Ocean meets Mountain in the 1998 Disney "lost but forgotten" live action feature "GREET THOSE BEATLES" (better yet, "MEET THE DEEDLES"), a story about two Hawaiian surf bums (Phil and Stew) who have played hooky from school on their first day of adulthood, and since they became expelled (from near the end of high school; what a shame), father Deedle punished the boys by sending them to a boot camp in Wyoming. Just when they couldn't attend but had to camp the hard way by someone "who got hit by the ugly stick," they crashed through a campground, found someone's clothes, and turns out, they have become ranger recruits of the Yellowstone National Park Service!!!!!Now, don't let the title fool you, because it's not a Beatles movie. No, you won't hear "Help!!!!!" or "I wanna hold your hand!!!!!!" here (although the chicken lip reader at one point called the Deedles "the Beatles"), but this review shows that movies that have become dust in the wind can be returned to their natural form once again. This was shown in a heavily edited form on the Old, and one time in spring '04, the New Disney Channel, and in what looked like the original form on local TV, and this movie is perfect any way. So why hate on a movie so bad and so dull when you can learn to love it?????

On their 18th birthday, Hawaii surfer dudes Stew and Phil Deedle skip school. Their wealthy father Elton, informed that the boys will get no more second chances, has to do something. Realizing the boys will someday take over his business, he must see that they are turned into men, so he sends them to a sort of boot camp in Wyoming. A couple of unexpected detours result in the boys ending up unconscious at the entrance to Yellowstone Park, wearing the labelled clothes of Mel and Mo, the park's newest ranger trainees. (Did I mention Mo and Mel are female?) Mel and Mo were hired because of their rodent expertise, because the park has a serious prairie dog problem. This was caused by former head ranger Frank Slater, fired after an incident several years ago and now out for revenge, along with his associates Crabbe and Nemo. Stew and Phil don't bother to correct Capt. Pine, the current head ranger, when he believes they are who the clothes say they are. They see an opportunity to satisfy their father in a way that lets them have a good time. Mel and Mo, meanwhile, are otherwise occupied. The big event coming up, which Slater wants to sabotage, is the billionth birthday of Old Faithful.Another reason the boys want to stay at Yellowstone--Lt. Jesse Ryan, another ranger who is the stepdaughter of Capt. Pine, who declares her off limits. That doesn't stop the boys from trying.I don't understand how Disney could be associated with such garbage. For one thing, there was too much off-color humor for my taste. But I enjoyed this mess overall. There was plenty of slapstick comedy, especially the constant misfortunes of poor Capt. Pine, and Slater's brainless sidekicks. And we were taken on several exciting thrill rides, especially in the sequences immediately preceding the boys' arrival at the park. Another thrilling sequence involved surfboards (In Wyoming? Yes).Steve Van Wormer and Paul Walker had their good moments, reminding me a lot of the superior Bill and Ted movies. So did A.J. Langer and Robert Englund. But one doesn't watch movies such as this for good acting. And there wasn't much. I'm surprised a respected actor such as Dennis Hopper would get involved with something like this. He really didn't add that much. John Ashton also didn't make me as happy as he could have. And despite talent he has shown over the years on "The Young and the Restless", Eric Braeden fell flat in his brief appearances as the boys' father.As mindless enjoyable entertainment, though, this film succeeded. I can say I had a good time.

I was a kid when I first saw it, but when it was on TV a couple years ago I realized how confusing it was because they're twins and you think both of them are equally hot, but Stew has the best hair, but Phil is better because the ranger girl wants to go out to the forest to eat worms (like the gross white maggot kinds!), but Phil put gummy worms out instead so he doesn't have to kiss a girl with worm-breath.That was the nicest thing ever!It's pretty wild how Phil Deedle grew up to become Paul Walker and the other guy was in Bubble Boy or something. Paul Walker is pretty hot and you can tell he's smart cuz he helped figure out about the P-Dogs. Petey the P-Dog was cute, but not the same way Paul Walker is!

"Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" had a certain charm to it. A wit if you will. It chronicled the lives of deep, yet shallow-acting characters. They were entertaining to see on screen; the situations they got into even more so. But alas, there is none of this obvious humor in the most heinous rip-off of Bill and Ted to this day, "Meet the Deedles.""Meet the Deedles" was a movie made for one reason, and one reason only: To cash in on a once-was film franchise. Bill and Ted's two adventures were time-pieces; a look into the eighties. But one can see why this technique failed in the sequel, "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," because by then (1991) audiences had grown weary of eighties teenagers in heinous situations. Film companies should have learned then that while Bill and Ted were once good, and always will be, MORE of the same kind is tiring. They tried a lot of films in the same tradition, but they all flopped. ("Bio Dome".) The original is the only thing worth seeing again; not sequels or rip-offs, because their time has passed. But "Meet the Deedles" ignores this and gives the audience something about ten years too late for its own good. The movie's only true ambition is to create mindless slapstick and generate a series in the tradition of the ``Bill & Ted'' movies. It really does neither. The story involves twin brothers Stew and Phil Deedle (Steve Van Wormer and Paul Walker), slackers from Hawaii who find themselves in the middle of a fiendish plot to sabotage Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. One day Stew and Phil are hanging beneath a balloon being towed above the Hawaiian surf, while being pursued by a truant officer on a Jet Ski. When they reach ground, their millionaire father (Eric Braeden) realizes he must put a plan of his own into action: Send the two surf-bums to Camp Broken Spirit, a monthlong experience in outdoor living that will turn them into men. Through a series of truly mind-numbing and brain-tumbling actions, the Twin Deedle Dudes, who may as well be referred to as Bill and Ted, are mistaken for park ranger recruits upon their arrival at camp. They come under the command of Ranger Pine (John Ashton), and stumble onto the solution to a mysterious infestation of prairie dogs. Prairie dogs. My, oh my. Praire dogs. Where do I start? Perhaps I'll tell you why millions of them are scurrying about. It's quite simple, really. Too simple.An evil former ranger named Slater (Dennis Hopper) has trained them to burrow out a cavern around Old Faithful, allowing him to redirect the geyser's boiling waters in the direction of New Faithful, to which he plans to sell tickets. A whole lot of work when he could just use some machinery to re-route the water. But that would be too basic for a film as stupid and mindless as this. No, Slater as to have prairie dogs chew around the geyser. Truly awful.Hopper lives in his underground cavern, along with his sidekick Nemo, played by Robert Englund, Freddy of the ``Nightmare on Elm Street'' pictures. At one point he explains how he trained the prairie dogs, and I quote, ``Inject kibble into the dirt, and a-tunneling they would go.'' I never thought I would ever hear Dennis Hopper say such a thing. But he did, and I am forever scarred. While he schemes, the Deedles fumble and bumble their way through ranger training. None of these scenes are remotely funny, nor hilarious as they should have been.Yet with all this criticism, "Meet the Deedles" is also kind of fun to watch. It's so lousy that it almost comes off as original. It's worth seeing alone just for Dennis Hopper's crazy line I mentioned above. But I would not recommend you go out and rent the film; rather, wait until it is on TV.I am split between my outlook on "Meet the Deedles." It is certainly one of the worst films I have ever seen, but it is not unwatchably bad like other bad children's flicks. I saw a TV-film two years ago named "P.U.N.K.S.", and while the lousiness of it is much on the same level as "Meet the Deedles," its watchability (yes, I made up that word) differs. "Meet the Deedles" is just awful. "P.U.N.K.S." is even worse.Only watch "Meet the Deedles" if there's nothing on TV. But I don't recommend it to you as a good film, but rather an awful one. See it and witness pure stinkiness on film. Whatever it tried to steal from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" is not apparent. Whatever was stolen was not stolen properly. .5/5 stars (half a star).John Ulmer