FOOD PRODUCTS
CHEERIOS COMIC BOOK TIE-IN (1989-90?)
We now have confirmation that Cheerios *did* do a tie-in promotion for Bill & Ted when the first movie was released on video, offering a free Excellent Adventure comic book for so many proofs of purchase. We're still looking for a picture of the promotional box, if anyone can help with that! For information on the comic book itself, check the merchandise section called "Posters and Promotional."
BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT CEREAL (1990-91)
Ralston Purina entered the world of Bill & Ted with this most excellent part of a complete breakfast! Cinammon oats with marshmallow notes were offered in regular retail stores for some time in 1990 / 1991 and could be found for a time afterwards in warehouse-style discount stores. This is one of the few products Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves didn't mind touting, and even Quentin Tarantino at one time said this was a most excellent product. The boxes featured the cartoon Bill & Ted and three different premiums, covered below:
TAPE
TOTES
The first cereal premium was a Phone booth shaped tape tote which came shrink wrapped to
the boxes (we sympathize with the store stock people who must have found this
very tricky to put many of these on the shelves). The idea of the box is
to have something to carry cassette tapes around in, although some people
actually mistook it for a mini-cereal bowl (which it could have been used for as
well, come to think of it!).
The second cereal premiums (actually still part of the first one!) were the Hysterical
Postcard set. The boxes which featured the tape totes also included Hysterical Postcards
printed on the back of each box, featuring the cartoon
Bill and Ted with famous historical personages: Christopher Columbus,
Leonardo Da Vinci,
Benjamin Franklin,
and George Washington.
DIAL-A-DUDE
Next came the Dial-a-Dude premium - enclosed in boxes of the cereal were a
shrink wrapped, phone booth shaped pull-out
phone directory. By detaching the list portion and inserting it in the
Dial-a-Dude you could look up any name and number in the small slot on the
front. This premium was also tied-in to a contest in which the prize was a
full sized phone booth!
HISTORICAL LUGGAGE TAGS
The last premium were the Historical Luggage Tags, three separate styles of
tags were available, one per box and shrink wrapped. This premium was tied-in
to a contest for trip around the world!
What could be better than buying Bill & Ted's Excellent Cereal?
Saving money on it, too! To help promote the product, coupons were offered
in local newspapers offering $1.00 on a box. Not bad!!
OUR RATING??
**Bodacious!**
This was by far the most popular and well promoted of all the Bill & Ted tie-in products and definitely the most "hip" by far. While Alex and Keanu didn't show much enthusiasm for things like the action figures they did openly eat this cereal during interviews and talk about how they liked it. So anything the Two Great Ones endorse themselves we have to stand behind, and besides, it was a most excellent munch (although if you still own a box today we wouldn't recommend trying it any more)! The premiums were pretty cool as well and gave collectors a lot of different boxes to seek out.
BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT
CEREAL
COMMERCIAL (1991)
This commercial aired during 1991 to promote this most excellent cereal. Featuring the animated Bill & Ted (but *not* the voices of either Alex or Keanu), the commercial shows the dudes traveling back in time to the "land of heavy metal" (Medieval England) to share their most excellent cereal. They find King Arthur's men having a food fight using their most heinous gruel, so the dudes quickly pass around their cereal. The commercial ends when Ted asks "Who gets the last bowl?" and a fire breathing dragon reaches down to take it and everyone concedes "He does!"
OUR RATING??
**Most excellent!**
This commercial was perfect for the cereal and the animation was done very well. A cute advertisement with the cereal box cut out cleverly included in many shots, this is one of our favorites.
BUTTERFINGERS TIE-INS (1991)
In 1991, Butterfingers candy bars was tied-in closely to the release of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, and a number of cross-promotion items and give-aways were produced, including:
A three-way kind of promotion with Butterfingers promoting Bill & Ted and Nintendo, this wrapper promoted a contest in which holders of winning wrappers win Nintendo Video games, including Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game, shown on front.
Bogus Journey Premiere Party Goody Bags - these promotional bags were given away at Bill & Ted's Bogus Premiere Party (parts of which were also shown on MTV).
This promotional t-shirt for Bogus Journey featured prints of the Butterfingers logo on the flip side.
BOOKS, PUBLICATIONS
& TRADING CARDS
Bill and Ted?s Excellent Adventure characters and images ? & ? 1989, 2003 Creative Licensing Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
