Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1988)

For the genesis of this cult, I owe a certain debt to the late night ITV American-made programme Cinematractions  for being an early herald of the phenomenon of permanent teenage-inclined humour, popularised and satirised by Mike Myers in Wayne's World, but much more authentically portrayed here by Alex Winter, and Keanu Reeves.

This, for me, is Reeves's defining role and by far his most entertaining. He, as Edward Theodore Logan in his cheerfully non-intellectual way, is perfectly content to carry on playing noisy music and being himself, regardless of his complete lack of musical ability, or that of his chum William S. Preston - played with equal wacko gusto by Alex Winter.

There's a certain innocent charm to this generation of brainless Americans (George Washington - "the dollar bill guy" and "Born on President's Day"). Their happy ignorant bliss however is set to be torn apart due to their (not surprisingly) appalling school grades at history. Their unexpected ally in their quest to pass the subject, and save the future of their band "Wyld Stallion" (and the future of world peace!) comes from left field in the lugubrious figure of Rufus (American stand-up comedian George Carlin), sent as a time guardian from the future in a payphone booth (an obvious nod to Doctor Who's Tardis), giving Bill and Ted this device as their means to abduct various historical figures of note, in order to make this the greatest history report ever told.

The delight of this film is the unabashed way in which it allows historical figures to incorporate themselves into the lunacy without ever really compromising themselves as historical characters - Abraham Lincoln shouting "Party On Dudes!" stretches my imagination personally, but other than that I'm quite convinced by the notion of Genghis Khan rampaging through a department store full of clothes dummies, and of Beethoven jamming to Bon Jovi tunes. The one who seems to enjoy himself most is Napoleon Bonaparte (Terry Camilleri); some stock footage from Waterloo (produced by Executive Producer Dino De Laurentiis) comes in handy, before he is suddenly transported from the Austrian battlefield, and though he may not triumph at ten-pin bowling, his finest hour comes along the water slides ("Waterlubes"!) of San Dimas.

I confess, I haven't got round to seeing the sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Few films rarely deserve sequels (even the award-winning The Godfather Part II didn't completely pass muster.) This was however, even wackier than the original, if such a thing could be possible, with B and T dying and going into hell but having to challenge Death (just like the one in The Seventh Seal) to a game of - not chess - but Battleship, and even Twister.

I sometimes wonder if Alex Winter must be thinking: if only...?

30 years later however, Keanu Reeves may be considering going back to what he was best at.