Bob & Ted’s Prop Adventure

This is an addendum to my previous post where I wrote about an old Trump-like boss I had in Tempe, Arizona, while I was in college. It was a print shop. Bob would tell a potential client whatever they wanted to hear — even if the request was not within the capacity of the shop.

If someone called and asked about something out of the ordinary, we, the employees weren’t allowed to say no. Our instructions were to transfer the call to Bob. And then we would brace ourselves for chaos. This is one of those stories.

---

One day in 1987, Bob took a call from a production company that was filming a movie in the Phoenix area. They needed some props made. Bob, naturally, said, “Sure, we can do that,” and then he turned to me to make it happen.

Bill & Ted Cred

The props coordinator showed up at the shop: a stressed-out Californian woman in her 20s. She said that they were filming a movie called Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

The now-famous stoner film is set in San Dimas, California. But most of the on-location filming was done in the Phoenix area.

The props coordinator told me the names of who was starring in the film, and I went, Uh huh. I had no idea who they were. If she was expecting me to be starstruck, I wasn’t.

Just from the title, the film sounded stupid. (Had she mentioned George Carlin, maybe a little celebrity admiration would have stirred within me. Perhaps a little excitement even. I am my mother’s son, after all. And my mother was obsessed with celebrities.)

She described three items they needed:

1. Fake yellow pages for a phone book
2. Tickets for a fictional waterpark called Waterloo
3. A big button that said “I was a Zyggie Piggy”

This film was starting to sound even more stupid.

She didn’t give any graphic direction, or provide any parameters. She may have told me not to sweat the fine details. Nothing would be filmed close up.

We didn’t have a permanent graphic designer on staff. And since this was the 80s, we had no computers with fancy design software. We did, however, have a handful of clipart books scissors, tape, and glue.

The Props

The Yellow Pages

I don’t remember much about how we achieved this. We definitely had access to yellow paper, but I remember worrying that it wouldn’t be the right kind of paper, the right size, and that it wouldn’t be convincing on camera. This may have been outsourced. It looks like it was a lot of work. I think I would remember if I worked directly on this prop. So I probably didn’t.

In the film, the Yellow Pages book helps Bill and Ted locate historical figures across time. Using it, they find key locations and people.

The Waterloo Tickets

These tickets were probably the easiest thing to fabricate. We did have card stock paper in many colors. We had a paper cutter. We probably used press-on lettering and clip art. Done.

These “free passes to Waterloo” are flashed on the screen for about one second. You can’t see any detail. They could be the props I created or not.

The Zyggie Piggy Button

Unquestionably, I made this. I was told it needed to have a picture of a pig. I flipped through the clipart book and there weren’t many options.

I don’t know why I didn’t just draw a pig myself. I like to draw. I can draw pigs: Exhibit A, Exhibit B

So why didn’t I? Oh yeah. This kind of shit wasn’t supposed to be my job! That’s why! I had massive amounts of photocopies to make. That Xerox 9500 high-speed copier wasn’t going to run itself. And those trees aren’t going to kill themselves!

I found or made a backing for the button. I’m not sure what I did for a pin. Possibly a safety pin held down with cellophane tape.

I’m pretty sure I delivered the button in black and white. And the pig definitely had a face. What you see on screen has a pink-purple “magida magenta” color. I’m guessing they colored it using nail polish, and smudged over the pig’s face to prevent any copyright claims.

The ice cream parlor was based on a local chain named Farrell’s that had an item on the menu called “The Trough” which is exactly what it sounds like. Patrons who managed to complete The Trough received a ribbon which read, “I made a pig of myself at Farrell’s.”

And Then…

And then nothing. We delivered the goods unceremoniously, and I moved on to the next print job. And the next. And so on. I never wondered about the movie, which, as I said, sounded stupid and inconsequential. When the movie came out in 1989 I was still trying to graduate from college. At some point, I must have thought, Wait a minute! Didn’t I have something to do with that? But I don’t remember exactly when that occurred to me.

Teeny tiny pop culture flex.