Trivia / Bill & Ted

• Cast the Runner-Up: Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves auditioned for each-other's roles. According to Winter, Reeves was initially disappointed to not have won the part he auditioned for until Winter reminded him that the parts are essentially identical.
• The Character Died with Him: Rufus is implied to have died at some point between Bogus Journey and Face the Music, due to George Carlin passing away in 2008.
• Fake American: Bill and Ted are technically All-American dudes, but neither actor is American-born. Keanu Reeves is a Canadian of mixed race^note his mother is English and his father is an American of Native Hawaiian, Chinese, English, Irish and Portuguese descent and Alex Winter is British-American.
• I Am Not Spock: Averted with Keanu Reeves, Played Straight with Alex Winter.
• Orphaned Reference:
  • Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was originally going to have a random medieval guy called John The Serf played by James Bowbitch tag along with the historical characters. He was cut from the movie but was still listed in the credits.
  • In Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the Evil Bill and Ted say "Good luck getting to the concert!" to the originals; while it comes off as petty mockery, in the original script they actually followed up on it by siccing real-world versions of Bill and Ted's Ironic Hells (the Easter Bunny, Bill's grandmother, and Colonel Oates) on the boys to try and stop them. This scene still occurs in the novelization and the comic book adaptation of the film.
• The Other Darrin: The princesses are played by different actresses in all three movies.
• The Pete Best: There was originally a third guy called Bob in the original Bill, Ted and Bob improv sketch, but the comedian who played him lost interest.
• Prop Recycling: A planned, but unreleased taking band car toy from the Kenner toyline was actually a repainted KITT!
  • Insofar as a gimmick can be recycled without any actual parts being recycled, the Kenner figures' "squeeze the legs to activate features" gimmick was clearly copied from Kenner's earlier Super Powers Collection line.
• Saved from Development Hell: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter spent years saying that they were eager and willing to make a third film. A screenplay was completed and went through several rounds of rewrites, and there was a production company willing to front at least part of the budget. Unfortunately, none of these were with the company that owns the actual rights to the franchise and everything kept hitting a roadblock over who pays for what and gets how much of the resulting pie. Fortunately, it was announced on May 8, 2018 that the third film was finally in pre-production, and filming got underway a year later after Reeves was able to clear his schedule. The film finally arrived via video-on-demand on August 28, 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic scuttled an initial planned theatrical release.
• Sequel Gap: A 29 year gulf between Bogus Journey and Face the Music. Reflected in-universe with the characters being in their fifties during the film.

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