Back to the Future in popular culture

The Back to the Future trilogy is a comedic science fiction film trilogy written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, directed by Zemeckis, and distributed by Universal Pictures. The plot follows the adventures of high-school student Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) as they use a modified DeLorean automobile to time travel to different periods in the history of Hill Valley, California.

The first film was the highest grossing film of 1985 and became an international phenomenon, leading to two sequels which were filmed back-to-back and released in 1989 and 1990 respectively. The trilogy is widely noted for its irreverent comedy, eccentric characters and ability to incorporate complex theories of time-travel without confusing the audience. Though the two sequels did not perform quite as well at the box office as the first film, the trilogy remains immensely popular and has yielded such spin-offs as an animated television series and a motion-simulation ride at the Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando, Florida (ride now closed); Universal City, California (ride closed on September 3, 2007), and Osaka, Japan.

Back to the Future: Part I

 * At the end of Stephen King's IT, the protagonists see remains of the destroyed city of Derry. At one point, they see a sign from the ruined Aladdin Theater that was playing Back To The Future.
 * A Simpsons episode titled "Bart to the Future" has an Indian sachem showing what Bart's future may look like 30 years from now. The bully Nelson is a nightclub owner with a dark suit, turtleneck, and better styled hair than he had as a child. The future Nelson's appearance and business ownership was a nod to the powerful Biff of 1985A.
 * The plot of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time centered around the antagonist, Lady Tremaine, finding out about Cinderella's Fairy Godmother and stealing the magic wand so that she can change the timeline to her own gain, similar to what Biff does. In an article about Disney sequels written for the Progressive Boink website, staff member Mike Fireball noted the similarity by jokingly referring to the film as "Alternate 1985 Cinderella".
 * The 2007 movie Knocked Up in the scene where Ben, Alison, Pete and Debbie are having dinner at a restaurant and Ben and Pete are joking about their future with Pete saying "Where we're going we don't need roads.", as well as "I'm gonna throw you in my DeLorean and gun it to 88," much to the chagrin of the annoyed and confused women. There are also some references to Doc Brown.
 * Phil of the Future features a family who is from 2121. The series finale is called "Back to the Future-Not the Movie."
 * In an episode of Fairly Odd Parents, Timmy Turner travels back in time to the 1980's on a time scooter. Just before he arrives, a DeLorean can be seen driving off and dissappearing leaving a trail of fire behind it. In the episode "Land Before Timmy", Cosmo and Wanda's wands require 1.21 "Wishawatts" to operate, so they used lightning similar to Back to the Future. Also, in Wishology Part 1 Jorgen Bon Strangle's motorcycle can teleport through wormholes and leaves a trail of fire behind.
 * In an episode of Stargate Atlantis, Major Shepherd suggests you would need a "really nice DeLorean" to travel through time.
 * Busted's song "Year 3000" clearly mentions the flux capacitor and "a time machine like the one in a film I've seen".
 * British band Mcfly, named themselves after lead character Marty McFly.
 * In the Disney Channel Original Movie Minutemen, Virgil, Charlie, and Zeke need to get permission to access room 77 in order to build their time machine. They get permission by having a club at their high school called, "Back to the Future Fan Club."
 * In Garfield and Friends, the U.S. Acres episode "Quack to the Future" is a spoof of "Back to the Future".
 * In the 2007 Doctor Who episode The Shakespeare Code, the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) uses Back to the Future to explain how time can be changed to his companion Martha Jones.
 * Kanye West's song "Good Morning" from his Graduation album contains the third verse lyric "Look at the Valedictorians/Scared of the the future while I hop in the DeLorean". The music video also includes a flying DeLorean not unlike the one seen at the end of the first film. Kanye's "Dropout Bear" mascot tries to fly off to school in the DeLorean in the beginning of the music video when he finds out he is late for his graduation ceremony, but the car stalls and he is left to run all the way. He and his friends are later seen flying in a topless version of the car at the end of the video.
 * In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie expresses his love for the films when speaking with his science teacher about the possibilities of time travel.
 * In the Family Guy episode "Road to Germany," Stewie rides a skateboard like Marty before the Nazis crash into manure.
 * In the American Dad episode "Delorean Story-an"
 * The Disney Channel series Phineas and Ferb has an episode where the title characters build a "Flying Car of the Future Today" out of their mom's station wagon. Candace and Jeremy late use it on the way to rescue Phineas and Ferb, with the music in the background resembling the Back to the Future theme before they crash it.
 * In I Love You Man Sydney, while playing the guitar, makes reference to the scene when Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck, the writer of Johnny B. Goode.

Back to the Future: Part II

 * In the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink", minutes after the disappearance of character Cathy Nightingale, her grandson delivers a letter to Sally Sparrow, a letter entrusted to him 20 years previously, explaining Cathy's disappearance to the year 1920 and her subsequent life, despite having only left Sally moments earlier. This clearly echoes the scene in Back to the Future Part II, when Marty receives a letter written in 1885 just moments after Doc's departure (see Plot Synopsis) and the lines of the respective characters are almost identical in places.
 * In the background of one of the mall scenes in the episode "A Fishful of Dollars" of the television series Futurama, a self-adjusting jacket can be seen on sale.
 * Hoverboards and powered shoe laces have come into the English language lexicon of the modern world, even if they have yet to be invented.
 * In the Family Guy episode "Meet the Quagmires," Peter goes back in time and ends up not marrying Lois, altering history much like in BTTF II. In the altered timeline, Brian draws a time-line similar to Doc Brown's (while the track 'Alternate' 1985 from the film score plays in the background) and adds, among the things different, "for some reason, we now have a chalkboard in the living room." Peter also has a photograph of his children which fades throughout the episode, similar to Marty's.
 * At the end of the Kappa Mikey episode "Easy Come, Easy Gonard", the Lilymu sequence shows Mikey being thrown off a roof by Gonard, but a split second later, Mikey is shown standing on the Lilymu team jet while it is elevating him back to the top, which is a spoof of a scene from the movie.
 * In The Simpsons video game, The Simpsons: Road Rage, Professor Frink has a flying car.  He mentions that the car has a flux capacitor and that if he goes any faster, the car will travel through time.

Back to the Future: Part III

 * In an episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show when the family travels back in time to the old west, when main character and father Wayne Szalinski is asked his name by the town's inhabitants, he says it's John Wayne. When his wife gives him a look of disbelief, he says that if Marty could be Clint Eastwood in Back to the Future Part III, there was no reason why he could not be John Wayne.
 * In The Simpsons episode 'Dude, Where's My Ranch?', the girl "Clara" is named after Clara Clayton.
 * In the American version of Life on Mars, Sam Tyler calls himself first "Luke Tyler" and then "Luke Skywalker" in a manner similar to Marty's chosen alias of "Clint Eastwood" (indeed, the circumstances are similar, too).

Western homages
On the DVD commentary, Bob Gale and Neil Canton acknowledge that the film gave them a chance to play with a genre they loved as children -- the Western. The film is full of references, jokes, and homages to the genre.


 * The three old timers in the saloon are played by classic Western character actors Harry Carey, Jr., Dub Taylor, and Pat Buttram.
 * Doc (in 1955) clads Marty in an absurd outfit based upon B-Westerns of the period.
 * The scenes where Marty arrives in 1885 and is chased by Native Americans, and later when Doc hitches the DeLorean to a team of horses, were filmed in Monument Valley, known as "John Ford country" after the great director who used it extensively in his Westerns.
 * Marty chooses "Clint Eastwood", the most notable modern Western actor, as his alias in 1885. The locals make fun of it as a "sissy" name, and tell Marty that if he does not face Buford, "Clint Eastwood", will forever be known as a coward. Marty also says when he receives the clothes Doc gives him in 1955 looks nothing like Clint Eastwood's. Viewers can see a poster of "Revenge of the Creature" which was made in 1955, which also marked the first film role for Clint Eastwood. Upon Marty's return to 1985, his brother enquires sarcastically after his costume, using words to the effect of "Who are you supposed to be &mdash; Clint Eastwood?"; an obvious irony, considering that Marty has, in keeping with the film series' preference for paradoxes, apparently created the character.
 * Thomas F. Wilson has said his performance as Buford was inspired by Lee Marvin's character in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
 * Marty defeats Buford by imitating the final showdown in A Fistful of Dollars (which he had seen in Biff's penthouse suite in Part II).
 * The establishing shot of Hill Valley, in which the camera is on a crane and rises over the train station to reveal a bird's-eye view of the bustling main street, is an exact copy of a shot in Once Upon a Time in the West.
 * After Marty gets new clothes in 1885, he wears a poncho and hat similar to what Eastwood wore the Spaghetti Western films he starred in.
 * Doc Brown shoots the rope hanging Marty, much like how Clint's character frees Tuco multiple times in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.