Ranked: Bill & Ted's Famous Figures From History

The most righteous travels of Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan (their most excellent adventure and totally bogus journey) will be available On Demand and on Syfy.com and Syfy Now from 9/26 - 9/30. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is one of those rare time travel movies that trancends genre, and just leaves you feeling . . . well . . . excellent, but the movie wouldn't be the cult classic that it is without its cast of time travel companions from across history. Figures like Beethoven and Genghis Khan may have important roles in history and culture, but their truth worth is being a part of Bill and Ted's history report. Here, we rank them from Bogus to Excellent. 

8. Billy The Kid

When you think of amazing portrayals of frontier era cowboys you think of Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp or Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, sadly Dan Shor as Billy The Kid doesn't make the list. The character just doesn't have enough fun. Interestingly enough Bill and Ted came out while Billy The Kid was having a bit of a career renaissance. Between Emilio Estevez's protrayal of the gunslinger in Young Guns and Val Kilmer in Billy The Kid (yes The Saint played both Holliday and Billy) Shor's Billy just doesn't quite hold up.

7. Socrates

Otherwise known as So Crates. Sadly, apart from an epic reaction to a line in a Kansas song, Socrates doesn't get a whole lot of screen time. Sure he can chew gum to fix a time machine with the best of them, but not speaking English really hinders the philosophy giant when it counts, it also doesn't do him any favors when trying to pick up babes at the mall.

6. Sigmund Freud

The Freud Dude! Seeing Sigmund, the godfather of the oedipal complex hold a corndog and then later analyze Bill's contentious relationship with babe-of-a-mom Missy elevates him a bit on our list. To be fair, Missy is just about the grandaddy of all oedipal complexes, so Freud's analysis is pretty spot on. Interesting to note that in Bogus Journey, Missy ditches Bill's Dad in favor of Ted's military father. Bummer.

5. Abraham Lincoln

3 words. Party On Dudes! Abe crushes his Gettysburg Address by way of San Dimas in 1989, but it's more about his closing line that seals the deal for us.

4. Beethoven

Beeth Oven! The Mall scene towards the end features a few of the greatest moments not only in the film, but in film history. Beethoven rocking mulitple keyboards (was Tori Amos inspired by him?) is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to see the classical music genius tackling in the 20th century. An aside: can we talk for a second about Beethoven being escorted off stage by mall security? What sort of Paul-Blart-on-a-power-trip interrupts a musical genius slaying a keyboard solo. It's just not realistic.

3. Genghis Khan

Genghis Kahn. On a skateboard. With Football helmet and pads. With a titanium bat. Is there anything that is a more unstoppable juggernaut of maurauding, Mongolian power? We think not.

2. Joan of Arc

In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Joan (we'll call her Joany from here on out) finds her true purpose in life. While all the other characters do current iterations of what they did in their previous non-excellent lives, Joany abandons her holy war for a greater purpose. Following in the steps of the great aerobatic artists of her day, Jamie Lee Curtis and Olivia Newton John, Joany leads a mall aerobics class (the 80s was a strange time) to glory. Also we will use any excuse to post this video

1. Napoleon

While Napoleon doesn't actually go on the complete excellent adventure with Bill and Ted, the argument can be made that he experiences so much more. Napoleon is babysat by Ted's younger bro Deacon and throughout the day truly gets to enjoy what San Dimas has to offer. He ventures into the Water Park (named Waterloo, flawless), overcoming his fear of the black tunnel of watery death to become master of Waterloo (oh the irony). He gets kicked out of a bowling alley, and eats more ice cream than even a ziggy pig could. Eat the Pig! Ziggy Ziggy Ziggy Zig!