Hey, you ever notice what shirt Ted "Theodore" Logan is wearing in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? And did you know that – even though it doesn't have anything to do with U2 – there's still a lingering connection to The Joshua Tree in B&T movie merch today?
So first off, in the movie itself Ted wears a Van Halen 5150 tour t-shirt:
It definitely makes sense, given how much Wyld Stallyns like Eddie Van Halen...
...but it is pretty easy to miss since Ted is usually wearing a vest and/or jacket (and the iconic "be excellent to each other..." pose has him put his hand over his chest). Furthermore, most merchandise tends to blank out, alter, or replace the 5150 shirt (presumably to get out of paying VH royalties):
(L–R:) The Blitzway sixth-scale figure gives everyone sunglasses and swaps "Van Halen 5150" for "Wyld Stallyns 2688", the Incendium figures replace it will the hand-drawn "Wyld Stallyns" from Bill's sweater, and the Good Luck socks replace it with the (obscured) Circle K logo.
However! There was a promotional photoshoot of Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves that features the duo in slightly different costumes – eagle-eyed fans may notice Bill's shirt, the "T.S.O.L." instead of "Save the Humans" sticker, or Ted's lighter jacket with gray elements (to say nothing of Keanu's hair—is that a wig?) – that was also used as the basis for the movie's poster...
...and in this photoshoot, Ted is wearing a shirt with a promotional photo from U2's The Joshua Tree:
Photos from this Joshua Tree-outfit still regularly crop up in or otherwise influence various licensed products. One fascinating one is this Ted Halloween costume...
...which appears to have created a copyright-free approximation of a U2 Joshua Tree image, using stock photography of some random guys and a Joshua tree! Curiously, this does seem to otherwise reference his proper movie outfit (note the bright orange rather than pale salmon jacket + "Save the Humans" patch) but that U2 shirt snuck back in!
Honestly, on more than one occasion I have considered buying this costume just to get that off-brand JT shirt, in hopes of getting a confused "Hey, nice U2 tee– wait... what?" reaction from a fan of Bono and the boyz.
My piece for @nmhzine!! A pleasure to be a part of this artistic collaboration based around one of my favorite series, and lemme tell you it is a damn delight to have a printed and bound pic of my mug in hand --
Leftovers are goin' on sale tomorrow so maybe grab yourself a copy!
Personally I subscribe to Jean-Luc Lemur's theory that the manga initially depicted Lupin's hair as a side part with receding temples (à la Connery-as-Bond)...
...though, of course, Monkey Punch pretty quickly abstracted this to a much simpler widow's peaked blob ("Lego hair", as I like to call it)...
...and across the decades as so many other artists have drawn him in such a variety of styles there's sort of a visual-telephone-game/symbol-drawing thing where it's never clear how long his hair is or how it's laying – and his hairline has often been pushed so far forward and down it's definitely not receding in most iterations. Who knows.
But I think the Bond reference is as good an explanation as any for why his hairline has such a distinct parabola.
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