‘SNL’ Spoofs ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’: Harriet Tubman And Frederick Douglass Refuse To Return To The Past​on May 4, 2025 at 4:52 am

Saturday Night Live opened strong with a hilarious sketch spoofing Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the 1989 film starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as time-traveling teens to meet historical figures to help them ace an exam.

In Will & Todd’s Radical Experience, Marcel Hernandez and Andrew Dismukes bring to life the titular duo on a similar mission to Bill & Ted, who return to present day with Julius Caesar (Emil Wakim), Queen Elizabeth (Chloe Fineman), Leonardo da Vinci (Mikey Day), Harriet Tubman (Host, Quinta Brunson), and Frederick Douglass (Kenan Thompson).

Only when it was time for the group to return to their respective times did Tubman and Douglass declare their intentions; they planned to stay put in the present. Will and Todd nervously explained to the pair that history would suffer if they refused.

“Without the two of you, who would end slavery?” asked Todd.

“Lots of people are working on that, yeah. Someone will step up,” said Brunson as Tubman.

Yeah, the bench is deep on that one,” adds Thompson as Douglass.

Will and Todd share further and try to put some sense into Tubman and Douglass.

“Harriet, what about the Underground Railroad?” asked Todd.

She replied, “Oh, my cousin Janet can do it. She’s real sneaky.”

Watch the sketch above.