Everything Action Theater: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures
Like most popular 80s and 90s movies, Bill & Ted got an animated Saturday morning cartoon starting in 1990. The difference between Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures and other animated shows based on movies was that George Carlin, Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves and Bernie Casey (who played Mr. Ryan in the films) reprised their roles, at least for the first season. Coming out between Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey, Excellent Adventures followed Bill & Ted as they continued to try and not fail high school, using their magical phone booth and help from Rufus to travel back in time to learn about a specific topic or try and make sure that history happens as it should. The first season of the show aired on CBS and was animated by Hanna-Barbera. For the second season, the show switched both networks and animation studios, with DIC Animation City taking over from Hanna-Barbera and Fox airing the show as part of their Fox Kids block of programming. Because Fox was also planning on releasing a live-action Bill & Ted TV show in 1992, they inexplicably replaced the movie’s cast with the actors who would play Bill & Ted on the short-lived live action show. They also changed how the phone booth worked, allowing it to travel into fictional worlds, like books and other TV shows, as well as doing things like shrinking and traveling into the human body. The second season was not nearly as well-received as the first season and the show was canceled. You can watch the entire first episode “One Sweet and Sour Chinese Adventure to Go” below thanks to YouTube.