Funny / Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

• The classroom session:
  Mr. Ryan: Bill, I'm waiting.
  Bill: (Beat) He's dead?
  Mr. Ryan: So Bill, what you're telling me, essentially, is that Napoleon was a short, dead, dude?
  Bill: Well, yeah.
  [...]
  Mr. Ryan: (to Ted) Now, who was Joan of Arc?
  Ted: (Beat) Noah's wife?
  [...]
  Bill: Mr. Ryan, before you say anything, my distinguished colleague, Ted, and I wish to express to you our thanks, for all the things we have learned in your class.
  Mr. Ryan: And what have you learned?
  Bill: (Beat) We have, uh... we've learned that the world has a great history.
  Ted: Yes! And that, thanks to great leaders such as... (looks at some of the names written on Mr. Ryan's chalkboard) Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, and Socratic Method, the world is full of history.
  Mr. Ryan: It seems to me the only thing you have learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
  • What caps it off is Ted's later question: "Well, then, who is Noah's wife?"
• Bill and Ted's roundabout conversation at the beginning.
  Bill: Ted, while I agree that in time our band will be most triumphant, Wyld Stallyns will never be a super band until we have Eddie van Halen on guitar.
  Ted: But Bill... I do not believe we will get Eddie van Halen until we have a triumphant video.
  Bill: Ted, it's pointless to have a triumphant video before we even have decent instruments.
  Ted: Well, how are we gonna get decent instruments when we don't even really know how to play?
  Bill: That is why we need Eddie van Halen.
  Ted: And that is why we need a triumphant video!
  Both: (Beat) Excellent! (air guitar)
• In a last-ditch effort to get caught up on their report, Bill and Ted go around asking a bunch of random strangers questions about world history while hanging out at a convenience store, at which point Rufus shows up to get the two started on their time-travelling adventure, leading to this exchange:
  Rufus: Greetings, my excellent friends.
  (Beat)
  Ted: (to this strange, sunglasses-wearing man who just dropped out of the sky in a phone booth) Do you know when the Mongols ruled China?
• The entire "Gathering the Troops" (historical figures) montage.
  • Especially Khan and Lincoln.
    Bill: (holds a twinkie out of the time machine, so Genghis Khan can see it) Hey, Genghis Khan... want a Twinkie?
    Genghis (who doesn't speak English, practically dives for the twinkie): RAAARRGH!
  • Bill and Ted "rescuing" Billy the Kid, by hopping into the Time Machine.
    Billy: Where we going?
    Ted: The golden age of civilization.
    Billy: Where?!
  • As for poor Lincoln; he opens a door in the White House, and ends up getting abducted by Genghis Khan.
• "It's the Goodyear Blimp!" That it works on a gang of 19th-century cowpokes isn't half as funny as the fact that our heroes were expecting it to work in the first place.
• Bill and Ted bringing Beethoven with them. They come up to him while he's playing, and when he won't listen to them, they just up and carry him off the piano. He was so distracted, he was playing, well... air piano.^note While it is known that Beethoven had become almost completely deaf towards his final years — he died in 1827 — The Other Wiki points out that he could still hear music normally by 1814, and the film states outright that B&T brought him from 1812. So this can be easily chalked up to distraction, or pure Rule of Funny.
  • Also, Socrates randomly bowing to the nobles before they all leave.
• All the historical figures cleaning house, especially Freud and the vacuum cleaner.
  • Complete with the fake aliases. "Bob Genghis Khan" may be the funniest phrase ever said on film.
    • They can't think of an alias for Lincoln, so they just use his real name.
  • Not to mention the historical figures running amok at the mall. Especially Joan of Arc's jazzercise session and Genghis Khan's sporting-goods rampage.
  • And Billy the Kid starts shooting up the shopping mall he and the others are hanging out at, just for the fun of it. Quickly followed by Socrates, joyfully trying to imitate him with a little dart gun.
    Billy: Yee ha! (fires a shot into the air and runs off)
    Socrates: Yee ha! (fires a toy shot into the air and gives chase)
    • Socrates carries a lethal squirt gun.
  • Billy the Kid and Socrates hitting on women and Freud tries to butt in. He is then called a geek.
    • Freud is holding a corn dog while they're conversing with the girls. He lowers it when the girls start laughing at them.
      Freud: What is a geek?
  • Genghis, Billy the Kid, and Socrates, while running from the mall security, end up on an ice rink. Cue three historical figures, two of which are infamous fighters, face-planting into the ice.
    Genghis and Billy: (attempting to stand up on the ice and realizing they are surrounded by mall security) Bogus!
• The historical figures' time in jail.
  • Sigmund Freud vs. the police examiner:
  Interrogator: Look, I want to know why you claim to be Sigmund Freud.
  Freud: Why do you claim I'm not Sigmund Freud?
  Interrogator: (aggravated) Why do you keep asking me these questions?
  Freud: (leans forward) Tell me about your mother.
  Camera shifts elsewhere.
  Freud: Would you like a couch to lie on?
  Interrogator: (leaves in frustration) No, I do not want a couch to lie on!
  • There's something hilarious about Joan of Arc's casually matter-of-fact reaction to the jailbreak. She's shown quietly praying, with soft music — and then Bill and Ted abruptly show up, and, displaying no apparent surprise, Joan glances up, sketches the sign of the cross, and offers God a quick "Merci!" in a tone of voice that would be appropriate for thanking someone who tossed her a pen or told her the date.
• Napoleon being turned loose in a bowling alley and a water park. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Napoleon wears the Ziggy Piggy Badge right next to his Cross and Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour medal. He obviously thinks his ice cream eating feat deserves equal billing as his exploits as a conqueror.
  • "You DITCHED Napoleon?!"
    • "He was a dick!"
• Bill and Ted facing the "Royal Ugly Dudes" in medieval England.
  Royal Ugly Dude: Put them in the iron maiden.
  (the Princesses gasp)
  Bill and Ted: Iron Maiden? Excellent! (they do an air guitar riff)
  Royal Ugly Dude: Execute them!
  Bill and Ted: Bogus...
• The historical figures' oral presentation. Most notably, Ted calls out Napoleon's strategy (regarding the use of a "water slide", aka Waterloo)
  • Freud's input in the presentation is to analyze Ted, noting that his father is so hard on him in part due to his own personal anxieties. He offers to do Bill next, who declines.
    Bill: Nah, just got a minor Oedipal complex.
    (Mr. Ryan and Missy exchange looks.)
  • That's something of a Call-Back to an equally funny exchange earlier in the film:
    Ted: Your stepmom's cute.
    Bill: Shut up, Ted.
    Ted: Remember when she was a senior and we were freshmen?
    Bill: Shut up, Ted.
    Ted: Remember when I asked her to the prom?
    Bill: SHUT UP, TED!
• When Future Bill and Ted first land outside the Circle K, you can hear one of them mutter, "Oh, I hate this part" as the phone booth makes a rough landing.
• Bill and Ted distracting Ted's dad by rigging a trash can to drop from the ceiling; written on it is "Wyld Stallyns Rules".
• Some of the greatest people in history doing household chores.
  • If you look closely, Billy the Kid is wearing an apron under his gunbelt.
  • Billy and Joan seem to be flirting as they work (she's even wearing his hat at one point). It's funny to consider one of the craziest psychopaths in history coming on to a literal saint... and not being immediately rejected.
• One of the cavemen somehow manages to get a piece of gum, and is chewing it while they approach the time booth. Then they both run off screaming as it teleports away.
• Bill's reaction to Ted getting seemingly killed.
  Bill: You killed Ted, you medieval dickweed!
• Napoleon's reaction at the bowling alley after he has an Epic Fail of a shot: a Cluster M-Bomb temper tantrum.
  • Also a Freeze-Frame Bonus right before that, when the camera briefly shows the scoreboard: Napoleon's group are on the tenth frame, and his total score is an abysmal 43.
• The movie's final line from Rufus: "They do get better."

---