With only a few days left before their high school graduation, two most excellent dudes, Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Keanu Reeves) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Alex Winter), are on the verge of flunking history. Unless they can ace their final history report, Ted's dad will pack him off to a military academy in Alaska, meaning their band, The Wyld Stallyns, will come to a heinous end. Luckily for these wanna-be rock stars, a guardian angel from the future, Rufus (George Carlin), comes to them with a bodacious solution: a time-traversing phone booth in which they travel back to the past and round up personages of historical significance who can help them stage a most triumphant oral report.