May 7, 2023

Be Excellent To Each Other


Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
This double feature is especially meaningful to me.  My grandfather brought me to the movie theater to see Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure when I was eight years old, and we went to see the sequel two years later.  I've watched them on home video many times in the years since, and seeing them remind me of my grandfather every time.  He was especially fond of Death in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.  Any time the Bill & Ted movies came up in conversation, he'd mention the part where Death sees a man smoking a cigarette in the hardware store and says "see you real soon", and the end of the movie when he says "You might be a king or a street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper".  Grandpa passed away twelve years ago, but last night at the Mahoning, it felt like he was sitting there with us.



The poster for this show was designed by T-Bone & Aljax.  The attention to detail in the Circle K windows is incredible!  It includes many of the things that are actually hanging on the store in the movie, along with a poster for last night's double feature that includes an image of George Carlin from the Bill & Ted animated series (which may or may not have made an appearance on the big screen).



I told myself at the start of the season that I really needed to keep the poster purchases this season to a minimum.  As much as I love them, I don't have enough wall space to hang most of the ones I already own, but I had to make an exception because this is my favorite poster of any of the shows that we've been to at the Mahoning so far.  I'll find room for this one for sure.
 



Another thing that I'm beginning to phase out is meat, but not for the same reasons.  My wife has recently started to eat vegan, and I've cut my meat consumption down to three days a week.  I'm planning to cut meat out of my diet entirely after I've finished the last meat that's in the house, but until then, I'm still allowing myself to eat meat three days every week.

Thankfully, the Mahoning concession building does have vegan options, but The Most Excellent Burger is not one of them.  It's a big burger stuffed with popcorn, nacho chips, nacho cheese and barbecue sauce, and it was very tasty!

Title Card photos by Louie Sullivan

There was a trailer reel played before each of the features, including one for a 1988 Bobcat Goldthwait comedy called Hot To Trot.  I've never heard of it before, but it looked like it was absolutely bananas, and it is now my mission to find and watch this movie as soon as possible.

Just as he had done for the screening of Freaked last weekend, Alex Winter recorded a brief introduction that was played before the movie.  He seems like a genuinely good dude.  I hope he can make it out to the lot sometime.

Be excellent to each other.  Party on dude!
Every rose has its thorn, just like every night has it's dawn...


I was 8 years old and 11 years old the last time.I saw these movies on the big screen.  Before we discovered the Mahoning Drive-In Theater, I never thought I'd get to see a 35mm print of these movies ever again.  This is our third year coming to the drive-in, and they've been so consistently awesome that I'm not even surprised anymore when they make a dream come true, but that doesn't mean that I appreciate it any less than I did the first time I stepped foot on the lot.  This place is magical.