Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures

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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures

Title card.
Network CBS
Production company Hanna-Barbera
Orion Television Entertainment
Nelson Entertainment
Distributor MGM Television
PolyGram Entertainment
Original release September 15December 22, 1990
Run time 23 minutes
Starring Keanu Reeves
Alex Winter
George Carlin
Executive producer(s) William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Producer(s) Kay Wright
Music composed by Chuck Leob
Writer(s) John Ludin
John Loy
Director(s) Paul Sommer
Don Lusk
Robert Alvarez
Carl Urbano

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures is an American animated sci-fi comedy-adventure television series produced by Hanna-Barbera, in association with Orion Television Entertainment and Nelson Entertainment, for CBS' Saturday morning block. It is a continuation of the 1989 live-action film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, with the same actors reprising the titular characters. It ran in 1990, airing 13 episodes that spanned one season. It did technically receive a second season of eight episodes in 1991, but this was produced by DIC for Fox Kids, instead, who hired different actors to coincide with the replacements starring in a 1992 live-action TV series for Fox, as well. The lesser DiC incarnation won't be covered here.

Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted "Theodore" Logan are destined to one day bring the world together through their music which will bring about a utopian society, but only if they complete their high school education together in San Dimas. To ensure this great task, they are aided by Rufus, a visitor from the future, who supplies them with a time machine shaped like a common phone booth (stored at the back of their favorite convenient store), which they regularly use to go back in time to speak with historical figures of art, literature, music, etc. While we did not see them fulfill out this destiny in the cartoon (as if that was going to happen), the duo did graduate in live-action form by the time we see them again in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey in 1992, and then in 2020, they did finally fulfill their destinies in the third and final film, Bill & Ted Face the Music.

Production

Development

Early art.

Ken Melton did the preliminary character designs of Bill and Ted, who looked quite different from the final version, which was more in line with Hanna-Barbera's usual designs.

Music

The theme song was performed by Randy Peterson and Kevin Quinn. The music was composed by Chuck Leob for Score Productions. Bodie Chandler was the director of music production.

Episodes

Episode Original air date
1x01 September 15, 1990
1x02 September 22, 1990
1x03 September 29, 1990
1x04 October 6, 1990
1x05 October 20, 1990
1x06 October 27, 1990
1x07 November 3, 1990
1x08 November 10, 1990
1x09 November 24, 1990
1x10 December 1, 1990
1x11 December 8, 1990
1x12 December 15, 1990
1x13 December 22, 1990

Cast

Special guests

Merchandise

Home media

On July 12, 2005, MGM Home Entertainment released Bill & Ted's Most Collection on DVD, which included the first episode on a bonus disc. The episode was also included on the Blu-ray Disc editions of the film by MGM Home Entertainment and Shout! Factory in 2012 and 2016, respectively, although the episode remained in standard definition.

Toys

In 2020, NECA released a two pack action figures set of Bill & Ted based on the designs of Hanna-Barbera's cartoon.

References