We’re pushing hard to get our nostalgia geared up with March’s PLAYBACK theme! With that comes one of our favorites: Back to the Future! So, put your seatbelt on in your time-jumping Delorean and we’ll get into some rad trivia facts.
1. If you can imagine it, Back to the Future was written and re-written forty times before the script was eventually greenlit. Can you imagine the dedication to this story if you heard ‘No’ even ten times let alone forty? Shout out to the people that passed it through at lucky 41!
2. It wasn’t actually Michael J. Fox singing during the infamous Johnny B. Goode scene. It was musician Mark Campbell who was the lead singer of the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. Catchy name, right?
3. Once the movie came out, prop kits were released so that owners of DeLoreans could make their car look like the one from the film. That was bound to make you popular while cruising to the grocery store.
(Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures)
4. The bumper sticker on the back of Doc Brown’s truck reads: “One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day.”
5. The film’s producer, Bob Gale, notes the inspiration for the movie came from seeing his father’s old yearbook and wondering if he could ever be friends with his dad as a young man. They say all great ideas start somewhere.
6. Back to the Future II is the first time audiences would get a screen glimpse of future Shire-folk, Elijah Wood. In the diner, he’s one of the kids playing video games at the arcade machine when Marty arrives.
(Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures)
7. Carl Sagan was a huge fan of the films and considered them to be the most accurate interpretation of what would happen if people were to travel through time. A nod to Sagan is made in the second film where Doc uses Sagan’s name as an alias.
8. Tribute screenings for Back to the Future II took place on October 21, 2015 which is the exact date that Doc, Marty and Jennifer travel back. Clever, clever — but were they starting up at the same time of day? Because that’d be commitment.
9. Back to the Future III’s western flavor was actually due to Michael J. Fox commenting on how fun it would be to take these characters and put them in an Old West setting.
(Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures)
10. The soda Pepsi Max was actually written into Back to the Future II with no possibility then of it eventually becoming a beverage by Pepsi. However, in 2007, folks in the United States got a brand new Pepsi product that’s name originated from a menu in Back to the Future II.
