Title: Bill & Ted’s Most Atypical Move Cards
Publisher: Pro Set
Year: 1991
Details: 10 Triumphant Cards || 1 Contest Scratch-Off Card

So when I had the chance to pick up an unopened pack of “Bill & Ted’s Most Atypical Move Cards,” I didn’t hesitate. Released in 1991, the set features key scenes from both Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (a film that ranks among my earliest remembered theatrical experiences). I got several excellent cards (including two featuring George Carlin), so let’s get to it:

All We Are Is Dust In The Wind, Dude

There’s really not a bad card in the batch (actually, the Lincoln card is a bit boring). And you can tell that whoever wrote the card-back text was a fan of the films (or at least knew how to talk the talk). Just look at Card #44: Rufus drops by to see his excellent friends and brings them a surprise – the babes in savory clothes! I love that someone got paid to sit around and write these things.

My favorite of the ten cards is #94, which includes a “Bill&TedSpeak to English” dictionary. Despite the fact that I haven’t seen these two movies in at least 15 years (I’m well past due to revisit them), reading the “Bill&TedSpeak” list brings back some vivid memories from my youth. If you can read this list without hearing Bill’s & Ted’s voices in your head, you’re a better man than I:

• Loogied – Spit
• Station – Greetings, salutations, yes, of course, where do I sign?, way to go, hallelujah, right on, and (of course) excellent!
• Most Atypical – Incredible, amazing
• Metal Heads – Rockin’ musicians
• The Floppy-Eared, Egg-Dropping, Hippity-Hopping Behemoth – The Easter Bunny
• Reaped – Killed
• The Ugly Red Source of All Evil – The Devil
• Your Royal Deathness – The Grim Reaper
• The Fugue Dude – J.S. Bach
• Beelzebub – The Dude Downstairs
• Miscreant – Loser
• God’s Finest Planet – Uranus
• The Repository of All Earthly Building Materials – Builder’s Emporium
• Phantasmagorical – Spooky

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to work at least one of these phrases into a conversation over the next 24 hours. Report back in the comments on how it goes.

The pack also contained an Instant Win card. The grand prize – a bodacious trip to San Dimas, California – was featured on the front of the pack. Incredibly, the first prize was an entire GTE Telephone Booth. I’d love to find out the story of the kid who won that prize. I know that if I’d had an entire phone booth delivered to my parent’s house, I’d have had a lot of explaining to do.

There also was a sweepstakes you could enter to win props from the movie with “an approximate retail value of $25 (but unknown intrinsic value).” If anyone out there happened to be a sweepstakes winner, please let me know what you won!

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately given that it’d be too late to collect), I didn’t end up with a winner:

Sorry, dude! Try again.

Oh well. It’s still a most atypical set of cards.

I suspect I’m not the only Bill & Ted fan on this blog, so be sure to comment with your favorite Bill & Ted memories. You’ve got a lot to choose from… the characters have been in two movies, and an animated series, a live-action series, a comic series, several video games (NES, Gameboy, Lynx , and a PC game), a cereal, action figures, Playdoh (!), a novelization, an annual Excellent Halloween Adventure live event at Universal Orlando… and that’s just scratching the surface. Check out Bill & Ted dot Org for even more media and non-media tie ins that featured the duo.

Finally, here’s my favorite Bill & Ted clip: Alex and Keanu trying (and mostly failing) to define “bodacious”:

Until next week’s Wax Pack Adventures, be excellent to each other!

Micah :: Reel Distraction