When I heard a rumor going around that Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure was 25 years old, I was like, “No way!” So I asked the internet and it was, like, “Yes way! The now-classic film that helped shaped some of your more formative years is totally 25 years old.
After which I was like, “Whoa, internet! I feel old!” (Or in the immortal words of Ted “Theodore” Logan, “I believe our adventure through time has taken a most serious turn.”)
GIFs via Gipphy
So of course it made sense for me to re-watch the most excellent of adventures (thank you, Netflix), reconnect with my all-too-distant youth and reflect on the incredible staying power of some the film’s most memorable catchphrases.
Here are five excellent Bill and Ted phrases you can (and should) apply to everyday scenarios.
Bodacious!
When’s the last time you looked around your most excellent life, admired how lucky you are to just be alive on this incredible planet called Earth and let slip a breathless, “This is going to be a most bodacious day!”
Never?
Really?
Whoa.. Well, that’s kind of…
I mean, we’ve got to change that.
Bill and Ted are nothing if not thunderously impressed by the human experience. They feel things with admirable enthusiasm and you should, too. And you should begin by starting your days with a little bodacious gratitude every morning. You’ll be amazed at how much better those 90-minute commutes to work become when you spend the drive thinking bodacious thoughts rather than negative ones.
Save your rage for only the most medieval of dickweeds
There is definitely an art to the skillful application of strangely specific film-sourced insults. Time such an insult wrong, or deliver it to the wrong crowd and all the anticipation you’ve built up around it can crush your creative rage-filled soul. Allow me, then, to demonstrate the effectiveness of including “medieval dickweed” in your special occasion insult library, with the following totally hypothetical scenario.
Let’s say you are standing in line at Starbucks, engrossed in obsessively checking your email like a normal human being, when the Luddite behind you gives your shoulder an unnecessarily aggressive tap before exasperatingly (and loudly) proclaiming, “It’s your turn!” You smile, stow your phone and turn to the barista to order your pumpkin-spiced latte, but not before catching this 30-something behind you throwing unwarranted shade at your manner-less, tech-obsessed behavior.
What better time to proclaim this mumbler a medieval dickweed, causing within their brain a series of chain reactions that cause him/her to recall the teachings of Bill and Ted, reconnect with their now-distant youth and immediately feel grossly ashamed that in the 25 years since they saw the movie, they have turned into an over-reactive jerk who unjustly condemns people for the most minor of offenses.
Boom. Drop the mic. You feel better now, don’t you?
Party on, dudes!
This one is so obvs, it hurts. I mean, life is a party, so why not party on? Bill and Ted never let adversity get in the way of living life to the fullest, so why should we? So what if you’re failing history? So what if your guitar just broke? So what if you don’t even know how to play the guitar in the first place? Don’t feel dejected. Stay calm, and party on.
Be excellent to each other
If you learn just one thing from Bill and Ted, learn this:
That’s right, it really can be this simple. That whole do unto others as you’d have done to you business? It’s right on the money. If we were all a little more excellent to each other, there’d be no need to lash out at one another at Starbucks, no need to get snippy when things don’t go our way… we’d just all be excellent to each other and that excellence would breed more excellence, and pretty soon it would be 2688 and we’d all be partying on forever in awesome high-collared silver robes like these guys:
Photo credit: MGM
So, in closing, I’d just like to say that, 25 years after Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, even if things aren’t yet universally excellent, there is still much to be learned from the Excellent Ones. Because, while “everything is different, it is also the same. Things are more moderner than before — bigger, and yet smaller… It’s computers [and Facebook] and… well… San Dimas high school football rules!”
Before you go, click here to see which shows you should be watching right now.
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