Ep. 109: Celebrating 40 Years of "Back To The Future" with Stephen Clark

Hey, y'all. It's me, Tara Strong, a.k.a. Miss Minutes for Bama Geeks. I hope you're ready to watch, and if you don't, I will have to prune you. Stay on your sacred timeline. And a wonderful Sunday evening to you all. We hope you're doing well. Thank you so much for joining us here on the live stream. We are the Bama Geeks minus one. Kevin is a little bit, uh, I don't know if he's tired under the weather, but he wasn't feeling the best in the world tonight. So, uh, hopefully. We'll grab them again in just a couple of weeks when we're back. But joining us tonight, by the way, I'm Brock and that's Bo and my wife, Jessica down there. We put her in the corner tonight. Yeah. You know, cause we, we, we got this guy right here. Steve Clark. Special guest up top there. The executive director. Yeah, man. The executive director of backtothefuture.com. Very well connected to the world of Back to the Future. And this Thursday will be the fortieth anniversary of the release date, July third, nineteen eighty five. And, you know, we're like, OK, we can't get Bob Zemeckis or Bob Gale. So we'll get the guy who knows third most about Back to the Future. to join us. Yeah, this is our degrees of separation here. Yeah, there it is. Thank you so much for being here, Steve. Thank you for having me. It's good to be on again. I can't believe it's been three years since we last did this. I know. I know. That's what Brock was saying. I didn't realize it either had been that long. Cause we, you and I, we talk often, but yeah, we haven't, haven't had you on the show in a while. So we appreciate you coming back. Absolutely. Yeah. So we're going to talk all things back to the future tonight, what it means to us and Steve's involvement and. And if you're in the chat, please feel free to join us. Let us know your thoughts on Back to the Future, how it's impacted you. Maybe some fun memories that you've got over the past forty years of this wonderful franchise. Before we get started, though, I see a lot of new people joining us tonight. We thank you for that. uh if you want to know more about our podcast all you have to do is go to bamageeks.com that's our website where you can find all the audio all the video you name it it's there you can catch up on everything uh everywhere on social media at bamageeks and if you're on the the old facebook there Then you can join us on the Bama Geeks front porch. Just ask to join that private group. We'll let you in. We always have a good time and chatting there. And also, I just want to give a big shout out to our top members. These are our paid supporters who have been with us for the entire time that we've been part of the podcast. Jamie and Mike and Darnay and Jack. Thank you guys so much as always for your kind support. Yes. But let's not dilly-dally. We've got a lot of people here, and I know they're not here for us. They're here for Steve. So they're here about one of the greatest film franchises in cinematic history. So for those of you who are not familiar with Steve, Steve, why don't you introduce yourself and give us a little bit of background. What's your story? Well... This is actually year thirty three for me. So I've I've been at this a very long time, just like you. And I'm an Alabama boy. I just kind of fell my way into this back in nineteen ninety two. I had been a fan since the very first weekend. So this Saturday will mark forty years since I saw the film for the first time. I saw it on July the fifth. uh, my now wife was my soon to be fiance. And we, we saw it that weekend and then got engaged just a few days later at a Rick Springfield concert. Oh man, that's, that's complete eighties right there. I am an eighties boy, eighties boy. So, uh, but yeah, just, uh, you know, saw the movie a couple of times in theaters and, uh, really enjoyed it. And, um, wasn't, uh, uh, we were big Michael J. Fox fans. We watched Family Ties every week and, uh, we were both in college at the time and, uh, uh, enjoyed the movie really, really, uh, was one of those blockbusters that we both enjoyed. I'm one who usually enjoys the blockbusters more than my wife, but, but it was one of those that, you know, she liked Michael J. Fox. I liked Michael J. Fox and just didn't know much about the movie, went in and saw it and went and saw it again. But it wasn't until the movie came out on home video the very next year, you know, back in those days, you know, movies came out on home video and, you know, ten to twelve months later. And does everybody remember Starlog magazine? Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. So Starlog magazine. I don't know if this will show up on screen. There it goes. This was the issue that I found in my local Bookland bookstore. Wow, that's a throwback. I never had a subscription to it or anything. I just picked it up whenever something caught my eye and saw that it had an article about Back to the Future, which was about to come out on home video. I kind of thumbed through it. It was written by an a guy who used to work for Disney. He was an Imagineer. He is now passed on. His name was Bruce Gordon. And he had written several books for Disney and everything. But he had written this article about Back to the Future. And it was just a three-page article. And it was entitled The Other Marty McFly with a question mark. and uh it kind of uh intrigued me and I kind of scanned it and skimmed through it and uh read something about lone pine mall and I thought I didn't catch that in the movie and so uh I had to uh skim through it and there were several other things that he wrote about and I thought i I've got to, I've got to buy this. And so I took it home and, uh, back to the future had just came out on home video, I think in July of eighty six. And so, uh, no, May, May of eighty six, the magazine was July of eighty six. So it come out a couple of months earlier. So immediately went, rented the VHS, didn't, didn't have a laser disc player, didn't, didn't have, uh, any high tech, uh, way. But, uh, So just went through his article and did a lot of freeze framing and frame by frame by frame and called a lot of things in the article. And it just kind of really blew my mind. And I thought, wow, whoever wrote this film, uh, wrote the screenplay for this really put a lot of details in it that you really don't catch, uh, on the first viewing. And it may be only, you know, second, third or tenth viewing that you catch some of these things. And so, uh, so I was, you know, I, I spent a lot of time that summer in eighty six, uh, kind of trying to read everything I could about it. But they kind of forgot about it until nineteen eighty nine when part two came out. And I was all in, buddy. My wife and I, a buddy from went to church with us at the time in Huntsville. We all went to the first showing that November twenty second. And I was boy, I was all in. And so. I had already been trying to catch up on Starlog and anything else. Of course, you know, back in those days, we didn't have the internet. We didn't have Google. We didn't have email. We didn't have any of this stuff. The only way you knew ahead of time what was coming out was you either bought Starlog Magazine or you watched the precursor to E! News Daily, which was Movie Time. Movie Time showed nothing but twenty-four seven movie trailers and had some behind-the-scenes things. I watched a lot of Movie Time And and everything I can find in print. Yeah. And it was soon after that, the job that I had out on the Arsenal, you know, with Arsenal is in Huntsville, Alabama. I had a job out there where I had access to what was really the precursor to the Internet, had a CompuServe account and could go on CompuServe and find these bulletin boards. And I found several people that, lo and behold, I'm still friends with on Facebook today that back in nineteen eighty nine I encountered. And and we were discussing all these theories and aspects of Back to the Future Part two. And, you know, we couldn't wait for the next six months to get here in May of ninety for part three to wrap it all up. And so. uh what were you know what were our theories were going to happen in the conclusion and was there going to be a part four and you know just a lot of those kinds of discussions so so I was you know really uh a back to the future geek from the very beginning but it really wasn't until my, and I blame my wife for this. So our fifth wedding anniversary, she bought, uh, bought, she, she set up a vacation for us to go to universal studios, Florida. Uh, and, uh, this was just about, about eight months after back to the future, the ride had opened and she knew that I was, chomping at the bit to go to Orlando and go check out this new Back to the Future ride that I've been hearing about and seeing on Movie Time and all these different movie shows that I was following at the time. And so I fully blame her for it because once I got to Orlando, there was no turning back. I was all in. I wrote it as many times as I could that trip. Of course, back in those days, it was fresh and you had to stand in line two or three hours to get on it. So you could really only ride it maybe three times in a day. So I came back from that trip completely all in Back to the Future. This is my jam. And so I spent the better part of the spring and summer of uh to cold calling universal studios because I was determined to get me a vhs copy of the ride footage I'm very I'm very persistent and I made a lot of calls and uh and I get transferred to this department in this department I hit a lot of brick walls and then one day uh, I got transferred to the, uh, the office at universal studios, Hollywood of Bob Gale. And, uh, Bob had, Bob was still working on the back to the future animated series, the second season of that. And, uh, he still had an office on the back lot at universal. And, uh, One day he picked up. I apologized to him. I said, I'm sure you wish you had missed that phone call. His assistant told me about this brand new unofficial Back to the Future fan club. I don't know if you remember, there was an official fan club that was in Starlog magazine, advertised in Starlog magazine that Lucasfilm actually put out. And it was just called Back to the Future Fan Club. I thought I may have an issue laying around here somewhere, but I don't see it. But it only lasted four issues. It was really designed to encapsulate the two sequels and the opening of the ride and the animated series, which all four of those things happened in a two-year period. Really, yeah, about a two-year period. But it was really designed to kind of advertise those again, this is before the internet. And so, um, so I spent a lot of time, uh, uh, uh, early on trying, you know, find out everything I could find out, but that, that magazine ended and, uh, there was a comic book series that had come along and there was somebody in there suggested, Hey, somebody needs to start a fan club. And I thought, I didn't know anything about it. And, uh, anyway, uh, Bob's assistant, uh, said, well, we've got a gentleman who lives here in, uh, Southern California who just started an unofficial fan club. Y'all are pretty, pretty alike in, uh, your determination. Uh, let me give you his name and number. And, uh, so I reached out to him and, uh, He was already two issues in and putting out this little newsletter. He used a typewriter. And me being the IT guy, I knew of a better way to do it. And he put me on it. So starting with the third issue, I started doing all the publishing for this. And we changed the name from, I think it was just called the Back to the Future Fan Club. uh very original but I I changed the title to the hill valley telegraph which was the name of the newspaper in the films and so uh from issue four through issue twenty one that I I published uh from here in alabama at the peak of it I think we had about five hundred print subscribers, which was not bad for an unofficial thing. They didn't have any studio support. We interviewed all of them. Didn't ever interview Chris. Back in those days, Chris didn't do any interviews. He didn't do print interviews. He didn't do television interviews at all. He was very, very bashful. We interviewed Michael J. Fox right after Spin City had started and uh, Leah Thompson, um, Tom Wilson, uh, interviewed a lot of, uh, the cast and some of the creative folks to, uh, Bob and Neil Canton and several others, uh, some people who were involved with the animated series. And so, uh, it was just kind of this thing that I did, uh, and towards the end of it, well, uh, the internet suddenly became a big thing. And, and so, um, I had an AOL account, I think, around nineteen ninety one. But, you know, probably around nineteen ninety five, I got my first real taste of of a Web page. Self-taught myself how to do a webpage. And there was a company in Huntsville of all places called Traveler Information Systems or something like that. And I like the name Traveler. And so I registered a web page. My email address was time at Traveler dot com. And I just thought that's very appropriate thing. But, you know, back in those days, you could have that little tilde and a web page name that kind of took you from their host to your web page. And so for about. a year and a half, maybe close to two years, I ran a web page at the same time as this newsprint thing that we were doing. And it just got to the point where the news I was printing up to my subscribers was two and three months old by the time I could get it in their hands. And I said, let's abandon this thing and let's just go full force with a web page. So so in january of ninety seven I registered the bttf.com domain um and I still own that domain to this day but uh I originally uh registered it because uh even though back to the future.com was available I was I was kind of fearful that uh universal would come and get it one day yeah and so I I was uh just this you know this this guy in alabama did this on the side I didn't want any trouble, so I did not register it. And it was years later that I acquired it from somebody. I think in two thousand thirteen I acquired it and uh it's been a long journey you know any questions just jump in here anytime forty years yeah but you know it's been one of those journeys that uh it was just being at the right place at the right time and having a certain set of skills a little bit of publishing uh experience and learning how to do a web page back in the mid nineties and then doing a full domain and then, uh, uh, doing a web store. And I mean, it just has just grown into this massive thing. And so, uh, you know, here in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in It's been a blessing. I've enjoyed it. I've just become the back of the future guy. And I've met a lot of interesting people over the years, had a lot of fun. getting to know a lot of the cast members, meeting them, getting, you know, intimately friendly with a lot of the cast members and crew that just become really close friends with several of them. And that's been very gratifying after all these years of, Time and effort putting into it and knowing at the end of the day that I've got some really close friends in Hollywood that reach out to me and I can reach out to them anytime and see along on the road on some of these shows and the journey along this way. But it's been a long journey. long journey, but it's been a lot of time. We've been blessed to do this for so long. That's awesome. Yeah. But before we continue on, we've got a ton of people watching on X and thank you for, thank you guys for being here. And I've noticed that you're not able to leave comments on the video on X. So if you've got any questions for Steve, you want to hear any more questions, You know, you can do stuff on X. You've got to make it like where it's a stone dedicated window. It's weird. You got to click on the video. Cause like, like I'm right now, I've got it pulled up and, uh, like I said, I was going to say, uh, if you go to youtube.com slash at Bama geeks. Yeah. Bo just got it. Okay. All right. Well, apparently you can, but, uh, if you're not able to, cause I'm not granted them. I'll put, I'll post it here on the chat here too. Yeah. Okay. You're talking here. Yeah, you can go over to our YouTube channel, youtube.com. Bo just put up the link in the chat. So are we able to show that? Yeah. Yeah, just type all that in. Just go to youtube.com slash at Bama Geeks if you want a little bit easier way to get your comments. Well, that's for this video if you still want to continue here. Yeah, yeah. But if you've got any questions for Steve, that's where you can do that. So, yeah. So, Steve, I first I first e-met you on BTTF.com. Golly, now it's been twenty six, twenty seven years. I believe it was ninety eight or ninety nine when I was in the early days. Yeah. And I made my first purchase on your site. I believe it was those little bitty Texaco. Oh, the micro machines. Yeah. The little micro machines. And then I emailed you and you and I started having that conversation. We just been talking ever since. Wow. Yeah. Well, thank you for that support. Always. I mean, this album right here, the musical. Let me apologize to Jessica right now that I apologize that. I turned him on to this so many years ago. Oh, no. I'm just as huge of a fan of the franchise as Brock is. So no apologies necessary. But yeah, I have purchased quite a bit. Like I said, the musical album back here. Oh, yeah. was one of the things, I think the most recent thing I got from you was the, uh, the, the car racing set between kit and the DeLorean. Oh yeah. Yeah. The Skeletrics. Skeletrics put those out a few years ago. Yeah. So, uh, highly encourage you guys to go to, to go to back to the future.com and, and check everything there and go to the store and support Steve. And, um, so how, so, Hmm. I think I lost my own question there. It's called getting older. We're used to this, right? It doesn't get any better, my friend. Oh, so let, let's talk back to the future. Um, I, I was not one of the ones who saw it originally in the theater. Regretfully. I saw it when it first came out on video cassette, but as soon as I saw it on VHS, I was hooked. Um, what, uh, What? Boy, I'm putting on a good show for all these people watching now. So you called and you got a hold of Bob and Bob Gale. And how is that that relationship flourished over the years? Oh, it's been great. I can't do what I do without Bob Gale's full support. He's been a great friend. Just we have worked on so many projects together. He confides in me. There's a lot of stuff, you know, planned for the fortieth anniversary that I can't talk about yet, but not part of that. But, you know, Bob, he he has been full support from day one of doing the newsletters, from doing the website, from changing it from BTF dot com to back to the future dot com. uh you know he's you know he and I've been you know in together on working on several projects uh uh I happen to have this uh he and I worked on this lego in I think the first lego delorean uh we worked on that one together and uh I I wrote a lot of the uh instructional manual on that one and we did a lot of uh you know, authentication, making sure everything's correct. And it was a few things we found that were wrong and pointed those out. And so, you know, it's working on stuff like that. I really, really enjoy. I've worked on a lot of the merchandise aspect for about really about twenty four years now. It really started with the Sunstar DeLorean, the one eighteenth scale that came out in two thousand one. Um, uh, that was the very first one I ever worked on. And then I've worked on the, the one-twenty-fourth scale, the Welly that came out, uh, diecast. It was a, uh, set of three cars individually, and then later combined in one box. And so, uh, I did, I wrote the packaging, the copyright on the back of the packaging for all of those. And, um, uh, graphics guy that I've worked with for about twenty-five years now, he He did all the grunt work. I said, I like the logo here. Let's do this. Let's lay it out this way. It's a lot of fun to actually walk into a toy store and see something you actually worked on. That's quite gratifying. Nothing irks me more for something to show up on shelves that... And there's been a few that the companies have put stuff out and it was not anywhere close to being accurate and misspellings. I mean, I remember one of them, Corgi has actually reissued their DeLorean a couple of years ago, but it came out around the time that the Sunstars did. And I did not have any involvement with it, but they, they misspelled the word Marty with M-A-R-T-I. Wow. I mean, it was all over the package. So there's just a lot of things like that, that, uh, you know, uh, I want everything to be the best it can be. And so, uh, so much merchandise now, I mean, there's a lot still yet to come out and there's a lot of them that I'm not even privy to that, uh, or in the works, but in the thirty fifth anniversary, just five years ago, there was so there was more stuff that came out in twenty twenty combined. They had more than anything previously in previous thirty five years, all combined in one year. It just it was massive. There was so much stuff that came out. And so, you know, Funko put out a lot of stuff. Mattel, there were just so many companies that put stuff out and there's a lot of things coming. Funko's already got some stuff that just started to come out and a few more that haven't quite come out yet. And they've announced that we're taking pre-orders for, but I've got one of the Funko's right here. I don't know if you can see this big bad boy. I don't know if it's good. Now we can't see anything, Steve. Let me see the back of it. I just have to describe it to you. It's called the Deluxe Pop Moment and it's the hoverboard chase from part two. It has Marty and Griff and Data, Whitey and Spike all on hoverboards and the straps and everything. It's like a four and a half pound thing. It's actually in a plexiglass case and everything. It's a really nice piece. That just came out on Funko's website. I haven't My distributor doesn't have them yet, but Funko released it. They always put their stuff out a few weeks or kind of a couple of months before the retail gets them. And everybody says, how come you haven't shipped mine yet? Cause they haven't shipped them to me. But so there's a lot of stuff coming out. There's a really cool piece that I'm, eager to get my hands on. That looks like it's only coming out in Japan, but there's a company that's about to put out the part three train for the first time. Oh no. You've not seen that on TV. Go look it up on my feed. I retweeted it a few several days ago, maybe a week or so ago, but it's got like fifty six LEDs. It comes with figures and everything is massive. I have no idea what it's going to cost, but I don't care. I've been wanting that train since since I saw the original down in Orlando. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I couldn't get a real train, so I'll take a replica. Well, but just go ahead and add me to your order. He's like, you got my information. Just put me down. I have not been contacted by that company. I think it's only coming out in Japan, so I probably won't be carrying it. But I would love to if it's available. If it's going to be for U.S. markets, I'll definitely do everything I can to carry it. Well, if you can't, you know, add me to your order so we can cut down on shipping costs. I'll go in with you. I'll do it. But yeah, it's, it's a company that I can't even pronounce, but do it, do a search on Back to the Future Part Three Time Train. You'll find it. Absolutely. And I've got kind of a, as far as the toys and everything are concerned, I have an issue, Steve, and I hope you can give me some sort of answer on this. Okay. All right, I've got the Hot Toys, for people who don't know, the one-sixth scale figures. I have Back to the Future I, Doc and Marty, and Back to the Future III, Doc and Marty. I have a Back to the Future II, DeLorean from Hot Toys. Are we going to get a re-release of the Back to the Future II, Doc and Marty, so I can finally pair them with a vehicle? I seriously doubt it. Oh, see, that's been our hunt lately, is the... They're out there. They came out with those figures so far in advance of the cars and sold out of the figures. I want to say that the first car came out in two thousand fourteen. Yes. It's a while back. And the figures came out. At least the part one figures came out maybe the year before that. So. Right. And the reason I have hope is because they they just re-released the part one figures. They have. Well, yeah. Yeah, I've got the re-release. I did see that. I did see that. They might. I've not heard anything along those lines. They could. They might. I don't know. Okay. Well, maybe they will. I'll see if I can find out. It would be nice. You know, there was a set of Part II figures that they did prototypes for and showed at... Comic-Con in San Diego several years ago and then they never came out. It was Doc Brown with the train shirt and khaki pants and Marty and his inconspicuous outfit with the hat and the leather jacket and the red t-shirt. You can find pictures online of those and they really look nice, but Hot Toys never did produce them. My goodness. They announced that they were going to, then they never did. So they got to get on that. Goodness. Well, you, do you still have the back to the future three hot toys? DeLorean? Uh, I can get them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh, they are still available, but probably not much longer. Uh, I've got, I've got a reserve of them. So those things are so big. It's hard for me to, uh, uh, to stockpile them here. So, uh, I just, uh, I've got them, uh, as a drop ship. And so when somebody wants one, they can buy it. And I, I purchased it directly from the distributor at that point and have it dropped ship directly to them. It saves on postage for all of us. And, and, uh, I, I don't like especially something that expensive. I don't like it to have all these hops and skips and jumps. I don't like it to go from the distributor to me. And then for me to the customer, they just too many bumps in the ups drop uh truck so uh we cut out uh one stop then that that's very beneficial yeah high priced item like that so yeah the part three ones are still available but I wouldn't expect I wouldn't expect them to uh be available but maybe a few more months all right well I gotta I got to, I got to come up with a plan because I know Jess is like that, that part two car has already taken up a lot of space in the house. I don't need a part three, but I do want the part three one. So I got to interject. Everybody asks you probably what's your favorite movie, but this is where I always go with everyone. What is your favorite version of the DeLorean? Favorite, favorite, probably the part two car. Um, most people say the part one, but, uh, I, I love the flying version of it. No, just, uh, you know, uh I believe it or not yeah I am not very uh well versed in the delorean itself I've never owned a delorean so everybody expects the guy from back to the future.com to have a delorean I do not I've never had one I've got plenty of friends. You know our friends in South Carolina. If I need to jump in a DeLorean, I can contact the Hollers. Actually, planning on having them come down to Alabama later this year, we're doing a screening of part one at the Schultz Theater. Really? December the fifth. That's right. We're going to do a... It's on my work calendar too, that I will be leaving early that day. Yeah. We're coming on to Florence. Yeah, we definitely are. That's always, always got the theater reserved and, uh, I've got to work out all the details with Oliver and Terry, but it looks like we'll, I'm on their calendar. So, so we're expecting to have them here in town again. I say, I was curious. I always like to ask, cause I said, I'm in the minority, like, but like for mine, it's like, and it's the, it's part three, but it's the nineteen fifty five technology. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I don't know why the white walls and all the old fifties tubes on the hood. I love that version. That's why I just started to get off topic, but you know, no, no, no. It's a slick car. And I'm good buddies with the guy who actually owns the original screen used car. It's up in just north of Boston. Wow. But it was at one of the shows we did, the DeLorean car show we did in Orlando. I think that was two thousand twelve. They had it on display there. They had just acquired it. And but it's been on the. Discovery showed the expedition back to the future. It was four episodes. The guys that they went to their place in Boston, outside of Boston, they owned that car. They owned the car that was destroyed at the end of part three. They've put it all back together. They own Doc Brown's Packard. They've They own Marty's pickup truck. They've got it all, man. Oh, that's amazing. I've been there to their facilities and seen their vast collection. And I've sold them a few things, too. So that's some of my collection. Museum. Oh, that's fantastic. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember back for the for the twenty fifth anniversary, you had you had the showing at the Shoals Theater there in Florence. And Claudia was there and James Tolkien and Leah was supposed to be there, but she had a prior obligation. Yeah, it was one of those things where we had Leah locked in. and five days before she had to back out because she had just signed on to uh do the tv show uh switched at birth which ran several seasons and so so but she the trooper that she was uh she went to her husband's studio and uh pre-recorded uh answers to the questions that we had already written up uh to ask her at the at the q a so she didn't have to do that but uh but she did a did that as a favor to us and having to back out at the last minute, but, uh, and Bob Gale was there. Yeah. Michael Chaffee was there who, uh, worked on the DeLorean and, uh, Knight Rider since you've got both cars in that, uh, race set. Oh yeah. Yeah. Mike, Mike's a great guy too. So. Uh, but yeah, it was a lot of fun. The only thing was that we didn't do a screening of the movie. It was, you know, it was the film festival just had us as guests and we had the car out front and it was just, it was really set up for, uh, uh, a Q and a, and not a screening, but this time we're doing a screening. So. That's great. Yeah. And then I remember that Friday, Bob, uh, was at the local comic book store there. That's where I got to meet him and then saw him again later in the library there at university of North Alabama. where you had a whole bunch of the props and everything on display. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. And, you know, you just mentioned James token who, believe it or not, he just turns ninety three. Uh, last week. Oh my God. Wow. And he's still out there doing appearances and stuff. He's out still doing shows. And, uh, James is a sweet man. And he's such a good friend. And when, uh, he came to town that time, you know, can you believe that's been fifteen years ago? I know. Uh, he came to town and, uh, The UNA Collier Library has, you know, all of the scripts from different Alabama people that, you know, they've got. I'm going to lose. I'm going to have a senior moment. Remember, forget their names. But George Lindsay, all his scripts are there and several people. But they toured. all the cast through that. And James said, I would like to donate my scripts to this. And it was about a year later that he sent all of his, uh, scripts, uh, from his career. Uh, and they're, they're at, they're in the archive at UNA's library to this day. How about that? Wow. It was kind of a low key thing, but, uh, I was just amazed that he was willing to do that. And so, uh, so, uh, UNA's got all his, uh, movie scripts from a very vast career. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess Top Gun is there. That's what I say. Top Gun's got to be in there. A lot, a lot of things. He was in war games and all these great movies from the eighties. And, uh, and before that, so I hope we can see those when we come up in December. Yeah. Yeah. I, I've been meaning, you know, I work at UNA now and I've been meaning to go over there and go check it out, check them out myself. And I just keep saying one of these days, I'm going to get over there and see James. Let's, let's make a special trip in December when we come up there with you. So ninety three still doing shows. He's definitely not a slacker. He is not a slacker. Man, man, it was funny. We, uh, We had dinner the afternoon before the Q&A at the show's theater. We had it at the restaurant that was next door. It's now something completely different, but it was Legend Steakhouse at the time. That's when I learned that James likes basically rare hamburgers. I thought, man, that can't be good for you, but Back then, he was in his late seventies. He must be doing something. He must know something. He wanted a rare hamburger and he wanted mustard. He got it. He must be still going strong. There's your diet tips from Principal Strickland. Raw hamburger and mustard. He's ninety-three. Ninety-three years old. Not a slacker. Well, Steve, I mean, Back to the Future has such an, oh my gosh, just the, the impact, not only on pop culture, but, but society itself. I mean, everybody knows the DeLorean. Everybody knows a line from that movie. It's just so iconic. How do you see it fitting into, into our modern history? Well, I mean, it's already shown itself. I mean, just in the last five or six years, we've had major films. Avengers Endgame quoted Back to the Future and spoke a lot about Back to the Future. I won't quote what they said in it. But then a lesser popular film, but it was still one that I enjoyed, was The Flash. It was heavily talked about. back to the future and eric stoltz and yeah I mean it was it was pretty wild and so uh every once in a while one of these uh big blockbusters will uh uh either uh include an homage to the series or uh mention the movie or mention marty mcfly you know there's and so I mean it's it's yeah part of pop culture for here on out. And so, uh, ready, ready player one, ready player one. Absolutely. So, um, Back in two thousand seven, I led a grassroots effort to get back to the future. The first movie added to the National Film Archives and and was successful the very first year we attempted it. We did a write in campaign to the Library of Congress. through the old bttf.com website and uh at the time I don't know if this is still true now but at the time for and and for several years afterwards it was like the biggest write-in response that the Library of Congress had had for any one specific film, and so in December, I think December twenty-seventh of two thousand and seven, Back to the Future was added to the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. As it should be. I mean, there's, there's, how can you deny that? How can you doubt that that has a placement there? Yeah. Absolutely. So it's, it was funny. I was, interviewed by somebody who was a writer for the hollywood reporter shortly after that and it was funny he said well what What possessed you to do this? And I said, well, I said earlier in the year I had read this article. Lo and behold, it was on Hollywood Reporter of this writer who was trying to get the movie Caddyshack included in that. And he mentioned how this and I thought, oh, that's how that works. I'll give that a try. And he, he said, that was me. I was being interviewed by the guy. And he said, he said, man, I can't believe my article took my idea and you got it done. And I still haven't got, I don't think Caddyshack is still added. So, but you know, the fan base is pretty large and widespread. Oh yeah. people who are huge fans of michael j fox and christopher lloyd and deloreans and time travel and robert zemeckis and steven spielberg and and on and on and on and then uh uh it just it it just keeps growing um you know In the early days, I struggled to get an audience. And it was just a very grassroots effort, starting out, like I said, with a newsletter, and then a web page, and then a website, and then the official website, and working on merch. And now, Back to the Future has branched out to the musical, and it's been all over the all over the world and you know it's about to launch it's been uh in the uk it's been on broadway it's now doing a national tour uh by the way it is coming to huntsville very soon and uh uh here in alabama and it will it's supposed to come into birmingham as well I think that's early next year but um uh but it's about to launch in germany and australia uh, Royal Caribbean's about to put it on one of their cruise ships. Really? Yeah. It's crazy, man. It's just, it's all over the, uh, Japan. It's already launched in Japan. Uh, back to the future is huge in Japan. It always has been ever since, ever since part three. Well, I probably, probably since part two, but I really wasn't aware of until part three had ended and all this stuff started showing up, uh, on eBay. And, uh, Man, it's just amazing how popular the films are internationally. And, you know, there's an escape room at Universal Orlando. I haven't been to that yet. Got to get back down there before that changes out. But it just keeps growing, man. It's just a behemoth. Yeah. Well, Brock had the benefit of getting to see Back to the Future on Broadway when he was in New York last June. And then we will be going to see it in Atlanta. We already have our tickets to go see it in Atlanta. We're taking my two kids. I have not told Jess anything about the musical. I will not let her listen to the music. I will not let her know anything about those effects, their stage effects. I want her to see those in person. He wants to talk about it so bad, but yeah, he's been killing me. you know it it for those who think it probably there's no way it could actually translate uh into a musical oh it does prepare prepare to be surprised and and uh extremely delighted it's it translates very well there's a lot of things they had to change uh I I won't uh uh mention what they are but there was several little key things that had to change that just wouldn't work on a stage Right. But there's a lot of great surprises. And, you know, I guess you got to see Roger Bart as Doc Brown. I did. Oh, my goodness. What energy. Yeah. I hate he did not come out and sign the I got the whole cast pretty much to sign the to sign the the playbill and come out. I was like, man. But yeah, we were just talking. We were just talking beforehand before we came, got live. Casey Likes, who was Marty on Broadway, actually went to high school with my daughter's college roommate. And they didn't tell me that until after I had just met him. Oh, wow. I was next to the stage door and I'm like, come on. I could have had a connection with him, but yeah. And thank you for the comments in the, in the chat. We appreciate those. Yeah, we appreciate it. Yeah. Skylar says, yeah, it's awesome on stage. Skylar saw it not too long ago. And, uh, advisory six thousand there. I believe that's Mike. Uh, BTTF is the gold standard for all time travel movies, much like the time machine is for books. Absolutely. So, and like we said, if you got any questions for Steve, while we got him for just a little bit longer, hop in the chat and drop them in there. Yeah, in fact, I reached out to Steve before I went back to New York last June. I was like, okay, give me some tips on getting to the theater and, you know, everything else like that. So he was very gracious with his advice. Yeah. Don't be afraid to walk at night to the theater. That was one that I had a little apprehensive about. Of course, we stayed right across the street, the hotel we stayed at. It wasn't very much of a stretch of a walk for us to go. My wife loves New York and she does not need an excuse to go to New York. When the musical was there, we caught billy joel the night before because that's that's that's her jam and uh and then we saw back to the future the musical the next night and so did a lot of walking got a lot of steps in uh that in a couple of days but uh such a fun place we we've loved all of our trips up there as well so Yeah, we saw The Outsiders on Broadway back in back at the beginning of May, which was fantastic. And it's going to be coming to Atlanta, too. So we're going to see it again. Yeah, that's a really good one. So I guess if I had to ask something, so what have your interactions with the people that have involvement in the movies, the cast, the crew, any special interactions, anything that just really stands out in the time that you've had a chance to meet, be acquainted with them? Are you tight with Crispin Glover? No. Crispin, unfortunately, is one of those that has eluded me all these years. I've never met Crispin. Uh, there's a few that I have not met, uh, several I've been in the same room with, but, uh, but I did not get a chance to meet, but, uh, uh, Tom Wilson and I go way back. Uh, Tom, I, I can't say enough about Tom Wilson. He is just the utmost professional, uh, comedian, uh, He's a good Christian man. We have spent a lot of time together over the years. Anytime I'm around Tom, my face literally hurts for days. I'm laughing. My cheeks just ache. I've just laughed so much. But Tom and I have spent a lot of time together. And there's one specific thing that I think would be funny to share here that He and I were at the twentieth anniversary screening in L.A. in two thousand ten. And that's not right. In two thousand five. Thank you. I told you I told you my math was going to mess up. Two thousand five. So I had flown out. We they were screening part one and doing a Q&A with Bob and Chris and Tom and Leah and Claudia. And I think one of the sound guys, I've forgotten which one of the two it was at the time. But I had. spent a lot of time with Tom before, uh, going to the screening. Uh, he took his wife and his kids and I'd spent some time with them, uh, uh, the day before and that afternoon before this screening and Q and a, and so, um, I had done a lot of advertising for this screening and it was at the arc light cinemas in LA, big, very famous, uh, theater. And they ended up having to do sell additional tickets because it sold out pretty quick and they wanted. So they did two screenings of it and did the Q&A like right between the two screenings. And so I was very impressed at the Q&A. The MC asked, how many people here learned about this screening from? And at the time it was bttf.com. And I'm not kidding. I'm a guy from Alabama. Over seventy five percent of the people in the first screening for the Q and a, uh, raise their hands. Wow. And I, it blew me away that here's this guy in Alabama, a nobody running a back of the future fan site. And I had influence on enough people to fill up that theater. But seventy five percent of the people in that theater had learned about it from my Web site. And that just that was mind blowing. Oh, anyway, I had spent a lot of time with Tom And I sat beside him and that was a lot of fun. It's kind of surreal to watch a movie in the theater with the cast. And so Tom was sitting near me and it was his wife and his kids down the line. Well, he got up. uh after as the credits were rolling the house lights come up and uh he got up and walked down to his wife and kissed her and kissed each one of his kids on top of the head and they came over and kissed me on the top of the head And he went up to the stage for the Q&A. And so that was just one of those. And he gave me his ticket. I still got his autograph on the tickets from that night. They're over here in a frame. That was so sweet. He didn't want you left out, Steve. He's just a great guy. And I love him to death. He's my brother in Christ. He's just... man he's just I can't say enough about tom wilson he's just so funny in everything he does and um just immensely talented he's a great writer if you've never he's actually I've got I've got a listing on my website if you go to back to the future.com and look under the events tab uh tom's got an an exhibit right now uh an art exhibit uh that he's got some paintings involved without oh okay I think it's in l.a uh drawing a blank again but uh but he uh his paintings are he does a lot of pop culture paintings and uh he is just it's unreal how talented he is from from comedy to music uh he's written a book uh he's just uh he's he's got talent in so many quadrants and uh uh and he's just he's one of hollywood's best kept secrets and and and he shouldn't Hollywood shouldn't be keeping him a secret in my opinion. Yeah. And he's putting out some great content on YouTube right now. I was just going to say his channel, uh, he's been doing all, he he's picked that up recently again. That was one that just came out, I think yesterday. And he's just him walking down the beach and just having these musings and a lot of it's funny. And a lot of it's just, uh, great, uh, stories in his life about his, about his family. And, um, he put out a really good documentary a little over a year ago called super humbly. Man, man, I'm going to keep myself on some of these things I'm forgetting, but humbly, super famous. Yeah, that's it. Famous, super humbly famous. And so it's a long watch and, but man, but it's good. Oh, it's good. If you can make it through that without having tears, I was going to say, good luck. Yes. Yeah. And it, it, I've, I've actually witnessed a lot of the things he talks about at shows and different events and you know unfortunately I feel semi-responsible for creating this behemoth of uh back of the future fans and some people just don't have a filter and uh and you know just don't think about the humanity of the person that is portraying that character. And he tells a story of, of an actual doctor asking him, asking him back to the future questions with his mom on her deathbed. Yeah. And I thought, Yeah. What? Yeah. How could anybody do that? And it's just, it's crazy. But yeah, Tom's, he's got an art exhibit going on right now. And my web, I think I'm pulling my bandwidth down right now. But yeah, it is. It's in Glendale, California. Okay. And it goes through August tenth. So anybody wants to see some really cool art by somebody from the Back to the Future cast members, go to Glendale and go check out Tom's exhibit that he's put out. But he's done a lot of great art over the years. Brock, Kevin, and I share a great, we're part of the club. Tom Pope funded us because when we saw him at the local comedy club, he referred to what Kevin is. He's here for these eHarmony buddies. Yeah, we were the eHarmony crew. He came down and put his hands all in Kevin's hair and was rubbing and messing up Kevin's hair. That was great. Was that at the Comedy Dome? At Stardome, yeah. Stardome, yeah. Yeah. I may have been at that show. Of course, he did several shows that weekend. He was on Rick and Bubba that day. I followed him. I was his handler at Rick and Bubba that day. Then we went to the Comedy Dome that night. I can't remember. Did we do the Friday or Saturday night show? It was one of the two. I think we did the Saturday night. Because you had to drive up. It would have been the Friday that I was at. I didn't see the hair show. Yeah, we were right there at the very front of the stage. So we were easy pickings for it. I'm the only one. Anytime I'm around Tom, I'm easy picking. I told you, I saw him in Mississippi last year at a con and my daughter-in-law had never met him. So me and my son and my wife and my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter all went to Mississippi and saw him that day and And, uh, he had, we were standing in line, everybody standing in line to get his autograph. And he came to the booth and he looked around, started talking about it. And then he caught me about halfway back and he just dropped everything. He walked back to where I was standing and he said, everybody, I want to introduce you to, uh, my dad. A lot of fun. We went to his, uh, panel discussion, uh, that afternoon. just so, so much fun. Well, maybe one day I'll get the pleasure of meeting him. Oh, you got to meet. I'm the only one here in these little, in this, in this four of us that has not had the, had the pleasure of meeting him, but I've met Leah a couple of times. So just sweetheart. Oh my goodness. She was fantastic. She, uh, She fangirled over you, Steve. Oh, yeah. Yeah, when she came to Dragon Con a few years ago, both she and Chris were there, and I had my dual photo op with them, and I turned to her. I'm like, hey, we got mutual friends. She's like, who's that? I said, Steve Clark. And she goes, oh, my gosh, I love Steve. Yeah. I guess the last time I saw her and got to spend some time with her was at the Huntsville Expo a few years ago. My wife got to meet her for the first time at that show, and she said, she came into the booth and signed a few books and everything uh to give out and uh we got a good photograph with her in front of the the hollers delorean and so yeah it was good she first time she'd been to huntsville since she was supposed to have been in huntsville back in uh uh so um But she actually got to go out to the Space and Rocket Center and get her picture taken in front of the Space and Rocket Center, one of the rockets there, late at night. Relive her space camp memories. Yep, space camp. Well, what is – so what would you say is probably the most interesting, like, things you have collected or gathered over the years? What would you say is the most interesting piece of your collection? Well, I – I've had a lot of pieces come and go through my hands over the years. There's been a lot of lean years with the website. So there's been years where I've had to sell pieces of the collection to keep the site going. One of, one of the most interesting things that I know, unfortunately no longer have, uh, I used to own all of the continuity Polaroid, Polaroid, uh, photos from all three films that I had bought by one of the property masters. And so, uh, Those were, you know, the very unique photos had every scene written in magic marker down in the white space on the Polaroid photos. And I just had gobs on me and just stacks and stacks and stacks of them. And I had them from all three films and they were unbelievable. You know, a lot of it's just. if you've ever seen any continuity photos, a lot of it's just, it's the point of making sure when they leave for the day that they put everything back the way it was supposed to, when they left last, uh, film that shot, or if they have to come back to it, refilming anything, they've got the reference photos from it. And so, uh, But I mean, I had a few of Eric Stoltz in the Polaroids. I had Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox, like face down at the Lone Pine Mall after he fell down the hill and he's laying down in the grass, just face down. And just Christopher Lloyd leaning back in a chair in in nineteen fifty five, just kind of. just relaxing in the fifties chair. I mean, just so many really cool shots, but then there's a lot of them that are just like pictures of plates of food at the McFly. But yeah, I had to, I sold all those years ago and they've, They're in the wind somewhere. I have no idea who has them anymore. One collector had them and then they passed on to somebody else. And I don't know where they're at, where their originals are anymore. I've got scans of a lot of those. So those were really interesting. I've got the very first prop that I ever bought. I still have. And it is, it's a prototype of the eighteen eighty five Hill Valley map that was at the train station in Hill Valley. One that I've got is not fully aged. It's not the one, it's not the screen used one, but it was one that they decided to change and go with the one that you actually see in the film. So mine has a dotted line across Shonash Ravine. And in the movie, it's just a blank space. I think the dotted line would not have shown up on screen very well. And so they changed it out with this one that you actually see in the film. And it's fully aged and has the green and the bluish tint to it. Mine is more of a beige color. and uh but it's the very same scale very same size and I've got it hanging here in my office okay I bought it from somebody at I guess who worked on the film it's been so long ago uh uh back in nineteen ninety ninety or ninety one that I bought that and it was the very first one I bought and and and it's still with me but uh I've had a lot of props I had um doc brown's easy sleep from part two that flips up and puts jennifer to sleep I actually had the original prop and then I had to sell it and so uh I had one of the original clock tower cables that was uh connected and uh I know who has that still to this day but I he made me an offer I couldn't refuse and so I sold it to him yeah So a lot of mine is passed on to other collectors who've got much bigger collections than I have. And so a lot more knowledgeable and well-versed in those props and costumes. I've had some costumes. I had Marlene McFly's skirt. I don't have it anymore. I had one of Marty McFly's Clint Eastwood shirts. The paint with the tassels and everything. And just a lot of things like that, but nothing. I had one of the police women's tops from part two that had the badge and a baton from twenty fifteen. So I had one of those. I've had a lot of pieces here and there. I never had prop. Prop collecting has been one of these things that. I was just in a small group of about four or five of us in the early days. And we kind of, we were able to grab everything. And then it all of a sudden it took off and everybody with deep pockets started getting involved. And I got pushed out real quick. So I don't, like I said, I don't have anything but the map anymore. I do have one. A piece that was made for the production of part three that was given to me by Tom Wilson after the filming that I'm not going to reveal what it was. It was so personal. It was a personal item that was given to him and he gave it to me and and I'll never get rid of that. And so it was just a very. personal, uh, uh, piece that, uh, that I'll cherish, I guess, to my grave. I don't know if I'll be buried with it, but, uh, but it was a very nice gesture that he gave me a few years ago. Oh, that's great. So, uh, there's been a lot to me to have something that, uh, was made for him as a memento for working on the films and, and I have it now. So that's awesome. So, uh, But, you know, I've been involved with so many things, you know, working on different promotions. I worked on the original Nike mag promotion for Nike back in two thousand eleven and flew out to Universal and. Got to go out on the back lot and Bob was there and he gave a big speech. So I've got a funny story about that one too. So I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Yeah. No, go ahead. So Nike secretly flew out. All these big time reporters and photographers and everybody from all these big news media. And and I was on the list. Bob got me on the list. And so I knew I knew what we were going for. Most of the people there did not know what we were going to say. I knew exactly what we were going to say. Uh, but I didn't know what the events of the day were going to be. So, uh, this big, uh, uh, convoy of, uh, Chevy Escalades came and picked us all up from the hotel they put us up at. And, uh, I got in and I was in a, uh, uh, car, the backseat, I was in the backseat of a car with, uh, four other people that were, you know, in the trades. And, uh, so the guy I was sitting on the road with, he said, well, who are you with? And I said, well, I'm, I'm with the, uh, back to the future website. I'm here to cover this for that. And he goes, I said, who are you with? He said, oh, I'm the entertainment editor for the LA times. Oh, okay. Good stuff here. And so, uh, so, um, they, they took us out on the back lot and there was about nineteen people. international and domestic people that had flown in from all over the world to cover this because Nike still is a pretty big deal. And this was going to be a big promotion for the Fox Foundation. And Michael was involved. And so Bob Gale was there. They had the DeLorean out. And this was about a year before they decided to restore the DeLorean. It was actually... that moment when they had the car out on the back lot in front of the clock tower and Bob and I were standing around talking and he was just mortified at how bad the DeLorean, the original screen used a car looked. It'd been out on back lot for years and years and years. People pick parts off of it. It was worn, you know, the DMC logo was gone. I mean, it was worn out. It looked really bad. And it was that moment when Bob said, I'm going to get a team of fans together and we're going to restore this thing. And I was standing right there when he decided to do that. And so that was a lot of, that was great to be there at that moment that he saw how bad it looked for himself. And he decided to do something about it. and a year later you know a year year and a half later uh uh the team the restoration team uh took them about a year to restore it but got you know a lot of parts back from fans who picked them off picked them off the car on the back lot tour and uh restored it back to its glory and now it's at the peterson museum but uh back to the thing we after they took us from the back lot they took us into a room where We were all around this podium, and the lights were out, and one of the guys from Nike came out to speak, and this podium rises up out of the floor, and there's this plexiglass podium and a pair of Nike mags lit up and everything are inside this thing, and everybody's pulling out their cameras, and here's all these international reporters from all over the world with these telephoto lenses like two feet long. Here's me with my little... the camcorder taking shots and I'm dropping stuff in the floor and so unprofessional because I was not prepared to be there with all these big wigs but uh and uh for a while on nike's website you could see me oh there's all these telephoto lenses me with my little camera it's long gone now but uh Uh, so I, I've been involved with so many fun, uh, promotions like that and just being, uh, you know, like I said, for the musical and Nike and been at different, uh, exhibits and it's just, it's been a wild ride. I mean, never in my wildest dreams when I started this thing, thirty-three years ago that, that I'd be still, still talking about it today. much less have been involved in everything that I've been involved with and forge close friendships with so many of the cast and crew. And it's just, it's been, I've been truly blessed, truly blessed. Absolutely. And we're certainly blessed to know you and thankful that you've been a friend for all these years to us and willing to come on here and spend some time with us and discuss it. Um, we won't keep it for too much longer, but what do you think is, I mean, it's endured for forty years. What do you think keeps this thing going? You know, I don't think there's any one answer to that. Uh, I know the answer that Bob Gale gives. He says it's because all the fans who were teenagers and big movie fans in the eighties and through the nineties, all of them have all become parents now and they've introduced it to their kids. And now... It's starting, you know, we're at forty years now. Now some of us have got grandkids we're turning it on to. So I'm planning on taking my granddaughter to the musical in Huntsville here in a couple of months. Yeah. Let her see it for the first time. So so it's just, you know, generations is intergenerational. I mean, the people who loved it back in the eighties because they grew up in the fifties. well you know those of us who grew up in the eighties uh love it so much and have spread it on to our kids and now our grandkids and it just it just becomes this revolving door that uh uh is to use the term timeless sorry uh but it is timeless yeah just really it's one of those stories that uh And I've talked to so many people who say, well, you know, anytime it's on TV, whether it's on TBS or TNT or AMC, I walk through and go, I guess my afternoon shot now I'm watching back to the future. Oh, part two is on afterwards. Well, I'm not going to be able to study for my final exam tonight. And so, you know, it just becomes this thing that you get entranced in and it just, it just continues to spawn new fans every, every year. And you know, there was video games and comic books and, Theme park attractions, and there's just so much to it that it has spread. And it also has such integrity that Bob and Bob have always sworn that there will never be a remake, a sequel, a redo. A part four. Part four. I mean, it's not going to happen. And so they have stuck to it all these years. And, uh, I think people in most fans in Hollywood, uh, uh, people in Hollywood also respect them for that. And, um, it just, it continues to, uh, entertain audiences. Um, year after year after year and so um for me it's just uh it's again it's timeless it's you know I kind of look at it through different lenses than everybody else's because it's just what I've done for all this time yeah and so um you know I can watch it and uh watch the films and there are certain moments in the films where I've heard stories from bob I've heard stories from tom I've heard stories from claudia You know, these things that happen behind the scenes that I kind of chuckle about because I know the stories behind certain scenes. Right. The year after we did the part one screening, the The year after we did a part two and part three screening in L.A. for I guess it was two thousand six and we called it the double back screening. And so it's appropriate. Bob Gale was there and Chris Lloyd and Neil Canton was there. And so I knew several stories that Tom had told specifically about part three, because part three is his favorite and it's a lot of the cats favorite. They love being able to ride, you know, horses and pretend to be cowboys and roping horses and all that and learning that skill. And they just, they've, they've talked about it so many times, but I've heard so many stories of, And so at that screening, Chris Lloyd actually sat in the audience to watch parts two and three. So he watched part two with the audience and then did the Q&A and then came back into the audience and watched part three. And so I sat there and he was one row right behind me over my left shoulder. And so this particular scene came up in part three that I knew a story about. And I heard him chuckling. It really wasn't funny. And I thought, I know exactly because it was he and Tom had cut up in a scene. And and I just I just knew that he was thinking about that particular scene and the stories behind it with Tom Wilson. And so so it's stuff like that that I kind of get to experience at a different at a different angle. Yeah. And seeing things through a different lens, but that is quite gratifying and just a lot of fun to be a part of. That's awesome. And speaking of the next generation, our friend Skylar said, yeah, he said, I showed as a reward in my ag mechanics class. I justified the FFA emblem on the Hill Valley sign. That's great. I don't, you know, just for me, I guess, you know, we... there's just a fascination with time travel. And also when you, you were just mentioning, you know, when a lot of people saw it first in the eighties, there were people that grew up in the fifties. So it was kind of like that nostalgia for them to go back and, you know, see that, that period of time. And then you mentioned here we are, those of us that were kids or younger when we saw it in the eighties, um, For us just to go back to revisit it, it's just a special part of us growing up of that movie. It's nostalgia for us for that movie. The inspiration even for the movie in the first place was, yeah, it would be kind of interesting to be able to go back in time to see what your parents were like as teenagers. What the kind of lives they were living and you know you didn't you know they weren't your parents then so what brought them together what tied everything together to create for them to meet and now you know they're married and they have kids and their lives have have come to this point but to go back and see it at a point that you weren't familiar with that's that's fascinating oh absolutely and being able to just you know I have a machine that can take me anywhere I want to go to and experience something that I've only read about or heard about, but it, you know, I think that's one thing that kind of makes it so endearing to a lot of us. Totally agree with you. I mean, time travel, I've always enjoyed time travel movies. And I think the one that, the first one that really grabbed my attention was the first Terminator movie. These kind of the year before just kind of blew my mind. And I came back from that and trying to, make logic of Reese, you know, just, you know, going through all that and just kind of, Blew my mind, but then Back to the Future just did it, in my opinion, so much better and continued to do it better. And everything else, you know, you see memes on Facebook and Twitter and say, name a time travel movie that's not called Back to the Future. But, you know, there's been a lot of really good movies and I enjoy, one of the things I enjoyed about the Flash movie was him getting to meet himself and and basically be with himself throughout the rest of the movie. And there was a Jeff Daniels movie that came on TV. It was called Disaster in Time. And I think they renamed it for home video. If you ever get a chance to look that up, it came out around the same time that part two was in theaters. Jeff Daniels did this great made for TV movie where they could, it was this, people from the future had come back in time to witness disasters, natural disasters, uh, like the Hindenburg blowing up and, and all, you know, and all these things. And, uh, Jeff Daniels figures it out. And, uh, the way they traveled through time, and I'm going to give a big spoiler for this, but, uh, was they had a passport that they could stamp a date on it. And when they could somehow walk through a door and they end up back in time. And so, was really cool really done well and he he got to help himself earlier in the film which I just really loved uh going back the way part two did and uh having uh doc brown and marty seeing each other themselves from earlier in the films and yeah uh if you get a chance to look that one up it's probably say is it this isn't uh on imdb it's got grand tour disaster in time but also and timescape yeah that's yes I've named it several times yeah when it aired on tv it was called disaster in time and I think they didn't like that so um I think I've got a DVD version of it somewhere that's completely named one of those other two titles. Yeah, Timescape. Yeah, Timescape is what is for the artwork here. Got you. Got you. It's really good. There's always that other tricky thing in all this time travel about one little thing that you can do can just completely alter the events, you know, that are supposed to or set to take place or the events that you knew them as. So it's... They said it's just it's just endearing and it's a comfort. And we find ourselves in the same way when we see it on TV. We'll just kind of we'll just stop and we'll just leave it there because, you know, I agree. You just got to stop and leave it. That's I can't watch anything else. It's on TV. I'm just going to have it on. I find it hard to believe that we are now ten years past when they went to the theater. Right. That was a wild time. I was actually in L.A. for the for the twenty fifteen at that date. And I actually got to see part two in a theater with the time timed up and perfectly. So when they're in the door and it looks, they look on the time circuits and it says October, October, first, twenty fifteen at four twenty seven p.m. It was four twenty seven. Oh, that's nice. Everybody's holding up their cell phones and everything. And not a flying car in sight. Yeah, no flying cars. That was a lot of fun. And we we we actually took over a little town and I'm going to draw a blank on the name of the town that was outside of la uh that kind of looked a little bit like hill valley and uh we had deloreans and vendor booths and screenings and everything and um it was it was a lot of fun and uh that was that was quite an experience to be there for uh yeah That's awesome. I finally got to go some, I took that opportunity to go to some of the, uh, filming sites too. So I finally got to go to, uh, uh, LaPinta Hills mall to see, uh, what, uh, the JCPenney used to look like a lot. And, Uh, at that time they had a full scale doc Brown's van sitting out in the parking lot where it was in the movie. So, Oh, that's great. I got to go down and look inside the van and take a selfie with the, with that. And then, uh, We had an event at Whittier High School, which they actually just opened that up last Saturday for tours for Back to the Future fans for a day. So Marty's High School, we got to go on the grounds of that and And Strickland's house is really right down the street from there, like you see in the film. I got to go down there. Oh, I got to go to Doc Brown's house in Pasadena at the Gamble House. And we spent a lot of time there. And so that was awesome. if you ever get a chance to go to some of the filming sites um yeah I hear that the people who uh own the mcfly house are very kind and and uh patient I've I've never never gone down there and so uh I've never put published that address I don't publish the address of private residences yeah a lot of people go to these places and uh Not very respectful. Some have ruined it for everybody. But I understand the owners now are very kind and generous and will take pictures of you standing in front of their house. But I don't publish anything like that. There's other people who do, but I do not. I respect the privacy of yeah of all these folks and and and the actors themselves I don't publish anybody's home address or any of that kind of stuff so you find it you didn't find it from me so Absolutely. Well, Steve, we certainly appreciate your time. We've had you for an hour and a half. Is that all? Yeah, that's it. If you want to go back and see our previous interview, listen to our previous episode from three years ago with Steve, you can do so on BamaGeeks.com. All of our past episodes are on there. And Steve, I really hope that we can have you on again. Sure. We're definitely going to reach out to Oliver and Terry, maybe around that October timeframe, that whole time travel date as we continue. Yeah, I think you can expect a lot of things to happen around that timeframe this year. Okay. That has become... uh, that has become the de facto, uh, back to the future day, you know, back in twenty fifteen, uh, Obama did declare October twenty first twenty fifteen as back to the future day and it kind of stuck and it is universal continues to have things released and, you know, different things come out, uh, that year, that, that time of year, every year. And so, uh, you know, there's been a lot of arguments from fans. Well, it ought to be November fifth or it'll be November twit, uh, twelfth. It ought to be October twenty-six. It shouldn't be, uh, a date from part two for the anniversary from part one, but, hey, it is what it is. I'm just glad that it gets recognized and, uh, so, but, uh, There are some things in the works, so stay tuned. And so once those things are public, you'll read about it on backtothefuture.com. Absolutely. I was going to say, where can you find that info? Yeah, backtothefuture.com. I think that's it now. And our web store is backtothefuture.store. So we carry only officially licensed collectibles online. So that's a separate site for a number of technical reasons. I won't go into here, but it's just easier to have it on a, Shopify does things really good. Squarespace does things really good. There's no real company that does both things really good at an affordable hosting rate. So not one that I have found. And then, Steve, you mentioned earlier the event that's going to take place in Florence on December the fifth. Florence, Alabama. Yep. Lawrence, Alabama. That's correct. So that's, uh, that's that, uh, back to the future. A shortcut to get to that is back to the future dot events. Okay. Okay. With the S and that will roll over to, uh, the listing of events. And, uh, then we always keep up with the latest news, uh, at back to the future dot news. And that both of those go to the back to the future.com site and just, just an easier way to get there. Fantastic. Yeah, definitely make sure you go and support Steve at backtothefuture.com. Steve, we just love you, man. Thank you for being such a great friend all these years. Thank you so much. I appreciate being asked back. Of course. I hope I didn't ramble too much, but this is a good stuff. I like to take this opportunity just to tell everybody who has supported me all these years and supported the series. Cause you're not supporting me. You're supporting the series. Yeah. But, but you support what I do. And, and, and I appreciate that. There's a lot of people who, who will buy directly from our website rather than go to Amazon or some of these other places. And I do really appreciate that. And so we try to keep everything as affordable as possible and try to keep a wide array of collectibles available. And, you know, Hey, I know people have a lot of choices on the internet where they do their shopping. If they choose to shop from us, I'm very, very grateful for that. So. That's right. And you get the special Stephen Clark touch because I'm the one who packs every single order. And believe me when I say he knows our address for sure. Yes, he does. But thank you. It's been an honor to be on your show again. And I look forward to the next time whenever you deem it necessary to go to the bottom of the barrel and scrape for a guest. Please, we go. I'll be there. cream of the crop right to the top, my man. But again, visit Steve at, oh, it's our pleasure, my friend. Visit Steve at backtothefuture.com and also us, bamageeks.com. We've had more than five hundred people between YouTube and X Twitter watching us tonight. This has been our biggest audience. So thank you all so much for watching. Go to bamageeks.com, learn more about us. This episode, We'll come out audio form on Wednesday morning, but you can always go to our YouTube channel, which is part of everywhere on social media at Bama Geeks and rewatch it. If you jumped in late, you can also on Facebook and join us at our Bama Geeks front porch. It's a private group where we share a whole bunch of pop culture and just fun, geeky things. And we really do. Because we're Alabama based, we do try to find all the fun things related to pop culture within the state of Alabama. So you can go there and ask to join that group and we'll accept you and you can come on in. And also thanks again to our longstanding Patreon members, Jamie and Mike and Darnay and Jack. We appreciate all the support all these years. And, um, make sure you give us a like on this video and comment if there's any back to the future comments you'd like to leave in the, in the comment section on this video. Uh, if you're catching this, maybe after the live stream or just come back and leave us a comment on what you've watched with us this season. Yeah. We would love to know your favorite back to the future memories and we'll respond to those comments here on the YouTube channel. And if you hit us up on social media, if you listen to this on iTunes or Spotify somewhere, subscribe to us there, subscribe to the YouTube channel and, and leave us a rating and comments and, and we would absolutely. That's just me. Okay. That's just me. I'm thinking the folks on exit watch. And of course, of course, uh, advisory there, he, Yeah. Thanks for the podcast. Hey, thank you. Appreciate you, man. And again, thank you so much to Steve and we will see you guys once again in the future for Bo and for Jess, I'm Brock and for Kevin who couldn't join us tonight and for Steve, thank you all so much for joining us and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Bye. See you in the future.