, though, and they were disappointed.  They were going to lose their fans almost before they had them.

"Dude. After everything that’s happened, we still don’t know how to play."

Bill nodded sadly.  "Maybe we oughta get good, Ted."

"How?"

Both of them looked over to De Nomolos’ phone booth and had the same thought at the same time.  A little time travel never hurt.

"Joanna!" yelled Ted. "Elizabeth!  Get in the booth!"

Bill turned to the microphone.  "Ladies and gentlemen, excuse us a second."  Then he too stepped into the booth and disappeared, leaving the crowd staring in disbelief.

The audience, not being really hip to time travel, didn’t have too long to wait, not even time to get disappointed, because a matter of seconds after the phone booth vanished in a cloud of sparks it reappeared, blasting back onto the stage.

Everything happened so fast that it seemed at first as if nothing had changed – as if nothing could change in a matter of seconds – but as soon as the door of the booth opened, it was obvious that there had been some major changes in the leaders of Wyld Stallyns.

For one thing, Bill and Ted looked older – not a lot older , but enough to make an impression, say about a year and a half – because in the few seconds they had been gone, they had actually traveled sixteen months in the Circuits of Time, going back in time so they could really prepare for this very important gig.

They were dressed completely different.  Gone were the demins and sweats, replaced by professional black leather costumes designed and sewn by Elizabeth and Joanna.  Their hair was different too – Bill wore a long beard and Ted had grown an impressive mustache.  Although inside they were the same old Bill and Ted, externally they didn’t look like Bill and Ted, they looked like rock stars.  And they played like rock stars too.

"That was a fast sixteen months of intensive guitar training," Bill whispered to Ted.

"Yah, except for that two-week honeymoon we spent in Medieval England with the princesses."

"Time well spent, dude."  Perhaps the biggest change in Bill and Ted was what they had strapped to their backs.  They stepped up to the mike and turned, revealing to the crowd the two little babies they had on their backs, carried in little baby backpacks.

"Hello, San Dimas," said Bill.  "Say hello to little Ted!"

"And this is little Bill," yelled Ted.

The crowd screamed welcome to two new members of rock’s aristocracy.  The proud mothers, Joanne and Elizabeth, stood in the background beaming.

"One, two – one-two-three-four!" Bill and Ted counted off and then launched into amazing, over-the-top, indescribably masterful guitar solos.  The music blazed out over the crowd, loud melodic fire that seemed to grip the audience and lift them up high to the heavens.  Wyld Stallyns had arrived.  They had fulfilled their destiny.

Rufus only had one thing to say to that: "Station."