The 1991/1992 Primetime TV Season: 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures'

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In the summer of 1992, having your TV series debut in late June was not exactly a vote of confidence from the network about the viability of the show. This was still the era of summer burn-offs and despite the fact that it was based on a hit movie, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures only aired seven episodes on Fox before it was canceled in early August.

The success of the 1989 movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure spawned related merchandise, a follow-up movie and a 1990 animated series with the same name that ran for two seasons. Season one was produced by Hanna Barbara and aired Saturday mornings on CBS. Bill & Ted stars Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin voiced the show during its premiere season, but for season two, the show moved to Fox Kids and changed production companies. The voices changed as well, with Reeves and Winter being replaced by Evan Richards and Christopher Kennedy, who were also tasked with starring in a planned live Fox TV series that was originally planned to premiere early in the 1991/1992 primetime season.

But there were problems, in part because Fox executives struggled to find a premise they liked. The original movie was written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon and they were briefly spoken to about the proposed series. But as Solomon recently told me, the network apparently didn't have much interest in hearing any pitch from the duo.

"We met with Fox but they never wanted us. Ever," explained Solomon. "They wanted Savage Steve Holland, who was hot at the time. And Darren Star (Beverly Hills 90210). So we never pitched. We just had one lunch where all I remember is saying 'well you obviously don’t want blah blah blah (can’t recall)' and they said 'yes! That’s exactly what we want!' They used that meeting as their obligatory meeting with us and we never heard from them again. I watched five minutes of the first show and never watched any more. It was a heartbreak. They completely - absolutely - misunderstood the characters from the core."

While I wasn't able to speak to either Holland or Star, the duo was signed to do a series pilot, with a story by Savage Steve Holland & Darren Star and a teleplay by Star. Directed by Andy Tennant, the pilot comes across like a bad tribute to "Porky's," albeit without the grossness or the wit. It's not clear now precisely what happened, but Clifton Campbell was brought in to run the show.

In this 1992 interview with Starlog Magazine, Campbell explained that there were some problems that held up the production of the series and he also rewrote history a bit:

In the interview, Campbell also said he tweaked the premise of the movie to make it better fit a television series format:

While Campbell admitted that some episodes were better than others, he said his favorite was an episode entitled "Totally Wonderful Life" (the episode is posted below) and looking at the episode in 2021, it's an interesting alternative look (although a pretty painful one to watch) at the future grown-up lives of Bill & Ted, which was also the starting off point for the 2020 feature film Bill & Ted Face The Music, written by Matheson and Solomon:

In that episode, Rufus awakens from a nightmare in which something has gone terribly wrong. He time-travels back to find that Bill and Ted have messed up. and the result is that Ted's father separates them permanently. Rufus returns to an awful future stemming from that past separation. He once again returns to the past, specifically six years after the separation, and witnesses Bill and Ted attempting to live their lives on their own.

Looking at the episodes now, it's easy to see why the network didn't have a lot of faith in the series. Evan Richards (as Bill S. Preston Esq.) and Christopher Kennedy (Ted Logan) are workmanlike as Bill & Ted, but they come off more as actors doing Bill & Ted cosplay. They kinda look like Reeves and Winter and thanks to the animated series were familiar with the roles. Although watching the episodes, I'm not sure that's enough to make it work. And while Rick Overton was a funny stand-up, being cast as Rufus - a role played by George Carlin in the films - borders on a crime against nature.

But the biggest problem with the show is that it completely misunderstands what made the movies so delightful. It isn't just that the characters in the TV series are different than the ones seen in the movies. It's that they are altered in a way that is different and also less interesting. A creative decision which ultimately didn't please anyone.

Maybe the most interesting thing about the show is the quality of people working behind the cameras. Clifton Campbell had previously worked on Wiseguy and went on to work on Seaquest 2032, Profiler, White Collar, The Glades and Sleepy Hollow. David Nutter (The X-Files, Entourage, Game Of Thrones) directed two episodes. Joel Surnow (24, Le Femme Nikita, The Commish) wrote an episode and was a co-executive producer on the show. Clearly, the staff had lots of talent, but Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures is one of those ideas that doesn't seem to have real reason to exist other than its connection to the movie franchise. And without the familiar cast and original creative vision, not all of the raw talent in the world could have made the show a hit.