With literally hundreds of thousands of podcasts, I was sure one show covered the world of Back to the Future given the popularity of the series and the impending Future Day. Upon several searches on my iPhone in the Apple podcast store for such a show, I couldn’t believe one had yet to be created. At the time, I was hosting my own radio show in Houston and was cohosting a sports show with two-time WWE Hall of Famer, Booker T on a local AM station. Instead of waiting for someone else to create this podcast, I saw an opportunity to share my love of the movies with thousands of other people. Back to the Future: The Podcast was born. On April 24, 2015, I launched the podcast and soon after spoke with several people involved with the films. In the first five episodes of the show, I spoke with Claudia Wells, who played Jennifer Parker in Back to the Future. I had an in-depth discussion with Kevin Pike, who was the special effects supervisor and an integral part of the DeLorean time machine. Jeffrey Weissman, who took over the role of George McFly in parts two and three after Crispin Glover’s departure, also graced me with an interview. I couldn’t believe I got to talk to people who were either in the films or worked on them. The podcast took on a life of its own.
Since 2015, we have had five full seasons of the show and the special guests continued to come. I’ve talked to Stephen Wynne (owner of DeLorean Motor Company) which came with a personal tour of the DeLorean Headquarters, Harry Waters, Jr. (Marvin Berry), Stephen Clarke (executive director of BacktotheFuture.com), and others. While writing this book and planning the sixth season of the podcast, I got the chance to interview Crispin Glover for the show and talk about his role as George McFly, which we will discuss more in the chapters ahead. Thousands of people discover the show all the time, and I am overwhelmed by the amount of emails, messages, and Tweets I received each week from “pinheads” the world over. I decided it was time to take the next step in expressing my love for the world of Back to the Future by writing a book covering the time travel saga.
In this book, we’ll talk about how a germ of an idea turned into an entire universe. We’ll cover what actually happened in 2015 and how close it was to what was depicted in the films. We’ll debate who the best characters are and discuss theories that have never been explored in any book before. Now that the three films which have the word “future” in their titles are now all set ironically in the past, we will discuss why they are so damn rewatchable, why they are generational, and why they are timeless now that we are officially back, back from the future.
Part I
Chapter 1
Back to the Future is without a doubt in my mind the greatest trilogy of films in the history of cinema. There has been no other stand-alone series of three films that have rivaled its blockbuster success. Many people might bring up Star Wars in response to that statement, but there are now nine films in the Skywalker saga alone. Indiana Jones had a really good shot at besting the time travel trilogy, but a fourth installment of the series was released in 2008 and a planned fifth film with Harrison Ford returning as the famous archeologist is in the works as I write this book. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has over two dozen films, as does the James Bond series, which takes them both out of contention. Back to the Future’s only real competition in terms of a true trilogy is The Godfather series by Francis Ford Coppola, but I still give the edge to Back to the Future for two reasons. First, let’s be honest—Back to the Future Part III is way better than The Godfather Part III, and, second, I am writing a book about Back to the Future, so I am a tad biased.
Biases aside, Back to the Future captured the attention of everyone worldwide when it was released in July of 1985. The summer hit became the highest grossing film that year, besting Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rocky IV, A View to a Kill, and the other Christopher Lloyd cult classic, Clue. But how did a germ of an idea writer Bob Gale had while looking through his father’s yearbook turn into one of the most beloved franchises in the history of cinema? Well, it started the same way Back to the Future’s story does—with two friends who go on an incredible and fantastical journey.
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale first met during their enrollment in the film program at the University of Southern California. Zemeckis was born on May 14, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois, and was enamored with television and using his parents’ eight-millimeter film camera to film birthdays and other family events. When Zemeckis learned he could attend film school from an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Bob Z. (as members of the cast and crew of Back to the Future referred to him) made arrangements to chase his dream of being a Hollywood filmmaker and attended the University of Southern California.
Bob Gale was born in May of 1951 in University City, Missouri. Gale had a fascination with movies and comic books. When Gale was a young teen, he created his own comic book series called The Green Vomit and founded a comic book club in St. Louis. Gale, always interested in being a writer, followed the path of density (or destiny) to USC and met Zemeckis. The two quickly became friends over their love for big Hollywood movies.
The two began working on a script called Bordello of Blood, a film about vampire prostitutes, and thought this would be the first film the two would work on together. Although they didn’t get Bordello made at the time (it later would be made into a TV movie for Tales from the Crypt), they both enjoyed working together. The duo continued to write together and even wrote an episode for a short-lived horror series called Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The show starred Darren McGavin as a newspaper reporter who would investigate mysterious crimes and lasted for only one season. Gale and Zemeckis wrote the episode titled “Chopper,” a fun watch for those who haven’t seen the episode, or the show for that matter.
With an official writing credit to their names, the Bobs would go on to write on another television show called McCloud and then for Get Christie Love! The duo was working well together—so well that NBC approached them both with contracts of $50,000 a year each for seven years to write TV shows for the network. The Bobs took the offer to their new set of entertainment lawyers and agents who suggested they turn down the offer. The Bobs wanted to produce movies, not television, so the two began their journey to Hollywood by visiting with a young director Zemeckis had met during a visit from that director to the USC campus.
Steven Spielberg is perhaps the most well-known film director in history. Spielberg brought to life several films that impressed audiences globally including: JAWS, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, and more. But before any of his major success, Spielberg was a young director trying to get a big break but was almost earmarked by industry experts as someone to watch. Spielberg visited the USC campus to show his film The Sugarland Express. Zemeckis was very impressed with what he saw, and he approached Spielberg after the screening and asked if Steven would view his Student Academy Award–winning film, A Field of Honor. Steven agreed, and the two watched the film together in Steven’s office. In the not-too-distant future, Steven Spielberg would be directing a film the Bobs had written called 1941, a comedy set during World War II. The film was Spielberg’s follow-up to JAWS and Close Encounters, so the film was expected to perform rather well at the box office. However, the film lost money in the domestic box office.
This did not deter Steven from working with Gale and Zemeckis, however. Steven would work with the Bobs as an executive producer of Zemeckis’s films I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars. The two films, both written by Gale and Zemeckis and directed by the latter, weren’t massive hits by any means, but they both had a distinct