Just about everyone knows about the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I suspect a lot of those people know there was a sequel in the movie theatres, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. And a fraction of those people know about an animated series spin-off that ran for 20 or so episodes. (We’re already in obscure territory at this point. Comics fans may even know about the 12-issue series helmed by Evan Dorkin.)
But even I didn’t know until this week that there was also a live-action tv series that lasted a whopping seven episodes on Fox in 1992. And now that I’ve seen the trailer, I cannot un-watch this nightmare.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a negative 17. I love how the two leads were clearly chosen based on the fact that one of them was be easily given blond curly hair like Alex Winters, while the other one could do a semi-recognizable impersonation of Keanu Reeves’s voice (and had a gnarly wig slapped on his head). There’s even some full clips from actual episodes of the show on YouTube, but I don’t recommend watching them in the same way that I don’t recommend staring directly into the sun. I mean sure, you can do it if you really want, but don’t come crying to me when your retinas are burnt to a crisp.
Then again, it also turns out there was a Benji television spin-off involving a hunt for aliens (no, really) so this clearly is not the most inane movie-to-tv-series decision ever. But it’s still pretty impressive in a bad sort of way.