Film / Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

"STATION!"

The popularity of the first Bill & Ted film prompted Nelson and Orion to release a sequel two years later. Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), a rebel from Rufus's utopian future, wants to replace it with a militaristic Crapsack World. He plans to accomplish this by sending Evil Robot duplicates into the past, where they will kill the boys, then deliver a disparaging speech worldwide at a "Battle of the Bands" concert contest and destroy Wyld Stallyns' reputation forever.

With a minimum amount of effort, the robots succeed in killing off the two title characters. However, their spirits refuse to go quietly into the good night and face off against the Grim Reaper (William Sadler). While the evil robots make time with the guys' princess babes, the ghosts of Bill and Ted need to find a way to resurrect themselves, defeat the evil robot "usses" and stop Chuck De Nomolos. To do so, they must go through Heaven and Hell (literally, plus Kirk's Rock) to face their personal demons and gather allies to their cause.

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The second movie features the following totally metal tropes:

• Achievements in Ignorance: It's indicated in the ending montage that Death somehow won the Indy 500. On foot. ("I didn't know I could run that fast.")
• All Part of the Show: Everyone not directly involved thinks that the climactic battle is just a really elaborate stage show.
• And That's Terrible: Bill and Ted have to mug some people in Heaven, and they admit it was not a good thing.
• Artistic License – Space: The picture that accompanies the "Wyld Stallyns to Play Mars" has a picture of Jupiter's moon Io.
• Artistic License – Sports: The aforementioned Grim Reaper winning the Indy 500 on foot.
• Back from the Dead: Evil Robot Bill & Ted kill the originals, but they eventually come back to life after beating Death in a number of board games.

• Badass Creed: De Nomolos and his followers have a pretty impressive villainous one: "What is the fuel?" "FEAR!" "What is the engine?" "DISCIPLINE!" "What is the ideal?" "ORDER!" "And how do we achieve it?" "DEATH TO BILL AND TED!"

• Big Red Devil: The duo flag the attention of a gigantic one in Hell who sends them to live their own personal Hells.
• Bound and Gagged: The princesses by the Evil Robot Bill & Ted near the end, along with Unwilling Suspension since they're goign to drop them from the rafters after the show ends.
• Burger Fool: Off-screen, Bill and Ted work for "Pretzels and Cheese" in order to support the band.
• Butt-Monkey: Death of all people. He is repeatedly humiliated, first when Bill and Ted wedgie him to escape. Then he undergoes a series of embarrassing defeats at board games, is forced to appear before God in drag, suffers repeated comedic injuries on Earth, and finally he can't even catch a break when he becomes part of the band that saves the world. His solo albums fail spectacularly, and was also part of a lip-sync scandal. At least he won the Indianapolis 500.
• Call-Back:
  • The time machine arrives outside the Circle K, as in the first film, though without any particular reason this time (indeed, it's a different Circle K).
  • Bill and Ted initially assume that the robots are future versions of themselves, referencing when they crossed paths with themselves in the first film.
  • After Missy divorces Bill's father and marries Ted's, Bill can't think of anything to say, so he just repeats his Running Gag "Shut up, Ted" line from the first movie.
  • Bill calls the evil robots dickweeds for killing them, referencing when Bill called a knight a "medieval dickweed" for apparently killing Ted.
  • When Bill and Ted try to plead for their lives and tell the evil robots that they love them, the robots call them "fags," a callback to the first film, when Bill and Ted embrace, then call each other "fag."
  • The boys again quote metal lyrics when asked to say something profound.
  • When the camera pans down from the Builder's Emporium sign, you can see a sign further down for Oshman's Sporting Goods- the store that Genghis Khan "totally ravaged" at the mall in the first movie.
  • The climax is again resolved by planning to go back in time to set things up after the climax is resolved.
• The Cameo: A number of musicians have cameos, including the members of Primus as themselves, "Big" Jim Martin of Faith No More playing himself ^Etc. referred to as "Sir James Martin of the Faith No More Spiritual and Theological centre", and bluesman Taj Mahal as heaven's gatekeeper.
• Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven: When Bill, Ted, and Death go to heaven to meet the universe's greatest inventor, they find Confucius, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and George Washington playing charades with Station. Someone can also be heard asking "Marilyn" how she got into show business.
• Chess with Death: Parodied by having Bill and Ted best Death in a number of modern party and board games until he finally admits defeat.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: When made to believe that the princesses have broken up with them, Bill describes the situation as "non-non-heinous", i.e., heinous. He later calls his personal hell "non-non-non-non-heinous" which, yes, still adds up to heinous.
• Counter Zany: "How do we defeat evil robot usses?" "By building good robot usses to fight them!"
• Covers Always Lie: Parodied when Bill and Ted complain that rock albums inaccurately portrayed Hell. "We got totally lied to by our album covers, man."
• Creation Sequence: Station assembles the Good Robot Usses in the back of a moving van.
• Creative Closing Credits: The end credits resolve the story, showing their rise to fame, and ending with the band heading off to perform on Mars.
  • The credits describe the crew as "awesome", "bodacious", etc.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon appear as the two male members of the seance.
  • Director Peter Hewitt appears as the smoker at the hardware shop whom Death talks to.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: Subverted, as we learn that not everyone is happy to live in a future founded by a pair of hard rockers.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The "Good Robot Usses" created by Station own the "Bad Robot Usses" created by Chuck De Nomolos. They uppercut their heads off their bodies, and a follow-up punch to the torso causes them to explode. Surprisingly the Bad Robot Usses are perfectly ok with this.
  Evil Ted: Dude, we may have met our match!
  Evil Bill: Kudos to you, good human usses!
• Darker and Edgier: As is evident by the titles. Whilst Excellent Adventure is a feel-good romp, Bogus Journey has the title characters a) facing robot terrorists from the future and b) dying and going to hell, even if it is still played for laughs and they get better eventually.
• Death Is Gray: After Bill and Ted are thrown off a cliff by their evil robot twins, they appear as ghosts with gray skin.
• Defeat Means Friendship: After having lost every game to Bill and Ted, Death becomes their ally who also has to obey their orders.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Despite having a number of lines in the first film, Bill's dad only has a single reaction shot in which he looks forlornly at Missy.
  • Ted's little brother Deacon had a substantial sideplot in the first film, but never shows up in the sequel. He's acknowledged only in Ted's personal Hell, when Ted steals an Easter basket with Deacon's name on it.
• Deliberately Monochrome:
  • Bill & Ted in between the time they die and go to Hell. At times you can tell they're just wearing grey paint and greyscale versions of their clothing.
  • Also with Colonel Oats in hell.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?:
  • It turns out that Death is actually a pretty nice guy once you get to know him, and the climax of the movie has him joining Bill and Ted's band.
  • Bill and Ted also have a rather casual conversation with God just before returning to the living world.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Bill & Ted are cast into an underground maze of doors containing their worst fears by the Devil, Ted is unimpressed by the big guy's taunts...
  The Devil: Choose your eternity! (evil laugh)
  Dead Ted: Choose your own, you FAG!!
  The Devil: (angry roar)
  (Ted is sent flying into a wall)
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: "I can't believe we Melvined Death!" (high five)
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: De Nomolos commandeers the world's televisions to deliver his evil speech.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Bad attitude? Yes! Evil? No! Combines with Waxing Lyrical after the two beat Death and he has to lead them to Heaven.
  Dead Bill: Hey, Ted — Don't Fear the Reaper!
  Death: I heard that!
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Colonel Oats, the head and namesake of Oats Military Academy where Ted's dad is threatening to send him in the first movie. He's only mentioned in the first film; we first meet him in the sequel at a party and he's still offering a place for Ted at the academy. However, when the duo goes to hell, the first punishment they go through is being at military school where he's this trope in full force and demands that they "get down and give me infinity". Then again, they are in HELL...
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Mocked when Bill and Ted ask God for help in protecting their girlfriends, and are sent to meet the smartest man in the universe... who turns out to be two squat, large-nosed Martians. Or one big one, depending...
  Death: Did you assume that the most brilliant scientist in the entire universe would be from Earth?
• Embarrassing First Name: At the end of the film, De Nomolos' first name is revealed as "Chuck". Which isn't really that bad a name, unless you're trying to be an Evil Overlord.
• Evil Knockoff: The duo's evil robot duplicates from the future.
• Evil Mentor: Subverted with De Nomolos, although the viewers are meant to think he was this to Rufus for most of the film. Rufus calls him "my old teacher" in the opening scene and the villain responds by calling him "my favorite pupil." Rufus later explains at the end of the film that De Nomolos was actually his old gym teacher.
• Evil Wears Black: De Nomolos and his soldiers all wear black.
• Exact Words: Just before using the Good Robot Usses to destroy the Evil Robot Usses, the real Bill & Ted say to the ERU's "Catch YOU later Bill and Ted!" The GRU's knock the ERU's heads off, and Bill and Ted catch them a few moments later.
• Exposed Extraterrestrials: Station. He even provides the page image. His nudity gets Lampshaded when the boys comment on his butt.
• Faint in Shock: The princesses reaction when Evil Bill & Ted reveal that they're robots.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional: Rufus introduces some guest speakers from the past to his students: Johann Sebastian Bach, Jim Martin and Ria Paschelle, a woman from the 23rd century who invented the statiophonicoxygeneticamplifiagraphiphonideliverberator.
• Fantastic Time Management: How Bill and Ted actually end up learning to play.
• Field Trip to the Past: Literally, after introducing guest speakers from the past, Rufus reminds the class about an upcoming field trip to Babylonia.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: This is how hell appears when they first arrive: breaking rocks eternally under the watchful eye of Satan, as well as a chamber filled with many forms of Ironic Hell.
• Flowery Insults: Colonel Oats throws some fairly bizarre ones at them in hell.
  "You petty, base, bully-bullocked bugger billies!"
  "You're not strong, you're silky boys! Silk comes from the butts of Chinese worms."
  "I'll eat you up like the warm, toasty little buttercakes you are!"
  "You two-toed, no-nosed salamanders!"
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Well, more "Plastic Fluorescent-Backlit Clouds" Heaven, which the duo describe as "most atypical".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Some of the magazines and newspapers that appear detailing Would Stallyns' career in the credits are dated 2691. Maybe they get reprinted in the future.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: De Nomolos apparently went from a gym teacher to a terrorist leader and would-be world-conqueror, who planned to alter history so that the future would match his own - likely dystopian - political structure. A pretty big jump.
• Funny Background Event:
  • At the Builder's Emporium, Death tells a smoker "See you real soon". After he passes by, you can see the smoker (played by the director) do a Double Take and quickly stub out his cigarette.
  • The bizarre costumes of the people in heaven are often jokes in themselves, including one man who walks around heaven in a boxing outfit.
• Fusion Dance: The Stations can body-slam each other to form a larger, muscular STATION.
• Future Me Scares Me: Sort of. The duo quickly become afraid of what they think are their future selves, before it's revealed that they're actually evil robot doubles.
• Future Slang: "Station" is used as both a greeting and a positive adjective (in the fashion of "awesome"). Though at the concert at the end of the film, Ted says it can mean anything.
• God: Appears as a bright light in a roughly anthropoid shape who says very little.
• God Is Good: When Bill and Ted ask for help, he directs them to Station without question, even after they admit to mugging three people who had just ascended to heaven for their clothes.
• Graceful Loser: Evil Bill and Evil Ted of all people, when the Good Robot Usses charge them in the climactic concert. Not only do they congratulate the originals, but they seemingly concede defeat by tilting their heads back to give the Good Robots a better target.
  Evil Ted: Dude, we may have met our match!
  Evil Bill: Kudos to you, good human usses!
  Evil Bill and Evil Ted: Catch you later, Bill and Ted!!
  Bill and Ted: Catch you later, Bill and Ted!!
  (Good Robot Usses punch heads off Evil Robot Usses)
• The Grim Reaper: Starts off as a minor antagonist, but soon joins the guys. Later wins the Indy 500 on foot and gets caught in a lip-syncing scandal.
• Groin Attack: Variant: Bill and Ted use a Melvin, a front-side wedgie, on The Grim Reaper. Later the Reaper does it to De Nomolos.
• Happily Ever After: The end credits of the film feature a montage of newspaper headlines chronicling Bill & Ted's rise to fame and their music bringing about world peace and a new scientific renaissance while playing the song "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" by KISS. It's a very happy ending.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • In the future, Rufus brings Johann Sebastian Bach to his class.
  • In heaven, there are various historical personages, including Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.
• Hollywood Board Games: Death is such a Sore Loser that he keeps asking the boys for rematches and when that doesn't work, asks to play another board game. They go from Cluedo to Battleship to Twister.
• Homage: The second movie parodies the Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal where a Knight plays chess with the Grim Reaper for his soul. Bill and Ted play him with classic board games and Twister.
• Homemade Inventions: The Good Robot Usses.
• How Many Fingers?: Parodied when Ted asks his evil robot how many fingers he's about to hold up. When the robot announces "three," Ted indeed holds up three fingers. The comedy is whether Ted only held up three fingers because the robot said so.
• Hypocritical Humor: Death tries his hand at guessing the movie that Station is miming and offers Butch and Sundance: The Early Years. He's scolded by Bill and Ted, presumably for guessing such an obscure and bad film. However, the correct answer turns out to be Smokey and the Bandit 3, another obscure, poorly received sequel in which the two main characters are replaced by other actors.
• I Fell for Hours:
  • Bill and Ted's long fall to Hell, which takes so long they begin playing "20 Questions" to pass the time. To be fair, it was a pretty short game:
    Dead Bill: Hey, you wanna play Twenty Questions?
    Dead Ted: Okay! I got one!
    Dead Bill: Are you a mineral?
    Dead Ted: Yeah!
    Dead Bill: Are you a tank?
    Dead Ted: Whoa! Yeah!
  • When this film airs on television, a commercial break is often placed in the middle of this scene, which probably makes the whole gag funnier.
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff
  Dead Bill: Ted.
  Dead Ted: Yeah?
  Dead Bill: If I die, you can have my Megadeth collection.
  Dead Ted: But, dude, we're already dead.
  Dead Bill: Oh. Well then they're yours, dude!
• Ironic Echo: "Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!" First by the Evil Robots to Bill and Ted, then by Bill and Ted to the Evil Robots. Both times, the party spoken to is about to die.
• Ironic Hell: Both boys experience this after passing through Fire and Brimstone Hell for a bit.
• It's Been Done: The plot is a blend of Terminator and, of all things, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park - which featured KISS battling Evil Robot KISS. Seriously.
• Kick the Dog: Evil Bill and Ted repeatedly try to kill animals. The Evil Robots' groping of the heroes' (rather chaste) princess girlfriends also counts in various ways.
• Kill and Replace: Evil Robot Bill & Ted are programmed to murder the originals, wreck their relationships, and ruin their performance at the battle of the bands. They even succeed, up to a point.
• Kirk's Rock: Lampshaded: Just before the boys meet the Evil Robots, they're watching that particular episode of Star Trek on TV. When the Evil Usses drag the boys up to the rock to kill them, we even get a recreation of the dramatic zoom out from Trek.
• Knight of Cerebus: The humor tones down a bit whenever De Nomolos appears. He's very straightforward and serious, though he ends up being not much of a threat in the end.
• Larynx Dissonance: Evil Bill changes his voice to one of the medieval babes to give Bill and Ted a fake breakup call, in order to lead them into the trap where they will be killed.
• LOL, 69: Bill & Ted have crossed out the number on their apartment door and spray-painted a large "69" next to it.
• Losing Your Head: The Evil Usses' version of basketball. They end up losing their heads for good thanks to the Good Robot Usses.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Chuck De Nomolos' motive.
• Manly Facial Hair: Bill develops a beard during his and Ted's 16 months of training as a way of showing how much they have toughened up, although the newspaper photos indicate he shaves it off later.
• May–December Romance: Missy and Ted's father, who's even older than Bill's father from the first movie. And then she hooks up with Chuck De Nomolos at the end of that movie. The girl Really Gets Around.
• Meaningful Name: Ms. Wardroe is actually a disguise of Rufus's.
• Men Can't Keep House: Bill and Ted's apartment is a showcase of this trope.
• Mirror Match: The Evil Robot Bill and Ted vs. the Good Robot Usses.
• Monochrome Apparition: When Bill and Ted are dead, they're grayish-blue.
• Mugged for Disguise: Bill and Ted do this to people in heaven!
• Next Sunday A.D.;
  • Ted mentions the princesses are celebrating their fifth year in the 20th century. They arrived in the first movie which was set in 1988 so Bogus Journey must be set in 1993 when it was released in 1991.
  • The Great Leader's comment in Bill & Ted Face the Music about the concert happening 25 years ago would put Bogus Journey as happening in 1995.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ties in with the Stable Time Loop. Chuck De Nomolos decides to broadcast his defeat of Bill and Ted live to the world. After he's defeated, this only ensures that Bill and Ted broadcast their first performance live all over the world, hence beginning the cycle of their music creating the future Utopia.
• Obvious Stunt Double: At one point in Bill and Ted's apartment, Alex Winter steps off his mark and reveals the face of Keanu Reeves' body double.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Rufus mentions to the protagonists that De Nomolos was the sit-up champion of the 27th Century. At least that seems to be a compliment, it might have been meant as a goofy version of How the Mighty Have Fallen.
• Orifice Invasion: Played for Laughs when Bill and Ted's ghosts try possessing two men. They squeeze in through the ears.
  "I totally possessed my dad!"
• Overly Long Gag: When they get sent to hell.
  "Dude, this is a totally deep hole."
• Overly Long Scream: Bill and Ted fall down a pit to hell, screaming the whole way, but the pit is so deep that they eventually get tired of repeatedly screaming and start playing 20 Questions.
• Our Founder: Bill and Ted, in the future.
• Out-Gambitted: The climax of the film. Both sides' plans rely on the premise that they won the current battle in the present, which would allow them to manipulate time afterwards and rig the battle in the present to their favor. "The future belongs to the winner."
• Outside-Context Problem: No one, least of all Bill and Ted themselves, saw evil duplicates of themselves coming back to kill them, under orders from an attempted revolutionary with plans to turn the future Earth into a dystopia. But in turn, Evil B&T and De Nomolos likely didn't forsee B&T allying with the Grim Reaper and a duo of Martians to stop them, and constructing good robotic duplicates to defeat the evil ones.
• Perfect Pacifist People: Bill and Ted's future society appears to be one of these.
• Pokémon Speak: The Stations use the word "Station" for everything.
• The Power of Rock: Exaggerated, as the effects of Wyld Stallyns' music are shown via a newspaper montage at the end of the film (set to KISS's "God Gave Rock 'n Roll To You"):
  Wyld Stallyns Tour Midwest; Crop Growth Up 30%
  Bill & Ted Tour Mideast; Peace Achieved
  Stallyns Use World Nuclear Arsenal to Fuel Amplifiers
  Air Guitar Found to Eliminate Smog
  Bill & Ted Named Sportsmen of the Decade
  Rumored W.S. Split; DOW Drops 600 Points
  W.S. Split A Hoax - DOW To Record High
  Bill and Ted: The Movie
  Wyld Stallyns to Play Mars - "Station!"
• Product Placement:
  • The patio table at the princesses' birthday is littered with Pepsi cans. They also hold Pepsi cans in the previous scene.
  • An Establishing Shot lingers on the Builder's Emporium sign to make sure you know exactly which hardware store Bill and Ted frequent. Sadly, Builder's Emporium folded two years after the film released.
• Profound by Pop Song: Bill, Ted and Death try and get into Heaven and are asked to answer what the meaning of life is for entry. They answer by quoting "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison and it works!
• Really Gets Around: Missy was married to Bill's dad in the first film, but has left him and married Ted's dad by the sequel. She also flirts with Col. Oats, and the end credits reveal that she has left Ted's dad for Chuck De Nomolos.
• Retroactive Preparation: B&T manage to turn this trope into a martial art during the showdown with De Nomolos.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: The Evil Robot Bill and Ted, who can apparently get "full-on robot chubb[ies]" from looking at a picture of the guys' girlfriends.
• Robotic Reveal: Bill punching his robotic evil twin.
  "Oww! You're metal, dude!"
• Robot Me: There are Bill and Ted's evil robot copies from the future, and then Station improvises another robot Bill and Ted to counter them.
• Rule of Funny: The movie runs on this. Bill growing a ZZ Top beard in 16 months is the least implausible joke in the film.
• San Dimas Time: Interestingly, the sequel seems to throw this out by allowing Bill and Ted to spend 16 months to get guitar lessons, then return to the present to win the concert. One might assume that they have to jump 16 months into the future after they win the concert, but the news articles that display over the credits don't suggest that they vanished for 16 months after their first performance.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Chuck De Nomolos is this for writer Ed Solomon.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: Additionally, the exorcism chant is "Ed and Chris [Matheson, Solomon's co-writer] will rule the world", spoken backwards: D'lrow eht elur l'liw sirhc d'na de.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Death subplot is a direct parody of Death from The Seventh Seal.
  • Bill and Ted watch the "Arena" episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, featuring Kirk's Rock. They are then taken to Kirk's Rock to be killed by the evil robots.
  • Ted possesses his father, "Like from The Exorcist 1 and 3."
  • The boys quote Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" when asked the meaning of life.
  • Les Claypool of Primus wears a The Residents shirt onstage.
  • Station is playing charades and miming the film Smokey and the Bandit 3. Death guesses "Butch and Sundance: The Early Years."
  • Bill's waist-length beard in the very end is obviously a nod to ZZ Top.
• Something That Begins with "Boring": Bill and Ted play 20 Questions while falling into Hell and waiting to land.
• Sore Loser: The Grim Reaper when he initially loses. It take several losses to the boys for him to finally give in to their demands.
• Spinning Paper: Seen during the end credits.
• Squick: An in-universe example: Death gets jealous of all the praise Station is getting and starts fishing for compliments. When Ted says Station has "an excellently huge Martian butt", Death says, "Don't overlook my butt. I work out all the time. Reaping burns a lot of calories." Bill and Ted visibly shudder at this.
• Stable Time Loop: Chuck De Nomolos is basically responsible for Wyld Stallyns' world fame, broadcasting their Battle of the Bands appearance to the world by accident in his attempt to Take Over the World. Also used tactically in the fight.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Station, despite his (their?) goofy appearance.
• Tagline: "Once... They Made history. Now... They Are History."
• Technology Porn: Station's assembly of the Good Robot Usses is a Homemade Inventions version of this trope.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Despite his Butt-Monkey status, Death finds himself enjoying the company of Bill and Ted and being part of the band. Given that much of his grim nature appears to cover up severe insecurity and loneliness, Bill and Ted are probably the first friends he'd ever had. Also, it's shown during the news montage that he managed to win the Indianapolis 500 on foot. His response? "I didn't know I could run that fast."
• Time-Passage Beard: Bill and Ted have beards after returning from a 16-month guitar training sabbatical. Bill somehow managed to grow a ZZ Top beard in that time.
• To Hell and Back
• Took a Level in Badass: At the end of the movie, Bill and Ted use the time machine to take 16 months of intensive guitar training, going from being bad on a horrendous level to astonishingly good. Not to mention using and exploiting the Retroactive Preparation trope to its' fullest extent to stop De Nomolos.
• Treacherous Advisor: Parodied. Early on, Chuck De Nomolos is recognized by Rufus and calls him his old teacher. Turns out, he was a gym teacher.
• Trust Password: Double subverted; when the heroes' Evil Twins arrive, Ted is suspicious, but Bill convinces him to trust them. Then Ted trusts his robot counterpart after it passes a How Many Fingers? test.
• Unfolding Plan Montage: The main characters face off against the Big Bad, each telling their plans and how they enacted them, resulting in weirdness out-of-flashback as Bill, Ted, and De Nomolos, all have time travel devices.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting: Bill and Ted are treated to this when they wake up in the afterlife, and later when they're in Death's chamber playing his games.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody seems to find it odd when Station and the Grim Reaper are wandering through Builder's Emporium.
• Uranus Is Showing: Bill and Ted say they admire Uranus when complimenting God, then chuckle.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Even in a Darker and Edgier movie played for laughs, De Nomolos is far more evil than something you'd expect from it. (He has a little humor potential, but it's all Black Humor.)
• Visual Pun: Bill and Ted echo back "Catch ya later, Bill and Ted!" to the Evil Robot Usses... and a few seconds later, do in fact catch the robots' flying heads.
• Wedgie: The characters give The Grim Reaper one.
• The Whole World Is Watching: The villain De Nomolos causes all the world's channels to watch his New Era Speech, but Bill and Ted are able to defeat him and then their future selves play their music for all the world to see, which makes them internationally famous. Nice Job Fixing It, Villain
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Averted in the comic and novel adaptation. Rather than the Xanatos Speed Chess battle with DeNomolos, the boys simply find the Self-Destruct Mechanism in Evil Robot B&T's heads and throw them to DeNomolos, killing him.
• Writers Cannot Do Math;
  • The Next Sunday A.D. example above implies the movie is set in 1993. The newspaper and magazine articles that appear over the credits are mostly dated as the year of release, 1991. Some are dated 2691 but they're presumably future reprints.
  • To make it more confusing, in Bill & Ted Face the Music (released and set in 2020) has the Great Leader saying the concert happened 25 years ago. Implying that Bogus Journey takes place in 1995.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: The final confrontation between Bill and Ted and DeNomolos.
• You Already Changed the Past: The entire climax is Bill, Ted, and Chuck De Nomolos performing dueling versions of this. Except that, as Bill points out, only the winner can change history, so all the things the villain thought he planted were just decoys B&T placed to lull him into a false sense of security.

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