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William "Bill" S. Preston and Ted Theodore Logan
- Played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves
- Adaptational Badass: In the comic, they kill their robot duplicates and De Nomolos themselves.
- Air Guitar: All the time, generally after they find something to be "excellent."
- All Loving Heroes: Generally get along well with every figure the encounter whether they're Genghis Khan or Death.
- Alternate Self: In the final issue of the Marvel comic, dozens of alternate Bills and Ted's from other universes gatecrash the anniversary party. Notable in that they aren't all human and they aren't really Bills or Teds. They just imitate the boys after their sons preached about Wyld Stallyns when travelling the multiverse.
- Babies Ever After: Have baby daughters by the end of Bogus Journey.
- Been There, Shaped History: An early script had them accidentally causing various historical disasters but the writers changed it because they're weren't comfortable with the heroes killing millions of people.
- Big Good: They're good guys that are destined to lead the world to being a Utopian society through their music.
- Book Dumb: Their major flaw is that they don't take their school work at all seriously. The plot of the first movie kicks off because they'll both be in serious trouble unless they get a perfect score on their history final.Teacher: So what you're telling me, Ted... is that Napoleon was 'a short... dead... dude.'
- Buffy Speak: Bill and Ted have a rather unique vocabulary and speaking style.
- Burger Fool: They work at Pretzels 'n' Cheese in the second movie.
- Catchphrase:
- "Excellent!" (Air Guitar an epic riff) What they typically say when something good happens.
- "Bogus." What they say when something bad happens.
- The Dividual: They both act pretty much the same, though Bill seems a tiny bit smarter, which isn't saying much. Either way, the two are rarely seen apart.
- Dork Knight: They're hopelessly out of place in history, but still manage to get everything going their way.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: The comics reveal that most of their Battle of The Bands winnings were spent on buying parts for Station to build a theme park in their back garden.
- Future Badass;
- In the alternate timeline where De Nomolos won the Battle of The Bands, Ted became this after two years of military school.
- The third movie will have the boys meet their future selves who are built like tanks because Prisons Are Gymnasiums.
- Future Loser;
- In the same timeline as above, Bill is childless and still working at Pretzels n Cheese. He is married to Missy though.
- The third movie has the duo meet their future selves really hitting rock bottom, including a performance at a hotel's open mic night. They go further into the future and find a double subversion where another alternate Bill and Ted (complete with English accents) appear to be successful, but were really squatting Dave Grohl's mansion. Yet another future incarnation has them in prison for what happened in the previous incident.
- Genius Ditzes: Despite being uncomplicated slackers, Bill and Ted have a natural instinct for mastering the causal and paradoxical effects of time travel. Bill not only knows what an Oedipal Complex is, he can recognize he has a minor case. Also, while their use of the English language is most unconventional and egregiously unorthodox, their vocabulary does seem to be more well developed than most teenagers, or for that matter most anyone. As Alex Winter himself said in a 2018 interview, "We're dumb, and yet we speak so eloquently."
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Some of the missions in the NES game such as giving Jesse James an uzi and Cleopatra a credit card.
- In Face The Music they convince Louis Armstrong to join them by showing him a recording of Jimi Hendrix on a smartphone.
- Good Parents: To their daughters, who positively adore them in return.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: They do everything together, split a place after high school, propose to their girlfriends at the same time, and name their kids after each other.
- Hidden Depths: While both are eloquent despite being incredibly dumb, Ted apparently writes pretty good poetry on the side. Enough that he could sell a collection of his poems for thousands of dollars and make a comfortable living when he contemplates ending the band in the beginning of the third movie.
- Identical Grandson:
- Bill's grandmother is also played by Alex Winter.
- In the comics, their teenage sons travel back from the future and get mistaken for alternate versions of Bill and Ted.
- Idiot Heroes: While they have an intuitive understanding of San Dimas Time, their basic response to everything is almost always (a) tell a dumb joke, (b) make a rock music reference, (c) going along with what someone smarter suggests, or (d) some combination of the above.
- Informed Ability:
- The first movie parodies this. Despite their music being credited with changing the world, they are actually quite terrible in the present.Rufus: They do get better.
- The second movie plays this more seriously. Bill and Ted know what the future has in store for them, but about five years after the first movie, they're still struggling with their music and show little sign of improvement. After auditioning for the Battle of the Bands, Ms. Wardroe gives them the last spot, but she also points out their lack of ability and tells them they really need to shape up. With Ted's dad threatening to send him to military school if they wash out, the pressure to make good on their future is on.
- The first movie parodies this. Despite their music being credited with changing the world, they are actually quite terrible in the present.
- Kindhearted Simpletons: Both these boys are as dumb as they are sweet, and stupid as they are kind. They are such likable kids that it is hard not to root for them at the end of the day.
- "London, England" Syndrome: When Bill chides him for telling Miss Wardroe that their girlfriends come from medieval England, Ted covers himself by saying the princesses come from Medieval England, Iowa.
- Missing Mom: Neither of the boys' mothers are ever so much as mentioned, let alone explaining where they went. Possibly because digging into that would take the funny out of the running gag with Missy.
- Mock Millionaires: The third film. A future version of the duo has them look rich and successful (and complete with faux-British accents), but they were really just squatting rock star Dave Grohl's mansion.
- Mysterious Middle Initial: Bill S. Preston.
- Nice Guys: As stupid as Bill and Ted may both be, it's hard to deny that they are both sincere, decent, and kind-hearted kids when push comes to shove. Its near impossible not to root for these guys during their adventures.
- Pair the Dumb Ones: Two seemingly dumb teens who are friends. Ted is most notably the dumbest and most naive of the two, much to the point that it makes Bill look more intelligent than him at times.
- Parody Sue: Those Two Guys are inexplicably the inspiration for a Utopian future of peace, friendship, and rock.
- Preppy Name: Usually introduce themselves as Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan.
- Repetitive Name: Ted gives his middle name as "Theodore", which is usually what Ted is short for.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: Their songs end up making Earth a utopia.
- Saving the World With Art: Well, saving the Earth with rock and roll.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In one of the comics, the duo go back and stop Abraham Lincoln being shot. This leads to the present becoming a Crapsack World where none of the characters were born so Bill and Ted have to go back and stop themselves saving Abe.
- Surfer Dudes: San Dimas is too far from the ocean to do any actual surfing, but Bill and Ted's behavior and language draws clear inspiration from Southern California surf culture of the 1980s.
- The Teetotaler: Ted has given up drinking by the time of Face The Music though his Future Loser self has become The Alcoholic.
- Took a Level in Badass: Since "Bogus Journey", Bill and Ted have learned how to play other instruments. Their latest attempt at writing music that is supposed to unite the world draws inspiration from different genres and artists. It also sounds quite interesting.
- Totally Radical: These two dudes are almost always speaking in slang.
- The Un-Favorite: Ted's dad prefers his brother Deacon because he's studying to be a lawyer.
- Xtremely Kool Letterz: Called their band Wyld Stallyns.
- Your Costume Needs Work: When they visit the future in Bill and Ted's Most Triumphant Return, the first person they meet compliments how realistic their holographic masks are.
- They later invoke this trope by pretending to be members of a Bill and Ted reinactment society and figments of imagination.
- In Real Life, writers Matheson and Solomon never saw the actors before filming the movie. They saw Reeves and Winters in a nearby McDonald's before starting their first day's filming and remarked that they'd make a good Bill and Ted.
- Winter and Reeves once walked out of a restaurant and got caught up in the New York Halloween parade and someone said "Hey look, it’s two old, fat guys trying to be Bill and Ted".
Rufus
- Played by George Carlin, Piotr Michael (Face the Music; voice double)
- Age Lift: Was in his twenties in the improv sketches and early movie script. While he never actually says how old he is, George Carlin was in his 50s when he made the first and second movies.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Talks to the camera at the end of the first movie to assure the audience that the boys' guitar skills will improve.
- Casual Time Travel;
- He uses his time machine to bring historical characters into the future to lecture his students and take them on field trips to the past.
- In the live action TV show, he uses his time machine to teleport to work in the mornings.
- Cool Old Guy: He hails from a future where The Power of Rock has resulted in a better world for all, so he's very laid-back and cool.
- Cool Shades: Usually wears them.
- Cool Teacher: Makes his lessons interesting by bringing historical figures into the future to give lectures and warns his students not to do their homework without listening to headphones.
- Does Not Like Spam: Is known for hating chicken kiev in the TV series.
- Future Badass: Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return has him leading a resistance movement against De Nomolos thousands of years into a Bad Future. He's also immortal because the new Death forgot to claim him.
- Future Loser: Leading up to the above badass is a new timeline where Wyld Stallyns lost the Battle Of The Bands and Rufus got fired over it.
- Held Back in School: In the improv sketches and early script, he was in his late twentiesnote and still a sophomore in San Dimas High School. When trying to think of a reason for him to have his own time machine, the writers decided to make him an agent from the future.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: The third movie has a blurry hologram of him the phone booth that's now a museum exhibit.
- Humans Are Psychic in the Future: Implied in the live action TV series where he has prophetic dreams and seems to hypnotize a customer into buying things from Nail World.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Rufus spends almost all of the films stood in the sidelines, correcting any minor mistakes they might make, and giving them enigmatic advice to steer them on the right path... but NEVER steps in himself and solves it.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Played for laughs - Bill and Ted take to him right away, and by the time they meet him again they trust him implicitly. Well, it's more that they told themselves to trust Rufus...
- Only One Name: In the "Model T For Ted" episode of the cartoon, he mentions that Rufus is his middle name as first and last names have been eliminated in the future.
- Race Lift: His Ms. Wardroe disguise is black in the movie but white in the Comic-Book Adaptation.
- Stealth Mentor: Ms. Wardroe in the sequel was actually Rufus in disguise.
- Terminator Twosome: Follows the robot Bill and Ted back in time in order to stop them from killing the originals.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: It seems like he caused the future that led to him going back to cause it, which is a little odd since most of the rest of both movies insist that changes to the future don't happen until you make the changes in the past that... oh, never mind.
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Fridge Brilliance kicks in when Rufus seems unconcerned about what's going on throughout Bill & Ted Save The Universe, even telling someone, outright, he knows roughly what's happening, because, for him, it's already happened. For Bill & Ted, they need to figure out the rules of time travel as time is moving along, but Rufus is so far into the future, he's almost working to a script!
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- Wholesome Crossdresser: Ms. Wardroe played by Pam Grier is actually him in disguise.
Missy
- Played by Amy Stock-Poynton
- Adoptive Peer Parent: She's only about three years older than Bill and Ted (mention is made of Bill asking her out when she was a senior, which is grade 12 in the US system, and they were freshmen, US grade 9).
- Damsel in Distress: Napoleon kidnaps her to be his bride when he takes over Hell.
- Genius Ditz: Seems rather dim to the point of not even questioning why there's suddenly a phone booth filled with historical figures in the yard, but then manages to send the boys directly to Hell in the sequel... Despite her seances apparently not ever working according to Ted.
- Hot for Teacher: Implied when she asks the boys to say hi to Mr Ryan for her.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She exorcises the ghosts haunting her, not realizing that they're Bill and Ted.
- Parental Incest: She's not above marrying her stepsons;
- She's married to Bill in the Bad Future in Most Triumphant Return
- The third movie starts with her marrying Ted's brother, Deacon.
- Really Gets Around: Along with Likes Older Men. In the first movie, she was married to Bill's father, despite being only three years older than Bill. By the second she's divorced him and married Ted's father. By the end she even ends up with Chuck DeNomolos. The third film opens up with her marrying Ted's younger brother Deacon.
- In an alternate timeline shown in the 2015 comics, she ends up married to Bill.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Her exorcism chant "D'lrow eht elur l'liw sirhc d'na de.” backwards is "Ed and Chris will rule the world". Referencing the movie's writers, Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson.
- Stacy's Mom: To Bill and Ted.
- Summon Magic: In the comics, she summons Einstein's ghost to help her pass a psychics exam, not realizing he was an expert on physics.
- Trophy Wife: What she is to the boys' dad's.
Napoleon
- Played by Terry Camilleri
- Chess with Death: In Bill & Ted Go To Hell, Napoleon challenges Death to Chess to get access to Heaven. Sadly Death majorly underestimated his skills.
- Hell Has New Management: Napoleon Bonaparte used Bill and Ted's stories of Hell from Bogus Journey to conquer it.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: In Go to Hell he successfully takes over Hell and Heaven.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: In the first movie his antics were largely played for laughs, but in the comic he's a force to he reckoned with.
- Walking Spoiler: Talking about him at all in Go to Hell reveals some outrageously major plot points.
Death
- Played by William Sadler
- The Alcoholic: Starts drinking on the job in the first issue of the comic.
- Aside Glance: After finding out Napoleon has adult Little Bill and Ted working for him, Death ends the issue by looking at the reader and saying "Oh, this is no good at all".
- Badass Finger Snap: Does one attempting to teleport everybody to Heaven but fails when he realized Napoleon's stripped his powers.
- Been There, Shaped History: A comic set in the 1300s has a man hang himself, walk around taking notes after Death brings him to Hell, then coming back to life after playing Chess with Death. The man turns out to be Dante Alighieri. It's implied he's already done this several times.
- Best Out of Infinity: Provides the page quote. In Bogus Journey, the title characters attempt to win their freedom in a game of Chess with Death in a sequence reminiscent of The Seventh Seal. Only instead of chess, the boys play Twister, Battleship, and a variety of other contemporary games, which Death keeps losing. (Of course, Death doesn't want to admit he's losing to these airheads so he keeps altering the conditions of the challenge, making it "best 2 out of 3", "best 3 out of 5" and so on...)
- This is actually used as a plot point in the original script, which was used for the comic book adaptation. At the Battle of the Bands, Bill and Ted are repeatedly killed by their robotic Evil Counterparts, and they make Death bring them back each time, citing the number of games at which they beat him.
- The novelization drops the number of resurrections to 2, saying he (Death) owed them one life per game (so 4)
- Brought Down to Normal: Twice in the Boom! Studios comics;
- In the timeline where De Nomolos rules the world in Most Triumphant Return, Death was forced to pass his powers to Determine Nomolos' younger brother. Death eventually learns to use them again.
- Napoleon strips Death's powers when he becomes God in Bill & Ted Go To Hell
- Burger Fool: Has to take a job at Pretzels 'n' Cheese to pay his rent in the comics.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: God and Satan decided not to tell Death about Purgatory because he's terrible at keeping secrets.
- Captain Ersatz: His appearance and the Chess with Death are based on Death from The Seventh Seal.
- Chess with Death: Claims to have never been beaten, but is utterly trounced by Bill and Ted in games like Twister and Clue.
- Death Is a Loser: Gets melvined by Bill and Ted, can't win Chess with Death to save his (un)life and is a Sore Loser to boot.
- Death Takes a Holiday: In the comics;
- Issue #2 of the Marvel comic is called "Death Takes a Most Heinous Holiday", leading to the dead sticking around as zombies.
- Gets fired in a later issue and a new Death takes over until the original gets his job back.
- In Bill and Ted's Most Triumphant Return he loses his role to De Nomolos' brother who won Chess with Death. He never bothered doing the job, leading to a Bad Future where De Nomolos' rules and everybody's been alive for millennia.
- Defeat Means Friendship: He continues to tag along with Bill and Ted after they've beat him. He eventually takes a liking into them.
- Defrosting Ice King: When Death first appears, he is portrayed as a stoic and detached otherworldly being devoid of malice or compassion, only breaking into a smirk to gloat how no one has ever beaten him in a game for the fate of one's soul. When Bill and Ted not only beat him in Battleship, but continues beating them in a number of other games, his composure slips until he finally concedes his part of the deal. While at first bitter that he has become their personal chauffeur throughout the afterlife, he slowly begins to warm up to them and by he end, becomes their friend and a new member of Wyld Stallyns.
- Dem Bones: Is a skeleton in the Marvel comics because Evan Dorkin didn't see any stills from the movie until he was a third of the way through the comic and it was too late to redraw.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Is melvinned by the boys.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Gets stuck on the bad end of this.
- Distressed Dude: The plot of Bill and Ted Go To Hell is kicked off by him getting kidnapped by Napoleon.
- Don't Fear The Reaper: Big time. The boys even joke about it after beating him. Admittedly, having Death in your rock band does mean you don't have to worry about when Death comes for them. He's already there.
- Plays the trope straight in the comics, winning his job back after comforting a dying woman that she'll be reunited with her husband in Heaven.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Tells Bill and Ted not to patronise him after they tell him he played really well in the Best Out of Infinity games.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Gets a bit miffed when Bill & Ted ignore his contributions to building the Good Robot Usses.
- Fight Off the Kryptonite: Death gets his relinquished powers back in Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return seemingly by believing he still has them.
- Fire-Forged Friends: By the end of the film, he joins the band and seems very enthusiastic about it. He is a much friendlier guy in the spin-offs.
- Friend to All Children: When the duo thank Death for saving them from the police in De Nomolos' world, Death tells them he didn't care and had been trying to save a child they were targeting.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Wears one under his robes when he takes his most heinous holiday.
- I Heard That: Says it after Bill tells Ted not to fear the reaper.
- Jerkass
- Legacy Character: Is forcibly retired in the comics and a midget skeleton takes over as Death.
- The rest of the anthropomorphic personifications such as Mother Nature, War and Fate all retired and were replaced years ago.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: In the comic, he's no longer part of the band like he is in the movie, but ends up being their manager.
- When he gets fired as from being Death, he takes and loses several jobs.
- Noodle Incident: Per the Spinning Paper montage that ends Bogus Journey, he somehow won the Indianapolis 500....on foot. "I didn't know I could run that fast." No explanation for how this happened has ever been given.
- Not So Stoic: He's initially very stoic and serious. That persona eventually cracks and he shows he can be as goofy as Bill & Ted.
- Rescued from the Underworld: The gang have to rescue him when he gets kidnapped and took to Hell in Bill & Ted Go To Hell.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When the guys go back and stop Abraham Lincoln being killed, Death can remember both timelines.
- Sand In My Eyes: When Ted's dad gives a speech about how kind hearted the boys are, Death wipes his eyes and says that Heaven must be for allergies as well.
- Solo Side Project: According to the end credits, he had a brief solo career separate from the Wyld Stallyns.
- Sore Loser: Does not take well to being handed his first, and subsequent many, defeats.
- Speech Bubbles: In the Boom! Studios comics, his speech balloons are black with white text.
- The Un-Smile: Whenever he smiles in the first half of 'Bogus Journey', he just bares his teeth in an uncomfortable way. By the end of the movie, though he's shown to be smiling happily.
- Wingding Eyes: Go black with red X's when he's kidnapped in Bill and Ted Go To Hell.
- Your Mom: In Go To Hell when Satan says Death is terrible with secrets, Death says that Satan's mother is terrible with secrets.
Chuck De Nomolos
- Played by Joss Ackland
- Air Guitar: Does one just to tell his followers that they won't have to hear them anymore after he defeats Bill and Ted.
- Back from the Dead: Comes back in the comics by beating Death at Game of Life.
- Badass Cape: Wears a long, flowing black one.
- Bald of Evil
- "Bang!" Flag Gun: Bill and Ted replace his gun with one that bares a "Wyld Stallyns rules!" message.
- Big Bad: Of the second film, and the only Big Bad in the entire series.
- Card-Carrying Villain: All that peace, friendship and rock music must go! Especially the rock!
- Chekhov's Skill: At the end of Bogus Journey, Rufus mentions that De Nomolos is the 27th Century sit-up champion. In Most Triumphant Return he uses it instead of Chess with Death.
- Chess with Death: In the comics;
- Marvel: He did it to bring himself and his Legion of Doom out of Hell. It's revealed that he cheated so even his cronies who weren't killed were sent back.
- Boom! Studios: Kills himself so he'll get a chance to do this and get immortality in a "Double or Nothing" deal and get his brother, Richie the job of Death in Most Triumphant Return.
- Subverted in the novelization. He asks to do this but Death refuses, having learned just how bad at those games he is from Bill and Ted.
- The Comically Serious: Especially when dealing with Bill and Ted and anything that looks like Bill and Ted.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The closest thing to a villain the first movie had was Ted's dad trying to send Ted to military school and arresting the historical figures they needed for the history report. De Nomolos is a terrorist from the future who wants to assassinate the heroes and replace them with robots.
- Death by Adaptation: Survives the movie but is killed in the Comic-Book Adaptation and occasionally shows up in Hell.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: He shoots his Ray Gun at a few studio cameras and his image is broadcast to every channel all over the world.
- Dreadful Musician: De Nomolos is dreadful on the cowbell at the end of Most Triumphant Return when he joins Wyld Stallyns. The comic ends with Bill and Ted mirroring Rufus in the first movie by saying he does get better.
- Easily Forgiven: Despite altering the past so Bill and Ted's children were never born in Most Triumphant Return, at the end the duo let him join Wyld Stallyns.
- Egopolis: Thousands of years into the Bad Future in Most Triumphant Return, San Dimas has been renamed San De Nomolos. It has streets like "De Nomolos Is Stronger Than You Avenue" and "De Nomolos Set The Standard For Beauty Terrace".
- Evil Mentor: Parodied. In his first scene he and Rufus regard each other as former teacher and student... and at the end of the movie Rufus admits that De Nomolos was his gym teacher.
- Faking the Dead: He's implied to have faked his death at some point to plan his coup as Rufus had thought he was dead.
- Friendless Background: The comics reveal he's been hated all his life because historical records show he's going to kill Bill and Ted as an adult.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He was Rufus' gym teacher.
- Galactic Conqueror: Rules most of the galaxy in his Bad Future in Triumphant Return.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: We don't learn much about his motivations other than that he wants to stop Bill and Ted and hates rock music.
- Good Counterpart: In the comics, Rufus gets Station to make a good robot De Nomolos to fight him.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: In one of the comics, he refers to Bill and Ted as "attention trollops" instead of attention whores.
- HA HA HA—No: Teenage De Nomolos laughs happily upon meeting Bill and Ted and starting a "Wyld Stallyns Rules!" lightshow before admitting it's a distraction and trying to shoot them.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the Boom! Studios comics, he turns good and settles down to life in modern day San Dimas. Also implied by him hooking up with Missy at the very end of Bogus Journey.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Dies a second time in the comics when Abe Lincoln points out that he's holding a robot head that's set to self destruct. "Me and my big mou—".
- LOL, 69: The duo take teenage De Nomolos to Woodstock to educate him and badger him to guess the year until he reluctantly says it's 1969.
- Mage in Manhattan: When he comes to the present to stop Bill and Ted at the end of the movie.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Is trying to undo the utopian future that Bill and Ted created.
- Most Triumphant Return has De Nomolos stealing a time machine and going back and winning The Battle Of The Bands instead of Wyld Stallyns.
- No Body Left Behind: De Nomolos' Ray Gun in Most Triumphant Return leaves its victims as piles of ashes apart from the odd hat or badge.
- Out-Gambitted: Tries and fails to match Bill and Ted at their Retroactive Preparation.
- Repetitive Name: A textbook he intends to be taught in his new timeline is called Nomolos De Nomolos: The Greatest Man In History. His first name is later revealed to be "Chuck".
- Sand In My Eyes: The Power of Rock gets De Nomolos depressed about his ex-girlfriend, Claudia at the end of Most Triumphant Return. When he's asked why he's crying, he says it's allergies.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Named after co-creator of Bill & Ted and co-writer of all three films, Ed Solomon.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: It's implied in Most Triumphant Return that De Nomolos being blamed as a child for his future self killing Bill and Ted is what caused him to hate them in the first place.
- Thanatos Gambit: De Nomolos kills himself in Most Triumphant Return so he can play Chess with Death.
- Tom the Dark Lord: De Nomolos sounds like an intimidating sci-fi name, fitting for the villain of the piece. Then you find out his first name is Chuck. And he used to be a gym teacher.
- Ungrateful Bastard: In Most Triumphant Return the duo feel sorry for De Nomolos and teach him to play guitar so he can make friends, he goes back in time and wins the Battle Of The Bands instead of them.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Aside from some Black Comedy here and there, he's much more serious than anyone else in the films. He plans to create a dystopian hellhole in the future by sending evil robotic duplicates of Bill and Ted to kill the real B&T and take their places.
- Wrong Time-Travel Savvy: Sends robots back to alter the past not realizing that time travel in the Bill and Ted universe works on Stable Time Loop.
- Tried to match Bill and Ted's Retroactive Preparation by giving himself a key to the cage they put him in and a spare gun. But Bill points out that only the winner of the fight will get to use the time machine and it turns out Bill and Ted had actually left him a "Bang!" Flag Gun.
- We Used to Be Friends: Said that Rufus was his favourite student.
Princess Joanna and Princess Elizabeth
- Played by Diane Franklin and Kimberly Labelle (Excellent Adventure); Sarah Trigger and Annette Azcuy (Bogus Journey); Erinn Hayes and Jayma Mays (Face the Music)
- Adaptational Badass: In the comics, they are a lot tougher and capable of taking control even in the wildest, most surreal situations.
- Adapted Out: Don't appear in the live action TV series where Bill and Ted are single.
- Arranged Marriage: Their father, the king, is forcing them to marry some "Royal Ugly Dudes". Rufus was able to rescue them just before the wedding begins.
- Bound and Gagged: The evil Bill and Ted do this to them and hang them from the rafters during the Battle of the Bands, intending to kill them after the performance.
- The Dividual: No real difference between them.
- Fainting: When the evil Bill and Ted expose their robotic innards.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: They originally came from the 15th century, before settling down in the 20th century with Bill and Ted. They adapt pretty quickly though.
- Hidden Depths: In the second movie, they demonstrate a fair amount of musical talent.
- NOT!: When their ex fiancée's arrive in the present to steal them back, the princesses say it was nice to see them again. Not!
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The Other Darrin: Diane Franklin and Kimberly Kates play the princesses in the first film; they are replaced by Sarah Trigger and Annette Azcuy in the second.- Happens again with the third film. This time they are played by Erinn Hayes and Jayma Mays.
- Satellite Love Interest: They barely have much to do besides being Bill and Ted's girlfriends/wives and even their actors change throughout movies.
Evil Bill and Ted
- Played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves
- Air Guitar: As much as the real Bill and Ted. After De Nomolos chews them out for it, they develop a "stealth" version where they twiddle their fingers (as if strumming guitar strings).
- Bad People Abuse Animals: They try to land the time machine on a cat and later drive around looking for cats to run over.
- Breath Weapon: Evil Bill was able to knock Missy out with "evil breath" at one point.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Openly refer to themselves as Evil Bill and Evil Ted (even answering the phone this way), among many other not-very-subtle behaviors.
- Cool Shades: Put them on and stand Men in Black style while watching the time machine disappear.
- In the comics, they wear these most of the time so that the readers can tell them apart from Bill and Ted.
- Dissonant Serenity: They have the same upbeat demeanors as the real Bill and Ted even when they're scheming and doing horrible misdeeds.
- The Dividual: Are even more identical in personality than the original duo.
- Do Androids Dream?: Apparently have souls as they end up in Hell in the comic.
- The Dragon: To Chuck De Nomolos.
- Evil Is Petty: After offing Bill and Ted, they spend a lot of time trashing their apartment while waiting to give De Nomolos' speech.
- Evil Knockoff: Of Bill and Ted obviously.
- Flipping the Bird: Evil Ted does it after dunking his head into a basketball hoop, Evil Bill's body then does it to his own removed head.
- Graceful Loser: Seem genuinely impressed when Bill and Ted bring superior robots to kill them and even wish them a cheery "Catch you later Bill and Ted" before having their heads punched off.
- A Hell of a Time: They seem to like the idea of spending eternity breaking rocks with De Nomolos.
- Jerkass: They murder people and they're like, totally dicks about it too.
- Kick the Dog Try to run over cats with their time machine and a stolen car and spend most of the movie between killing the heroes and the Battle of the Bands, trashing their apartment.
- Kill and Replace: Were sent to do this to Bill and Ted.
- Laughably Evil: They're definitely dicks and violent bloodthirsty ones at that but they still retain a lot of the real Bill and Ted's goofy, cheerful, dimwitted personalities leading to this.
- Losing Your Head: Their heads and bodies can still keep going when separated.
- NOT!: After pretending to the princesses in the phone and dumping Bill and Ted, they say the duo are brilliant before adding "Not!".
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Call the organic Bill and Ted "fags" before killing them.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: In the comic Bill and Ted activate self destruct switches inside the robots' heads and throw them at De Nomolos.
- Severed Head Sports: Remove their heads and start playing basketball with them at one point.
- SkeleBot 9000: Their heads are skull-like when the artificial skin is removed.
- Spiteful Spit: Evil Bill spits a loogie on Bill's body after pushing him off a cliff.
- Super Prototype: Comics show that a teenage De Nomolos built a two-headed one called BiilTed 1.0 that could fly and had guns built into his arms.
- Terminator Impersonator: They're sunglasses wearing robots from the future, sent back to assasinate the protagonists.
- Terminator Twosome: Were sent back to kill Bill and Ted while Rufus came back to try and prevent them.
- Voice Changeling: Were able to mimic the princesses on the phone and convince Bill and Ted they wanted to break up.
- Worthy Opponent: They completely look down on humans, calling them "worms" or simply inferior but when the real Bill and Ted unleash the Good Robot Bill and Ted on them, they acknowledge they might have met their match.
- Would Hit a Girl: In the comic, Evil Bill punches Missy and sends her flying instead of using "evil breath" like in the movie.
- You Can't Go Home Again: The first thing they do upon reaching the present is to send the time machine away by itself.
Station
- Played by Ed Gale and Arturo Gil; Tom Allard (Big Station); Frank Welker (voices)
- Asteroids Monster: They split into dozens of smaller Stations when trying to quickly fix the time machine to escape Heaven in Go To Hell.
- Back for the Finale: Went back to Mars halfway through Excellent Comic Book but come back in the last issue.
- Back from the Dead: Death brings them back to help Bill and Ted.
- Celebrities Hang Out in Heaven: We first find them playing charades with Confucius, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and George Washington.
- Chekhov's Skill;
- Bill and Ted ask them to build a time machine near the start of Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return, guess how the duo return from the Bad Future.
- They also defeat De Nomolos' army in this comic with (giant this time) Bill & Ted robots.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: They aren't mentioned in the third movie. They likely went back to Heaven.
- The Dividual: There's no difference at all between the pair of them.
- Exposed Extraterrestrials: They provide the page image.
- Fusion Dance: They can merge into a smarter, taller form when they need to.
- Gadgeteer Genius: They're able to build two working humanoid robots in a matter of minutes using only the tools and supplies they picked up at a hardware store.
- Inherently Funny Word: Ed Solomon revealed in 2017
that he and Chris Matheson burst out laughing at the word "Station" appearing in an early script and decided to use the name for a character. - Laser Blade: They make one for Abraham Lincoln to fight off John Wilkes Booth and his Flaming Sword in Go To Hell.
- Martians: The comics and the DVD chapter titles refer to them as Martians.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The duo's story about their children being erased from existence in Most Triumphant Return seems to cheer Station up.
- Pokémon Speak: Only ever say their own name.
- Put on a Bus: Suddenly realized they couldn't survive in Earth's atmosphere halfway through Excellent Comic Book and went back to Mars.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: They apparently died and went to Heaven some point between Most Triumphant Return and Go To Hell.
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: They were brought in to invent a way to defeat the robots.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: When trying to work out why Station has been in the bathroom for 12 hours in Most Triumphant Return, Ted guesses that it's some martian thing that man isn't meant to understand. Turns out they're working on a time machine at the request of Bill and Ted's future selves.
- Uncertain Doom: The Boom! Studios comics can't decide if they're alive or dead. Triumphant Return shows them living with Bill and Ted, they're in Heaven again in Bill and Ted Go To Hell and alive living in space in Bill and Ted Save The Universe. It's possible that knowing the Grim Reaper helps.
- Unexplained Recovery: They've somehow come back to life in between Bill & Ted Go To Hell and Bill & Ted Save The Universe.
Good Robot Bill & Ted
- Played by Michael "Shrimp" Chambers and Bruno "Talco" Falcon
- Air Guitar: The duo have to teach the robots not to do this while holding the babies in Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite becoming Wyld Stallyns' backup dancers, they aren't mentioned in Bill & Ted Face the Music.
- Counter Zany: Why they were created. Bill and Ted wanted to create good robot duplicates to fight their evil robot duplicates.
- Creation Sequence: Station assembles them from hardware parts in the back of a moving van on the way to their concert.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: They kill the evil robot rivals in one punch.
- Good Counterpart: They were created to be good rivals to the evil robot Bill & Ted.
- Homemade Inventions: Station cobbled them together with parts bought at a Builder's Emporium hardware store.
- Off with His Head!: They uppercut punch the heads off their evil counterparts.
- Ridiculously Successful Future Self: A future teacher in Most Triumphant Return says the good robot Bill and Ted are better known as the 65th and 66th presidents of the United States.
- Start X to Stop X: Bill & Ted decide to stop their evil robot duplicates with good robot duplicates.
- Super-Speed: In the comic based on Bogus Journey they run around the world in a few seconds or minutes.
Theadora "Thea" Preston and Wilhelmina "Billie" Logan
- Played by Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine
- Adaptation Name Change: The comic adaptation to Bogus Journey had each child named after their fathers rather than Ted naming his child Little Bill and vice versa. The trade paperback fixed this.
- Dimensional Traveller: In the Marvel comics, they travel The Multiverse preaching the word of Bill and Ted.
- Distaff Counterpart: They're basically a female Bill and Ted.
- Gender Flip: They were implied to be boys in Bogus Journey and both the Marvel and Boom! Studios comics went with this. Word of God said they were male in early versions of the script but were changed to stop them being duplicates of their fathers.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Like their fathers, they do everything together and have a sibling-bond.
- Kid from the Future: Teenage versions of them come back to visit their parents in the final issue of the Marvel comic.
- Like Parent, Like Child: They act almost exactly like their fathers, with Billie especially looking and sounding just like Ted.
- NEET: They're unemployed and just listen to music all day.
- Ret-Gone: Due to De Nomolos messing with the timeline in Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return, Rufus was forced to take the princesses back to medieval England and the babies were never born. They get better.
