May 27, 2025 • 56 mins
Back to the Future: The Podcast
Produced and Hosted by Brad Gilmore
July 3rd, 1985 — the day a little time travel movie produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis changed cinema forever. Back to the Future hit theaters and instantly became a cultural phenomenon. This podcast dives deep into the world of Back to the Future — exploring the trilogy’s unforgettable characters, iconic moments, hidden details, and behind-the-scenes stories that helped make it one of the greatest film franchises of all time. So buckle in, make sure your flux capacitor is... fluxing, and enjoy the 88 mile-per-hour adventure through time.
🎉 Order the new expanded edition of Brad Gilmore’s book — Why We Love Back to the Future
Back to the Future: The Podcast is independently produced and presented by Brad Gilmore. This program is not affiliated with the Back to the Future franchise and is intended solely for entertainment and documentary purposes. All views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the opinions of any other entity or sponsor. This show respects the intellectual property rights of Universal Pictures and all creators of Back to the Future.
Produced and Hosted by Brad Gilmore
July 3rd, 1985 — the day a little time travel movie produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis changed cinema forever. Back to the Future hit theaters and instantly became a cultural phenomenon. This podcast dives deep into the world of Back to the Future — exploring the trilogy’s unforgettable characters, iconic moments, hidden details, and behind-the-scenes stories that helped make it one of the greatest film franchises of all time. So buckle in, make sure your flux capacitor is... fluxing, and enjoy the 88 mile-per-hour adventure through time.
🎉 Order the new expanded edition of Brad Gilmore’s book — Why We Love Back to the Future
Back to the Future: The Podcast is independently produced and presented by Brad Gilmore. This program is not affiliated with the Back to the Future franchise and is intended solely for entertainment and documentary purposes. All views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not reflect the opinions of any other entity or sponsor. This show respects the intellectual property rights of Universal Pictures and all creators of Back to the Future.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. This is Bob Gail, co creator Back to the Future,
and you're listening to Brad Gilmore. Okay, it's mere Marten.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Can't just set you back to the future.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I know you did send me back to the future,
but I'm back.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm back from the future a right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Way.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Gosh, f are you're telling me that you built the
time machine.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The way I see it. If you're gonna build a
time machine, why not doing some style. Boy. He's joining
me back on the podcast at Triumphant Return. I believe
his third or fourth appearance. Third baby, I don't know.
We'll find out. He is the proprietor of collect BTTF
dot com and you can get in all the social
media's collect b t t F. The one and only
(00:55):
Eric Tate is back with us. Eric, how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm good? How are you? Thanks for having me again? Yeah,
I think it's the third time.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Number three. We're three in and I have to first off,
start this podcast off by sending you the biggest thank
you for contributing to Why We Love Back to the
Future with your letter from Friends in Time On there
there it is look at that the beautiful book Love
That Orange by the way and also always overlooking and
(01:22):
proofreading things. For me. I'm like, there's two people and
I mean this that I will email and text probably
once every few weeks, maybe a couple months, of like, hey,
I just thought of this. Do you know the answer
to this back to the future related question? And it's
you and Steven Clark. You are the two people I
talked to all the time, and normally nine times out
of ten you give you the right answer and whatever
(01:43):
I thought was wrong. So anybody who wants to put
the label, because now I'm doing the media rounds and
they're calling me, oh, back to the Future expert, I
go no, no, no, no no. If you want an expert,
I can point you in the direction the two individuals
who can answer any and all questions related back to
the future. I'm just a fan. But thank you so
much for that contribution, man, I.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Mean putting me in the same line as Stephen Clark there,
that's pretty high praise. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, you already know, man, You already know, y'all. Y'all
are the two. Y'all are the two back to the
future goats. As far as knowledge the knowledge base goes.
But I want to We're going to get into a
lot of stuff today. One thing I'm very excited about
that we're going to talk about, but just what's been
going on in the world of collect BTTF. I know
you're always out to, you know, acquire more antiquities related
to Back to the Future and aggregate them on the site.
(02:28):
How's the site going? Kind of give us an update
on all that.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's going well. So for anyone who's not familiar with it,
the COLLECTBTTF dot com is a personal project I started
a few years ago with the idea of immortalizing and
categorizing the history of Back to the Future collectibles, so
things that are you know, officially licensed or promo materials,
(02:53):
basically anything directly related with the Back to the Future series. Uh.
I've been cataloging on that site. It's been a very
fun project. Right now, I believe I'm just under seventeen
hundred items listed on there and tons more to go.
I mean, you know, anyone, if you go on there
(03:16):
and you're like, well, where's this item, you can let
me know about it. It's very likely going to come
at some point, But feel free to use the submit
option and just reach out. I'm always happy to chat
about these things. But it's been going really well. I
get a lot of really positive feedback from fans, so
it's it's been very worthwhile. I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I mean, seventeen hundred items in counting is quite the
entry into this collect btt of world. What's the been
the one recently that you're like, wow, this is this
is a cool one.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You know. I've always been a fan a lot of
the international items, just because you get to see, like,
you know, the different cultures and all that and and
what fans appreciate in various countries around the world. So
most recently, I'd probably say the things that fascinated me
the most was I had categorized the all the entries
(04:12):
that had been listed on the back to the Future
of the Musicals Tokyo Production, and they had put up
their merch on online catalog and I had to use
Google Translate to be able to read any of it.
But it was just so cool, like having been to
the Broadway show, the national tour and familiar with, you know,
what's been done over in London. The merch in Japan
(04:36):
has been very exquisite and unique. I mean, you can
get Back to the Future themed chocolate bars and you know,
various stuffed animals, calligraphy pen, like all this really cool
stuff that you don't see in the US. And it's like,
all right, you know, I just I love that culture.
So it's it's been fascinating.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
A calligraphy pin, you know, I go to the to
the merch, you know, any anything merch related. The number
one I think American item, right would be a baseball hat,
which we're both currently wearing. That's always like a go
to for every March item. And I love that the
Japanese are like, yeah, we're gonna do calligraphy pen, all right,
because we're a little bit reflined over here.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And just to correct myself, I say calligraphy pen off
the top of my head. I forget if.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
It's specifically marketed for calligraphy, but it's like a custom pen,
like very fancy, comes in a special box and all
that for Back of the Beach and the musical.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But it's just I just love seeing like just the
unique items that come out of especially Japan, but various
countries around the world. It's just great to see. I'm
really curious to see what they're gonna do with like
the Germany production that's coming up, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So how does that work? Let me ask you maybe
you know, maybe you don't know, Like as far as
the business aside of it goes, do they when when
they have these productions internationally are the merchandising rights are
they licensed doubt to like local merchandising manufacturers or why
is there like the difference in the different kind of items.
(06:07):
Is it just are they different locally for each region
they have different rights over there or for producing well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I don't have any sort of official answer. I can
only make a guess, but there is a lot of
overlap between the US and the UK's merch and there's
been some items here and there that have only been
in the US only been in the UK. But with
Japan being so unique, I have to assume it's some
sort of local licensing deal. I'm guessing when they were
(06:38):
coming up with the Tokyo production, they made a deal
with I don't remember the name of the company off
the top of my head that runs the merch site
for them, but I'm assuming it's some sort of just
deal with that company.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now, historically, has Japan had some other like great Back
to the Future merchandise, whether they be from international releases
of the movie, the theme park, ride on the game,
anything well, comics, anything specifically that has stood out to
you over the years.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh yeah, So there has been focusing on Japan for
a moment. There's been a ton of unique march that
it's come out of Japan, especially with Universal Studios, and
even to this day, Universal Studios still pumps out in
all their parts, but especially in Japan. They're always pumping
out unique things. So you'll find like you know, random
(07:27):
unique key chains and things of that nature. There is
something really cool coming out of Japan that has been
announced for this year, really really hoping for some sort
of at least limited release in the US, and that
is something fans have been asking for. H Are you
familiar with like Hot Toys doing the scale models of
(07:50):
the Deloreans, like the big like one to sixth scale
DELAREUS of course, Yeah, I forget the exact scale this
is going to be, but it's somewhere along those lines.
But and I in Japan is finally releasing what everyone's
been asking for, the train. So they are releasing a
large scale model of the Part three train, which has
(08:12):
never been released in an official capacity, so that's coming
and I just got to figure out how to get
my hands on that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh my gosh, I just actually I just felt like
like a little boy on Christmas just now because that
train and I talk about I've been in the book,
but that train in recent years has really grown on
me as such a great piece of Back to the
Future iconography. That Oh yeah, I think because Part three
has grown on me. And we've had this conversation before,
but a lot of the times I find myself saying
(08:40):
Part three is my favorite now just because of the
I don't know, it's hard to say one's not your favorite,
but Part three is just so much fun. I guess
it's a lot of fun in Part three. And to
end with that train was just a great commentary on
Doc's persistence, because if one thing that we know about Doc,
even though he tries and fails, tries and fails, tries
(09:03):
and fails, and he finally invents something that works, it's
that persistence of the character that pays off. And there's
something about the time train that I love that it's
never explained. I love that we don't have to try
to figure it out or think about it too much.
It's just Doc Brown. He did the impossible by inventing
time travel, and then he did the impossible by inventing
(09:23):
time travel in eighteen eighty five or thereabout in the
eighteen eighties and created this train and the beautiful look
of the train. I could talk about it all day,
Eric as you can tell. Oh yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You know, it's interesting you said that. I came across
I believe it was a Reddit thread just the other
day where someone asked the question how do you feel?
Back to the future three would have been if it
ended on Marty saying, well, Doc, it's destroyed, and then
(09:57):
queue to the credits, no return of Doc, no train
and all that, and people had varying opinions. I'm guessing
your opinion is probably gonna be the same as mine.
My opinion was, you know, hell no like, because then
you're ending the greatest trilogy of all time basically on
a cliffhanger. What happened to Doc? You know, what's his
whereabouts whatever? You know, what was his fate and all that,
(10:20):
Whereas that train was part of the story, being wrapped
up in a bow and giving us a solid conclusion
I wouldn't change it for anything.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I wouldn't change it either. And I know that people
on Reddit always have sometimes those redit groups have some
great ideas and great theories that I love just reading
the comments on and going down the rabbit hole and thinking,
like to myself. But that's what I do not agree with.
I think that if If Back to the Future was
a singular movie, right, and that was how it ended.
(10:49):
Is they got stuck in the past and only Marty
got back, and you know we had to have like this,
you know, ambiguous ending of what happened to Doc. I
always think back to The Wrestler. You've seen The Wrestler
right with Mickey Rourke, So you know the end of
the movie is he's going to go up for the
ramjam on the top rope. This is a his characters
has some heart issues and they're playing through it throughout
(11:10):
the movie. And then he goes up and he's having
like this heart palpitation or what have you, and he
jumps off the top rope and then the movie ends.
So we don't know if he lives, if he dies,
if he went whatever. It's just how it ends. I
like that ending because it was a singular contained story,
all right, and you know what, let the audience figure
it out. Are Tarantino's what's in the briefcase? In pulp fiction,
(11:35):
some of those are okay. But for Back to the Future,
especially the end of a trilogy, you want to see
the two characters you fell in love with have some
sort of reuniting, like a reunion, and then we can
end at least the trilogy knowing Doc was okay, he
actually went and did the thing that he never thought
he would do, is find true love, have children. Marity
(11:55):
and Jennifer are okay. Everybody's okay, that's what we want.
Come on, we want to feel good here.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Everyone's okay exactly. We need it to be wrapped up.
And to your point about if it was just a
single movie, single story, you might already know this. But
the original Back to the Future it was never supposed
to be a trilogy. It was originally just part one.
Well it wasn't even part one, it was just Back
to the Future to be continued wasn't added until the
(12:24):
you know, home video release of it that wasn't in theaters.
So the whole ending where Doc comes back says, you know,
you know you got to come back with me. You know,
something's happening to your kids, you know, the whole thing,
mister Fusion. Everything that was in essence put in kind
of like you know, it's just a gag ending. I mean,
(12:46):
it was just just to give the the movie a
fun ending and like you know, just fly off into
the distance, and that was supposed to be the end
of the story. And then obviously they made the sequels
and all that, And I believe it was Bob Gail
that had said that, like if they knew originally they
weren't going or they were going to make sequels, they
(13:08):
wouldn't have ended it like that because they kind of
typecast themselves into how they had to write part two
at that point, right, So you know, if obviously you know,
things can change over time, like what happens Back to
the Future. But I agree with you, like if if
you have something like that on a singular story, it's fine.
But if you were going to try and end the
(13:28):
Back to the Future trilogy after everything that happened on
a cliffhanger, it would have been bad.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It would have been it would have been a bad call. Now,
going going to what you were just talking about, is
if they didn't. Obviously it was going to be it
was like a joke ending from what Bob Gail says, like, Hey,
we're just gonna have this little funny thing. They fly
off in a future bomb what and you know what,
what if it did stop there? What a great ending
to the movie that would have been just in general,
Like what a great ending. Now. I know they say
(13:54):
they kind of pigeonholed themselves as far as what they
could do with the sequels and they had to pick
right back up there, But I've thought about like it before.
I don't know how you make a better story than
how they went into the second movie, because like, that's
such a great way to pick up It's like we're
seeing this right after the events Back to the Future one,
(14:15):
we're picking back up. I think if they would have
taken the let's say Ghostbusters two route, and we see
them years later and things aren't working out well or whatever,
and then there's another reason to get back into the
time machine and do this again, I think it wouldn't
have felt as fun as going right back into Back
to the Future.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, And I would normally in a
situation like this, say, you know, they just got lucky.
But I think it's an unintentional, unintentional effect of just
the genius of the Bops, you know, Bob Gallon, Robert
semeechis they even without the idea of having a sequel,
(14:57):
they unintentionally knew how to write the perfect ending to
give them that possibility. So it just happened to work
out in their favor. And just like I said about
the ending of part three, I wouldn't change the thing.
I know, like you said, they've been they were pigeonholed
and how they could write part two. But I love
Part two. I don't want Part two to be different.
(15:17):
So so give it to me exactly as it is.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I'm happy, well, and you know what you have. And
I've talked about it, I think offline before. But just
that paradox script and Back to the Future Part two
and three in the way that it was going to
actually play out is way different than what we ended
up getting. But so is the original draft of Back
to the Future. It's so different from the Back to
the Future that we got in theaters. I'm talking when
(15:41):
Marty's the video pirate and he's, you know, copying the
movies for was he copying for doc or no. No,
they were just friends still and we didn't know why
right in that first time and then Marty knocks. But yeah,
Marty knocks the Coca cola into the flex capacity or whatever,
and that's what makes the time machine possible. If my
(16:01):
memory is I need to go I.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Need to go back and like reread that in detail.
It's been so many years since I've read through that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I believe that was what it was, Marty. Let's
just let's just make sure that I'm right about this.
But I'm pretty sure Marty puts the coke, accidentally knocks
some Coca cola and invents time travel, and like that's
what makes it work. But Marty was a video pirate. Yeah,
in the first script, Marty accidentally spilled coke into the
(16:30):
power circuits of the time machine, resulting a chemical reaction
between the cola and the plutonium that made it possible
to generate enough electricity to power to make time travel possible.
There you go, There you go. So Marty, yeah, was
going to be a video pirate, which is really interesting,
very interesting. But that is in the original version of
(16:53):
the script, which I need to I want to read
that one again too, because it's been some time since
I read the first draft of the Back to the
Future screenplay, because it takes place in eighty two, not
eighty five. It's a power converter, I think, instead of
a flux capacitor, things like that. You know, he has
the pet shimp, Marty's girlfriend of Susie, he's a video pirate.
(17:15):
Eileen Bains is the mother. So there's some of those
those differences. So it's worth actually going back to check
that one out. If it's been sometime, I might do
a reading one day on this podcast. But look, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Have had as much of a cultural impact. It would
have been so far past you know reality, between the
pet chimp, the like nuclear ending and all that. Like,
I think it would have taken it too far into
the Roman sci fi. I think Back to the Future
one of the big things that always has gravitated, you know,
(17:47):
fans towards it has been it's been sci fi, and
obviously there's things that will never happen in real life,
but it still was really close to reality in terms
of the way the characters are and interact with each
other and all that. So, you know, taking it closer
to like a Star Trek level of sci fi would
not have been a good idea.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I wouldn't have enjoyed that. And and the thing about
Back to the Future is, yes, it's a time travel movie.
Yes it's a sci fi movie in a lot of ways.
Yes it's an action movie in some ways. But it's
really a character story about this family unit more than anything.
And like it's it's the ties to the reality of
situations that not anybody would find themselves in. But it's
(18:29):
it's it's a it's the heart of the movies. What
makes it work, I guess, is what I'm trying to say,
propelling it forward, which is a great transition point to
why we have you here today. It was a couple
months ago I was at the Reality Wrestling television tapings
and I got a text on my phone from you,
and you said that you found a particular item that
(18:50):
you finally procured into your possession. And I literally was like,
set out loud, and I'm in the production meeting, so
I've my directors there, Ken Kevin barnhardsh hat to Kevin Booker,
T's there. And I read this text, I go no way,
and I put my phone down like that, and everyone
looks at me and they're like, what happened? I go,
(19:11):
he found it, he's got it. And I had to
explain the situation to everybody, and then they still looked
at me like I was crazy. But tell everybody exactly
why I marked out so much over your text message?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
All right, So buddy, Yeah, this is an item that
has been on my personal you know you hear that
term like holy Grail items for people with collective collections
and stuff. This has been one of my personal Grail
items for a very long time. As long as I've
been doing this, seen every once in a while one
(19:46):
or two come up for sale. I've missed out on him.
Finally got my hands on it. Admittedly, no fancy story
from some big contacts or anything. It was a lucky
eBay find and finally got my hands on it. But
it is where it all began. This is not a
reprint and original. This is an original nineteen forty University City,
(20:12):
Missouri yearbook. This is the yearbook of Bob Gail's father.
I even marked the page just so I wouldn't have
to waste any of your time. This is the page
that started back to the future. Wow right there, if
(20:33):
you can se let me turn off the blur.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, okay, yeah, turn the blur off. I saw an
image of a rather striking individual, handsome man, and that
is a Mark Gail, Mark Gail, class president. So we
have a everyone says it says it on the beginning,
it says what the dial? What's that say at the
top of the page there if.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You came out, Yeah, it is class of June nineteen forty,
the dial for nineteen forty. I guess that's either the
school's theme or whatever. It's on the front as well,
if you can see it in on there dial nineteen forty.
So this is the yearbook that started at all. It
(21:16):
was I believe nineteen eighty when Bob Gail came across
his dad's yearbook and came across that exact page I
just showed you and wondered to himself, well, what I
have been friends with my dad when he was in
high school? If we went to high school together, and
(21:38):
from there that inspired the story back to the future
and goes on from there. So I think the way
I had mentioned it, like on social media was like
as far as our real lifetimeline. So I'm not counting
items that existed in fiction in the eighteen hundreds. I'm
talking about like actual, real items. This is the oldest
(22:03):
direct tie into back to the future in existence. And
some people challenged me and said, well, what about the
books that doc uses along his eighteen eighty five train
track in the bar And I'm like, all right, you know,
we don't have to nitpick about it, but you get
you get the point. So this is the yearbook that
(22:25):
inspired this. This one actually used to belong to one
of Mark Ghill's classmates. There is one or two like
classmates signatures in it, and but that page happened to
be pristine, so I was very happy to see that.
But yeah, this is the yearbook that started it all.
Without Bob Gail finding this yearbook and having that thought
(22:47):
to himself, you and I may not be talking right now.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I think that we very well wouldn't be talking right
now at all, because it's just what a phenomenal find
what you can credit fine, and so let's go. Let's
walk through it a little bit. Okay, So do were
you just doing eBay searches, like consistently over some months,
over some years to try to find it? And then
(23:12):
it popped up like kind of walk us through, how
how many times have you tried to find this book?
And has it only been through eBay that you've been
able to figure it out?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
No, I've I've looked for this from other places in
the past. I I've spoken to just people saying because
I have a few other yearbooks. I actually have Bob
Gehl's senior yearbook as well, so technically I had both
of theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
What was his year he graduated?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I don't remember, honestly. I can get back to you
on that, but I had been looking for it for
a while and on eBay. I have, you know, various
searches set up with alerts so that if there's new
hits on certain things, and I've got a few custom
(24:02):
I guess queries in there for you know, nineteen forty
University City yearbook, stuff like that, and a lot of
times things come up and it's not relevant. I just
moved past it, and it just so happened one of
my alerts flagged and this came up. The person who
sold it did know what they had. This wasn't like
(24:24):
a case of some random person selling an old yearbook
and didn't realize the history behind it. So the listing
did say like back to the future, Mark Gale blah
blah blah blah blah. So it it put a little
bit of a premium on the price, but I still
got what I considered it to be an incredible deal
(24:45):
on it, and the rest is history. So wow.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Okay, So the person you said who sold it was
one of the classmates of Mark Gaile, Is that what
you said?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Oh, I don't know. I don't think they personally were.
I don't know their direct relation with the but the
yearbook itself I found out from the seller. I forget
if it was on the listing, but I did have
a brief conversation too. It came from a former classmate.
Whether that former classmate is this seller's relative friend or
(25:16):
just some thrift find I'm not sure a state sale.
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So you've seen only a couple of these come up
over the years, Yeah, yeah, And so you've tried to
where you just outbid before and you weren't able to
get it.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So I can remember two times off the top of
my head. One time I was outbid and another time
it was just gone before I could even go in
to purchase it.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And you don't have to say exactly what you paid for,
but what have you seen these kind of you'll float
at price wise, like from low give me a low
to its high range.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I don't remember how much. So the one time that
I got out bid, it was in the mid three figures.
I mean, it wasn't crazy, but it was you know,
it wasn't twenty bucks.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Right, We're talking maybe a four five hundred bucks or something.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, like about that. And the time it was just
bought before I even saw it. I didn't see what
the price was, so I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Okay, So yeah, so we're probably looking at at low range.
If you were to be able to find one of
these online, a few hundred dollars at the very least
is kind of what we're looking at from a low side.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and I will say that this one didn't even
cost me that much, so I got a really good deal.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Wow. Okay, So yeah, now was it a buy it
now feature?
Speaker 1 (26:41):
No, this one was. This one was auction auction. So
I was really worried because this was one of those
like I will have to explain myself to my wife
if this goes up really high in price, but at
the same time, I wasn't gonna let it slip, so
full disclosure, it was about one hundred, which you know,
(27:03):
to my frugal wife, it's like you spent one hundred
and thirty dollars on an old write a yearbook. But
to me, it's like, I only spent one hundred and
thirty dollars on this year.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
But how I was thinking, I was like, oh man,
what a deal, A double pay. That's amazing. Okay, so
you win, you win the auction, and I'm sure when
the counting minutes down you kept refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. Okay,
I'm good, I'm good. I'm good because you know, those
snipers come in. I'm sure it happens a lot, you know,
with stuff that you've tried to procure over the years,
(27:33):
the snipers at the very end where they come in
and all of a sudden the price goes from you know,
fifty two dollars and all of a sudden you had
one hundred and sixty dollars within a couple of minutes.
You're like, well, what happened here? What happened? So you
were the top bitter the whole time.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
No I'm not gonna lie I sniped it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
You're one of those guys who's you.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I'm not always but I was not taking any chances here.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I understand. I'm not mad at it. So you were
the sniper, so you were watching it, and then you're like,
ok I'm going to go all in here in the
closing minutes. Okay, with about five seconds left, you dirty rat.
I love it. I love it. I would have done
the same thing. It probably would have been down to
me and you if had I known about the listic.
(28:18):
It's okay, you get in the last five seconds. There's
probably just a thrill of dopamine that goes through your
body that you finally got this thing after the years.
Now walk me through your getting it in the mail
how because this is how nerdy I'm going to get
how long did it take to get there? Because I'm
sure you're counting the days down and then you get
it out of the mail. Won't me through that part?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So my heart was racing when the auction ended, because,
especially with eBay auctions themselves, once it ends, it takes
a few seconds for everything to calculate to know if
you were actually the winner, and all that and I'm like, oh,
don't let me. Like when I put in my max bed,
like if I had lost it because someone threw in
(29:00):
like some huge max bit of like two grand and
it got up to there somehow, like some other two
people were big against it, I wouldn't like I'd be
pissed that I lost it, But at the same time
they're like, all right, like you know, I'm okay. But
if I lost it by like two dollars, I probably
would have broken a window. And so it ended I
(29:22):
was the winner. I paid immediately. I didn't want to
take any chances, and I got it. I think it
was within a week if I remember correctly, And to
the seller's credit, it was packaged really well. It was
wrapped in like three layers of bubble wrap inside of
a cardboard box and just came very well prepared. And
(29:44):
considering the yearbook is let's see, how many years older
are you talking about something like that?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So yeah, so yeah, five years yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, And considering it's eighty five years old, it's still
in great condition. I mean it's is it mint conditioned
right out of the yearbook factory? No, of course not,
but it's it's in great condition. So I it's one
of my you know, prized items. Now.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, well think about that though. That is a longer
time from the time of the production of that yearbook
to now than it was from eighteen eighty five to
nineteen fifty five, Right, so you're five years older. Wow,
that's crazy. Okay, So you open it up. First off,
the leather bounding looks really great. This is kind of
also harkening back to an era where they made things
to last. You know, my yearbooks are probably like disintegrated
(30:36):
by now, and this like looks really good, good leather,
it looks like not super thick. So I guess it's
not a huge class. But could you read all some
of those officers again? So he was the president of
the graduating class. The dial is the name of the yearbook.
I remember ours was called ORNDA or something like that,
which I'm not even sure what that means. That was
(30:57):
the name of our yearbooks ORNDA. Did your yearbook have
like of a thing?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It did, but I forget what it was. You know,
like our school's mascot was the Bears, and I don't
remember what the yearbook we might have been, like the
Emeralds something. Okay, I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Our mascot has changed since I graduated. There was the
Redskins was the original name of the mascot, and then
it changed a few years ago, you know, when everything
else kind of did, like when the team, you know,
the NFL team changed name. Okay, read us some of
those officer names there? Who do we got?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, so let's see if I could do this kind
of like your I'm a like reading at a library
and kind of.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I feel like this was an infant go ahead,
So what a year?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Oh, and here's something I never even put two and
two together on until just now. I don't know if
this was unique to the time period or if it
was that area, but like, this is the class of
January nineteen forty, and then Bob on the or Mark
on the right as part of the class of June
(32:02):
nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I'm seeing that.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So I guess they split it up. I guess by
half years. I'm I'm not sure, well, because.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
You know, like a university, right, if you graduate, you
either graduate in the winter or the or the what
is it the spring? Right, So I guess that's kind
of what they were doing for high school. But yeah, continue, Yeah,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But I mean this was, you know, high school. Like
when I went to high school, it was just you.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Know, y'all graduating in May or June or whatever it.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Was, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. We were just the class
in my case, class of two thousand and two. I mean,
it was just that's how it was.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Well, who was the president of the graduating class of
January of nineteen forty.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That was Bob Rawlings. Bob Rawlings and vice president June Brown,
with Ralph Blomberg as the treasurer and Adeline or Adeline
Brownham as the secretary.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Well, Adeline, that's and that's definitely a name for the
nineteen forties. You don't hear that name?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah? And then joining Mark in the class of June
nineteen forty, Mark Gali the president. And what a handsome man.
He was very handsome.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
What ahead of hair Betty?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah? Really and you could see a lot of Bob
in him.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I see it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
It's uncanny. Betty Osbourne the vice president, Bob Ausbeck as treasurer,
and Pat Doyle as the secretary.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Wow, look at that thing. Man. So let me ask
you this. So we have Bob, what was the one
in January nineteen forties, Bob who.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Was a president Bob Rawlings.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Bob Rawlings versus Mark Gail. Let's figure this out right now,
who do we feel looks more presidential? I think Gail
really does. Honestly, Gail, he looks like the leader. I
feel like that he would win in a fistfight between
the two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Wrong, wouldn't have to stand a chance. He looks like
and you know what, Mark Gale looks like. He might,
you know, throw some bows. He looks like he's got
some athletic structure to himself.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I don't think his classmates would put a kick me
sign on him in the hallway, No.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I don't. So it's interesting. So I wonder if if
because I'm just going off a picture here, maybe there's
some information in the yearbook, but I wonder if if
Mark Gaile was kind of like a jock? Do we
know is he a jock? He looks like it.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, I could see that. You've now got me curious.
I might have to look into that. But yeah, I
mean Bob always said that, you know, the difference was
like his dad seemed very like straight laced and very
you know, serious and all that, whereas Bob saw himself
as the goofball, So it wouldn't surprise me if if
(34:31):
Mark was, mister Gail was, you know, very much into
the straight routine of you know, being a good student,
maybe playing some sports stuff like that, and staying out
of trouble. You know, wanted to goof off.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But as we all as we all do what a
graduating class. Just those head shots too, man, Just such
a harkening back to such a different time. And you
could see why if you were to find your father's
year book and you look at that and go oh wow, man,
and you start to have these same questions because I
don't know a lot about my dad in high school,
so I'd be like, I wonder what he did, Like
(35:08):
was he who's he hanging around?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Who were his buddies? Like what did they do for
fun in nineteen forty? You know, if he's eighteen in
nineteen forty, so what is that? That means he's born
in the in the twenties right at some point? So
nineteen twenty two, I guess would he be born? So
just such a different time, man. So have you thumbed
through the whole year book or if you just really
(35:30):
saw the Mark Gale page and then you decided this
is enough for me. I don't need to see more
and more of the class of University City, Missouri. Was
it in high school? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I've skimmed through it, you know, looked at the various
class pages, like here's an example of where it had
been signed at one point. Okay, and you know, I've
gone through. I haven't paid really much attention besides the
main page.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So I feel like for people in the Back to
the Future world, that is other than owning something from
the movie itself, right, like an actual screen used hoverboard
or the you know, a piece of the Delorea or
the flux capacitor itself, an actual pepsi perfect. There's like
(36:22):
some right, but I feel like that is the holy
Grail because it is really like the origin of the concept.
It's the moment of conception, you know, in different terms.
I mean, this is this is like having some of
the great It's like having the quill that John Hancock
wrote his name in on the Declaration, like having that
(36:44):
just quill in your hand. This is the this is it.
This is where the America started, baby, And it feels
like that's back to the future for me to a
lesser extent, I don't know how familiar are with James Bond.
Are you familiar with James Bond? Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Kind of look very casually.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So Ian Fleming was the guy who wrote the James
Bond novels. This is the guy who invented James Bond.
And he was asked, you know where did you get
this name, James Bond? Because when you hear that name,
it sounds great. Bond, James Bond, perfect. You can't think
of a better super spy name than James Bond. And
it's just so in the world's pop culture, not even
(37:24):
just the American lexicon, you know, the European, the Japanese,
everyone knows James Bond. And so he said he lived
in Jamaica. Ian Fleming did after the war. He lived
in Jamaica, and he called his house GoldenEye, which is
where the name of the game in the movie would
come from. But he said that he did a lot
of bird watching when he was out there, and he
(37:46):
had a book called Birds of the West Indies and
that was his bible. He called it out there because
they would have all the birds that he would look
at and look it up and the author of the
book was James Bond. That's the guy's name and so's
and he just lifted it and made it the name
of his superspy. So one year, similar to you, I
went to rare bookstores. I went to all kinds of
(38:08):
eBay listings, everywhere I could think of to try I
could find The Birds of the West Indies, a book
written in the thirties by James Bond. And then one
day I finally found it and I gave it to
my father for Christmas, because he and I have a
big Bond fandom together. But that was like for me,
not the holy grail of James Bond merchandise, but it's
(38:29):
one of the foundational documents. It's the magna carta. If
we're going to speak in historical documents term, which I
feel like, is what you have. You have the magna carta.
You have what's based everything on. You know, what we
know of democracy, freedom and independence and back to the future.
Terms is started in that moment of conception seeing that
(38:50):
yearbook and I just I just wonder, you know, that
is like really the genius of the Bobs and Bob
Gail in particular, because ninety percent of people would look
through their dad's yearbooks see that, not think twice about it, like,
oh dad's graduating president of graduating class. Oh that's cool,
boom move forward. But he was like, this is it,
(39:12):
this is how we can get into the time travel story.
That because they wanted to do the time travel story
before he found the book, right I believe so, yeah, yeah,
and so they were trying to figure out how to
get into it. And then that hook of what if
you went to school with your parents? I mean, most
people wouldn't go that far with it, do you think.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, yeah, it goes back to what I said before
about the genius of the Bobs. They are just one
of a kind or two of a kind, I should say,
But they're just they're incredible. And yeah, who knows what
would have happened if you never had that random thought.
You know, maybe he would have had some thought in
a supermarket about something else and the story would be
(39:53):
completely different.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah. Maybe they have a different idea of back to
the Future and they go into it a different way,
or they do. I mean, there's butterfly effect. Was actually
one of the great things about Back to the future.
It makes everyone think of that, like, what if I
didn't meet this person at this time and have this interaction,
my whole life could potentially be different if Bob Gail
didn't have this moment in his parent's attic or is
his basement? Is the parent's basement. We don't have basements
(40:18):
in Texas, so that's why I always call it an
attic his parents' basement. You know, everything could have been
so much different. And you know, even though this start
of the trail back to the Future, as we talked about,
the script, was completely different, and it's always fascinating for
me to see how it starts like a screenplay starts,
versus what we end up finally getting, especially because the
(40:40):
Back to the Future screenplay is so tight and well
well thought out and taught in classes because it's so
great and pays everything off. It's interesting to see the
first draft. If you did, I could be completely making
this up. Did you say you had written a screenplay before?
Am I making that up? Or you had worked on one?
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Well?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
No, no, you didn't. Why do I remember you saying
something like that? Did you ever try to?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, I'm confusing you with somebody else, I'm sorry, but
like I've written, I've written a couple of things, and
it's interesting because it's true that first draft is I think,
just getting the idea out, like let me get it
on paper, and then you sit and you think about it,
and you think about it, and you think about it,
and you think about it and you kind of move
things around a little bit more. But I just think
(41:28):
that that year book is such a great fine man,
it's got to be. Where do you rank it in
your Back to the Future memorabilia? Is it high?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Honestly, as of right now it is probably number one.
It's so right now most of my collection is kind
of stored away, pending some like finishing my basement stuff
(41:57):
like that, putting a little bit more on display. But
when I do get things back out of storage, it
will probably be, in my opinion, the center point. It'll
be the focal point of how I display things. And
you know, you go back, going back to what you
said about how everyone has their items that you know,
(42:17):
their magne Karta items and stuff like that. There's various
levels of Back to the Future fans and specifically Back
to the Future collectors, and there's a lot of people
that are much more casual about it, and they don't
necessarily know the history of that yearbook. They don't they
don't care about having stuff like that. They just want
(42:40):
the action figures, the scale model, stuff like that, and
that's fantastic, And you know, I love that people get
the stuff that they want. So this yearbook isn't necessarily
that magne Karta item for everyone, but for people that
are diehard devoted and a little bit obsessive like me,
(43:02):
like finding that was just you know, the tip of
the icebrick for me, Like it's it doesn't get better
than that. So I don't want to say it's all
downhill from there, because there's still plenty of other great
stuff out there. But you know, it's, uh, it's something
I'm very happy and proud to own. You know. I
(43:23):
think I've mentioned in the past that, you know, my
wife is very supportive of my addiction and and understands it.
But she's not a fanatic like me. You know, she
tolerates it at best, it's the best way of saying it.
And so there's times, you know, these random eBay things
(43:44):
that I'll get or just some from someone or somewhere else.
Things will come in and she'll be like, oh great,
you know, like it just kind of like roll her
eyes a little bit, Oh great, you needed another DeLorean,
you know kind of thing. When this year book came
in and I showed her and I explained it, even
like her eyes were like, wow, that is cool. Like
she was like impressed, and I was like, all right,
(44:06):
that's how I know this was a good item, Like
for her to be like, oh man, that is really cool.
Like I was like, all right now, not that I
wasn't happy with the burgess, but like now it's justified
to me, like like just seeing people's reactions to that.
And I had some friends over last week and they
(44:27):
we had been talking and they knew I was a
big back to the Future guy and they were like, like,
how much do you actually own? So I showed them, like,
you know, the stuff, and they asked like what's the
what's like the piece that's like the top And I
told him about the yearbook and they were like, Okay,
that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
It it really is, you know, And to have that,
I think it's just because you know, you got to
think I don't remember. Look this small town in Missouri,
I don't know how many of these people actually were
in you know, I mean, how many were in the
graduating class in both years, right in January in June.
You don't know how many of these things were made,
(45:05):
and out of the ones that made, you don't know
how many of them are still around most of the
people from that graduating class, probably safe to say, like,
you know, there might be a few of them still around. Maybe,
you know, maybe we're talking, you know, people who have
to be knocking on the door to one hundred or more,
So it's safe to say there's not a lot of
(45:26):
them still around. So now these items are in the
care of relatives of some kind, you know, sitting in
boxes and storage units, I'm sure. So we don't know
how many of them were produced, and out of those
how many were produced, how many of them are still around,
and out of the ones that are still around, how
many of them are in that grade of a condition.
From what that one looks like just on the surface,
(45:48):
from me seeing it through the zoom chat, it's a rare.
It's got to be a rare, rare find. We're talking
just a few hundred of these have to be in existence.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, if that, I'm sure a lot of them lost
the time, destroyed stuff like that. And as you saw
when I opened it, like go to Bob or Mark
Gale's page, and the page is still like pure white.
It's not ripped, it's not weathered, it's not discolored or
anything like that. So this has probably just been sitting around,
(46:21):
closed in some person's attic or somewhere in storage for
for many many years, and now it's here with me.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now it's here with Eric Tait of all people, I
think I get one more question when you say you're
going to put it as the centerpiece of the basement,
are you decking the basement out like all back to
the future. Are you going to have like demand the
quintessential back to the future man cave? Is that what
you're telling me?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Well, this is kind of all in theory right now,
but I am hoping in the near future to redo
my basement, gut it, and finish it. And yeah, so
the room I'm in right now that you can see
is my office at home, which is the spare bedroom
(47:06):
in our in our house, and I would like to
eventually have that be an actual spare bedroom and move
myself into the basement. And when I do. That's where
stuff will come and go out on display.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Because you can really get a little wild. You've thought
about it.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I've got I've got pictures in my mind of how
this would all work out, and yeah, that that yearbook
would definitely be right there. There's been a couple of
times that I've wanted to, you know, ask Bob Bob gal,
you know, like his thoughts on it, and just hear
(47:44):
more directly from him. I ran into him in La
at Universal fan Fest a couple of weeks ago, but
obviously I wasn't gonna, you know, make him stop and
chat with me, so I just said a quick hello
and moved on. But I would love one day to
just check with him about hearing more of his story
with this, you know, like you said, I'm sure unfortunately,
(48:08):
most if not all, of the people in this year
book have probably passed away by now. But like, for example,
the vice president of his class, how cool would it
be to chat with like that vice president's child or
grandchild and hear like, hey, are you you familiar with
you know, your grandpa and how he was in school.
(48:28):
I'm sure they probably said no, I have no idea,
but it would be cool. If someone had a story
about like, yeah, I heard that. You know, my grandpa
was friends with Mark and they used to, you know,
go aut partying all the time. You know, I would
love to just hear some cool story about that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
But you know, yeah, because he really is the If
we call Bob Gail the father of the future, I
mean literally, Mark Gail is the grandfather of the future. Yeah,
to hear more about him. Those are the things I like,
Those are the things I nerd out about and like, man, wow,
I just want to dig deep and find out more.
In general, so you've got you. You've got yourself, in
(49:06):
my opinion, probably the holy grail of Back to the
Future collectibles. And now I'm extremely jealous, and we'll probably
buy every dial year book I can find from I'll
get I'm sure, I'm no. My look, I'll get thirty nine,
I'll get forty one. I don't know if I'll ever
get forty but uh now I'm going to be on
(49:28):
the hunt and on the lookout because that's something that
I would love to have too. Let me ask you
this is if.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
We ever cross paths in person, I'll hand it to you.
Feel free to through it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So I'll flip through it, but then I'll take off
with it. No, we we do have to beet in
person one day. I'm sure that we will. You know,
I know that you were at WrestleMania forty right, as
was I. But there was no way we could have
found one another in that sea of people. The security
that was there and the frigid temperatures probably would have
shortened our patients to try to find one another. But
(49:59):
we will do it. Let me ask you this just
a little bit of a crossover. If you were to
cast Marty and Doc but they were pro wrestlers. Oh gosh,
who you going with? I think I got this question
at a comic con about a year ago when I
was doing a panel, and it did stump me for
(50:20):
quite some time. I believe I said Doc was the
macho man Randy Savage.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, that's where my mind was going at first, even
though macho man wasn't blonde. I'm thinking about just the
hair and the persona. And I'm also kind of in
a little tangent, I'm thinking about Roger Bart's performance as
Doc Brown from the musical and how he was a
little bit more you know, comedic with the role and animated,
and I'm envisioning that cross with Macho Man. I could
(50:51):
just see that by comparison. So I'm gonna go with
you on that. I'm gonna say, Macho Man is gonna
be doc. Oh, Marty, that is.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
A hard It really is.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
There's some there's some names out there, maybe like a
heartbreak kid, Shawn Michaels maybe. Uh. You know, I'm trying
to think of somebody who's like young and cool.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
You know, I'm going to I've got one. I won't say.
I won't say the names all I describe my reason,
but I'm thinking like someone who's confident but still a
little reserved, kind of like Marty was. And he, you
know he was he was a confident guy, but you know,
(51:41):
wasn't confident in himself enough for like turning in his
tape to the record company stuff like that, So he
still had some reservations, someone who kind of in a
way maybe felt like they lived in the shadows a
little bit. So I'm going to go with an earlier
babyface Owen Hart.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Wow, that you know what? There we go. That is
a great answer, Owen Hart, as Marty, Macho Man is doc,
Come on, Heaven help us out here. That is a
hell of a hell of a duo there. I'd love
to see it. And let me ask you this too
(52:24):
before I get you out here. You've seen the touring
production of the musical, right, big differences between that and
the Broadway show.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Yeah, so I've only seen the touring production once. It
was Wallows in Chicago, and it's not quite like you're
seeing it on Broadway for obvious reasons. When you're in
Broadway and you have your permanent location, you can do
a lot more with it versus traveling. So there are
(52:53):
a couple of differences with the big ending. You saw
it on Broadway, so you know what the ending is like.
So the the big ending is more like a medium ending.
I'm trying not to like spoil it for anyone, but
it's not quite the same. But it's still good. And
the cast, you know, these are all people that would
(53:15):
do the job significantly better than I would. Uh. So
they're all fantastic actors. You're not getting I don't want
to say this in a negative way, like if you're
talking about like a plus performance on Broadway, then like
B plus to a minus performers on the tour. They're
still great. But it's not Roger Bard, it's not Casey Likes,
(53:38):
it's not from the UK like Ali Dobson when he
was original cast stuff like that. So they're still they're
still great. Anyone that has the opportunity to go see
it on the national tour, I highly suggest they do.
But boy do I miss the Broadway run. Oh so great.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, the Broadway experience is something that I'm so happy
that I actually got to to feel and see for myself, because, yeah,
the big ending, it's big ending, you know, as one
time Elane ordered the Big Salad. It's the big ending,
right and and is a it's still and it's not
just because it was back to the future. I've seen
(54:17):
several shows on Broadway and it is the most impressive
Broadway production I've seen to date.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
It because special effects alone were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
That's what I was like, wow, And that's why I
understand the amount of effects that were in the Broadway version.
I understand that you can't bring those on the road.
It's just such you need something to where it's there
night in, night out, and you need a lot of
time to probably set those things up and be able
to pay them off, and especially when you're touring in
(54:48):
different theaters. Every theater has a different setup and a
different grid, and a different this and a different that.
And it's just hard to bring all those things to
life on the road because you're there for a week
and then you're off to the next one. It's tough.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah. Now with Broadway, knowing that you know the ending
and what happens and all that. I was at the
very final performance on Broadway. I brought my wife and
daughter and we had the direct center seats of the
second row. So think about the ending and think about
(55:23):
the view we had for that ending exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
M god, you do so many cool things that I'm
so jealous of you. You live close to New York,
you can do the Broadway. You got the year book.
You've got a basement which is really one leg above
me here. I don't have a basement. Well I can
have this back to the future man cave. I got
a corner of a room. So h so you're living
the dream. Eric Tate COLLECTBTTF dot com on all the
(55:52):
social media's. Again, thank you for your contribution to my book.
It added so much. I truly mean that and I
will see you in the future of my brother Great.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Hi, everybody. This is Bob Gail, co creator Back to the Future,
and you're listening to Brad Gilmore. Okay, it's mere Marten.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Can't just set you back to the future.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I know you did send me back to the future,
but I'm back.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm back from the future a right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Way.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Gosh, f are you're telling me that you built the
time machine.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The way I see it. If you're gonna build a
time machine, why not doing some style. Boy. He's joining
me back on the podcast at Triumphant Return. I believe
his third or fourth appearance. Third baby, I don't know.
We'll find out. He is the proprietor of collect BTTF
dot com and you can get in all the social
media's collect b t t F. The one and only
(00:55):
Eric Tate is back with us. Eric, how are you.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm good? How are you? Thanks for having me again? Yeah,
I think it's the third time.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Number three. We're three in and I have to first off,
start this podcast off by sending you the biggest thank
you for contributing to Why We Love Back to the
Future with your letter from Friends in Time On there
there it is look at that the beautiful book Love
That Orange by the way and also always overlooking and
(01:22):
proofreading things. For me. I'm like, there's two people and
I mean this that I will email and text probably
once every few weeks, maybe a couple months, of like, hey,
I just thought of this. Do you know the answer
to this back to the future related question? And it's
you and Steven Clark. You are the two people I
talked to all the time, and normally nine times out
of ten you give you the right answer and whatever
(01:43):
I thought was wrong. So anybody who wants to put
the label, because now I'm doing the media rounds and
they're calling me, oh, back to the Future expert, I
go no, no, no, no no. If you want an expert,
I can point you in the direction the two individuals
who can answer any and all questions related back to
the future. I'm just a fan. But thank you so
much for that contribution, man, I.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Mean putting me in the same line as Stephen Clark there,
that's pretty high praise. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, you already know, man, You already know, y'all. Y'all
are the two. Y'all are the two back to the
future goats. As far as knowledge the knowledge base goes.
But I want to We're going to get into a
lot of stuff today. One thing I'm very excited about
that we're going to talk about, but just what's been
going on in the world of collect BTTF. I know
you're always out to, you know, acquire more antiquities related
to Back to the Future and aggregate them on the site.
(02:28):
How's the site going? Kind of give us an update
on all that.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's going well. So for anyone who's not familiar with it,
the COLLECTBTTF dot com is a personal project I started
a few years ago with the idea of immortalizing and
categorizing the history of Back to the Future collectibles, so
things that are you know, officially licensed or promo materials,
(02:53):
basically anything directly related with the Back to the Future series. Uh.
I've been cataloging on that site. It's been a very
fun project. Right now, I believe I'm just under seventeen
hundred items listed on there and tons more to go.
I mean, you know, anyone, if you go on there
(03:16):
and you're like, well, where's this item, you can let
me know about it. It's very likely going to come
at some point, But feel free to use the submit
option and just reach out. I'm always happy to chat
about these things. But it's been going really well. I
get a lot of really positive feedback from fans, so
it's it's been very worthwhile. I love it.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I mean, seventeen hundred items in counting is quite the
entry into this collect btt of world. What's the been
the one recently that you're like, wow, this is this
is a cool one.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You know. I've always been a fan a lot of
the international items, just because you get to see, like,
you know, the different cultures and all that and and
what fans appreciate in various countries around the world. So
most recently, I'd probably say the things that fascinated me
the most was I had categorized the all the entries
(04:12):
that had been listed on the back to the Future
of the Musicals Tokyo Production, and they had put up
their merch on online catalog and I had to use
Google Translate to be able to read any of it.
But it was just so cool, like having been to
the Broadway show, the national tour and familiar with, you know,
what's been done over in London. The merch in Japan
(04:36):
has been very exquisite and unique. I mean, you can
get Back to the Future themed chocolate bars and you know,
various stuffed animals, calligraphy pen, like all this really cool
stuff that you don't see in the US. And it's like,
all right, you know, I just I love that culture.
So it's it's been fascinating.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
A calligraphy pin, you know, I go to the to
the merch, you know, any anything merch related. The number
one I think American item, right would be a baseball hat,
which we're both currently wearing. That's always like a go
to for every March item. And I love that the
Japanese are like, yeah, we're gonna do calligraphy pen, all right,
because we're a little bit reflined over here.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And just to correct myself, I say calligraphy pen off
the top of my head. I forget if.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
It's specifically marketed for calligraphy, but it's like a custom pen,
like very fancy, comes in a special box and all
that for Back of the Beach and the musical.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But it's just I just love seeing like just the
unique items that come out of especially Japan, but various
countries around the world. It's just great to see. I'm
really curious to see what they're gonna do with like
the Germany production that's coming up, so we'll see.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So how does that work? Let me ask you maybe
you know, maybe you don't know, Like as far as
the business aside of it goes, do they when when
they have these productions internationally are the merchandising rights are
they licensed doubt to like local merchandising manufacturers or why
is there like the difference in the different kind of items.
(06:07):
Is it just are they different locally for each region
they have different rights over there or for producing well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I don't have any sort of official answer. I can
only make a guess, but there is a lot of
overlap between the US and the UK's merch and there's
been some items here and there that have only been
in the US only been in the UK. But with
Japan being so unique, I have to assume it's some
sort of local licensing deal. I'm guessing when they were
(06:38):
coming up with the Tokyo production, they made a deal
with I don't remember the name of the company off
the top of my head that runs the merch site
for them, but I'm assuming it's some sort of just
deal with that company.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now, historically, has Japan had some other like great Back
to the Future merchandise, whether they be from international releases
of the movie, the theme park, ride on the game,
anything well, comics, anything specifically that has stood out to
you over the years.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh yeah, So there has been focusing on Japan for
a moment. There's been a ton of unique march that
it's come out of Japan, especially with Universal Studios, and
even to this day, Universal Studios still pumps out in
all their parts, but especially in Japan. They're always pumping
out unique things. So you'll find like you know, random
(07:27):
unique key chains and things of that nature. There is
something really cool coming out of Japan that has been
announced for this year, really really hoping for some sort
of at least limited release in the US, and that
is something fans have been asking for. H Are you
familiar with like Hot Toys doing the scale models of
(07:50):
the Deloreans, like the big like one to sixth scale
DELAREUS of course, Yeah, I forget the exact scale this
is going to be, but it's somewhere along those lines.
But and I in Japan is finally releasing what everyone's
been asking for, the train. So they are releasing a
large scale model of the Part three train, which has
(08:12):
never been released in an official capacity, so that's coming
and I just got to figure out how to get
my hands on that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh my gosh, I just actually I just felt like
like a little boy on Christmas just now because that
train and I talk about I've been in the book,
but that train in recent years has really grown on
me as such a great piece of Back to the
Future iconography. That Oh yeah, I think because Part three
has grown on me. And we've had this conversation before,
but a lot of the times I find myself saying
(08:40):
Part three is my favorite now just because of the
I don't know, it's hard to say one's not your favorite,
but Part three is just so much fun. I guess
it's a lot of fun in Part three. And to
end with that train was just a great commentary on
Doc's persistence, because if one thing that we know about Doc,
even though he tries and fails, tries and fails, tries
(09:03):
and fails, and he finally invents something that works, it's
that persistence of the character that pays off. And there's
something about the time train that I love that it's
never explained. I love that we don't have to try
to figure it out or think about it too much.
It's just Doc Brown. He did the impossible by inventing
time travel, and then he did the impossible by inventing
(09:23):
time travel in eighteen eighty five or thereabout in the
eighteen eighties and created this train and the beautiful look
of the train. I could talk about it all day,
Eric as you can tell. Oh yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
You know, it's interesting you said that. I came across
I believe it was a Reddit thread just the other
day where someone asked the question how do you feel?
Back to the future three would have been if it
ended on Marty saying, well, Doc, it's destroyed, and then
(09:57):
queue to the credits, no return of Doc, no train
and all that, and people had varying opinions. I'm guessing
your opinion is probably gonna be the same as mine.
My opinion was, you know, hell no like, because then
you're ending the greatest trilogy of all time basically on
a cliffhanger. What happened to Doc? You know, what's his
whereabouts whatever? You know, what was his fate and all that,
(10:20):
Whereas that train was part of the story, being wrapped
up in a bow and giving us a solid conclusion
I wouldn't change it for anything.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I wouldn't change it either. And I know that people
on Reddit always have sometimes those redit groups have some
great ideas and great theories that I love just reading
the comments on and going down the rabbit hole and thinking,
like to myself. But that's what I do not agree with.
I think that if If Back to the Future was
a singular movie, right, and that was how it ended.
(10:49):
Is they got stuck in the past and only Marty
got back, and you know we had to have like this,
you know, ambiguous ending of what happened to Doc. I
always think back to The Wrestler. You've seen The Wrestler
right with Mickey Rourke, So you know the end of
the movie is he's going to go up for the
ramjam on the top rope. This is a his characters
has some heart issues and they're playing through it throughout
(11:10):
the movie. And then he goes up and he's having
like this heart palpitation or what have you, and he
jumps off the top rope and then the movie ends.
So we don't know if he lives, if he dies,
if he went whatever. It's just how it ends. I
like that ending because it was a singular contained story,
all right, and you know what, let the audience figure
it out. Are Tarantino's what's in the briefcase? In pulp fiction,
(11:35):
some of those are okay. But for Back to the Future,
especially the end of a trilogy, you want to see
the two characters you fell in love with have some
sort of reuniting, like a reunion, and then we can
end at least the trilogy knowing Doc was okay, he
actually went and did the thing that he never thought
he would do, is find true love, have children. Marity
(11:55):
and Jennifer are okay. Everybody's okay, that's what we want.
Come on, we want to feel good here.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Everyone's okay exactly. We need it to be wrapped up.
And to your point about if it was just a
single movie, single story, you might already know this. But
the original Back to the Future it was never supposed
to be a trilogy. It was originally just part one.
Well it wasn't even part one, it was just Back
to the Future to be continued wasn't added until the
(12:24):
you know, home video release of it that wasn't in theaters.
So the whole ending where Doc comes back says, you know,
you know you got to come back with me. You know,
something's happening to your kids, you know, the whole thing,
mister Fusion. Everything that was in essence put in kind
of like you know, it's just a gag ending. I mean,
(12:46):
it was just just to give the the movie a
fun ending and like you know, just fly off into
the distance, and that was supposed to be the end
of the story. And then obviously they made the sequels
and all that, And I believe it was Bob Gail
that had said that, like if they knew originally they
weren't going or they were going to make sequels, they
(13:08):
wouldn't have ended it like that because they kind of
typecast themselves into how they had to write part two
at that point, right, So you know, if obviously you know,
things can change over time, like what happens Back to
the Future. But I agree with you, like if if
you have something like that on a singular story, it's fine.
But if you were going to try and end the
(13:28):
Back to the Future trilogy after everything that happened on
a cliffhanger, it would have been bad.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It would have been it would have been a bad call. Now,
going going to what you were just talking about, is
if they didn't. Obviously it was going to be it
was like a joke ending from what Bob Gail says, like, Hey,
we're just gonna have this little funny thing. They fly
off in a future bomb what and you know what,
what if it did stop there? What a great ending
to the movie that would have been just in general,
Like what a great ending. Now. I know they say
(13:54):
they kind of pigeonholed themselves as far as what they
could do with the sequels and they had to pick
right back up there, But I've thought about like it before.
I don't know how you make a better story than
how they went into the second movie, because like, that's
such a great way to pick up It's like we're
seeing this right after the events Back to the Future one,
(14:15):
we're picking back up. I think if they would have
taken the let's say Ghostbusters two route, and we see
them years later and things aren't working out well or whatever,
and then there's another reason to get back into the
time machine and do this again, I think it wouldn't
have felt as fun as going right back into Back
to the Future.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, And I would normally in a
situation like this, say, you know, they just got lucky.
But I think it's an unintentional, unintentional effect of just
the genius of the Bops, you know, Bob Gallon, Robert
semeechis they even without the idea of having a sequel,
(14:57):
they unintentionally knew how to write the perfect ending to
give them that possibility. So it just happened to work
out in their favor. And just like I said about
the ending of part three, I wouldn't change the thing.
I know, like you said, they've been they were pigeonholed
and how they could write part two. But I love
Part two. I don't want Part two to be different.
(15:17):
So so give it to me exactly as it is.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I'm happy, well, and you know what you have. And
I've talked about it, I think offline before. But just
that paradox script and Back to the Future Part two
and three in the way that it was going to
actually play out is way different than what we ended
up getting. But so is the original draft of Back
to the Future. It's so different from the Back to
the Future that we got in theaters. I'm talking when
(15:41):
Marty's the video pirate and he's, you know, copying the
movies for was he copying for doc or no. No,
they were just friends still and we didn't know why
right in that first time and then Marty knocks. But yeah,
Marty knocks the Coca cola into the flex capacity or whatever,
and that's what makes the time machine possible. If my
(16:01):
memory is I need to go I.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Need to go back and like reread that in detail.
It's been so many years since I've read through that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I believe that was what it was, Marty. Let's
just let's just make sure that I'm right about this.
But I'm pretty sure Marty puts the coke, accidentally knocks
some Coca cola and invents time travel, and like that's
what makes it work. But Marty was a video pirate. Yeah,
in the first script, Marty accidentally spilled coke into the
(16:30):
power circuits of the time machine, resulting a chemical reaction
between the cola and the plutonium that made it possible
to generate enough electricity to power to make time travel possible.
There you go, There you go. So Marty, yeah, was
going to be a video pirate, which is really interesting,
very interesting. But that is in the original version of
(16:53):
the script, which I need to I want to read
that one again too, because it's been some time since
I read the first draft of the Back to the
Future screenplay, because it takes place in eighty two, not
eighty five. It's a power converter, I think, instead of
a flux capacitor, things like that. You know, he has
the pet shimp, Marty's girlfriend of Susie, he's a video pirate.
(17:15):
Eileen Bains is the mother. So there's some of those
those differences. So it's worth actually going back to check
that one out. If it's been sometime, I might do
a reading one day on this podcast. But look, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Have had as much of a cultural impact. It would
have been so far past you know reality, between the
pet chimp, the like nuclear ending and all that. Like,
I think it would have taken it too far into
the Roman sci fi. I think Back to the Future
one of the big things that always has gravitated, you know,
(17:47):
fans towards it has been it's been sci fi, and
obviously there's things that will never happen in real life,
but it still was really close to reality in terms
of the way the characters are and interact with each
other and all that. So, you know, taking it closer
to like a Star Trek level of sci fi would
not have been a good idea.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I wouldn't have enjoyed that. And and the thing about
Back to the Future is, yes, it's a time travel movie.
Yes it's a sci fi movie in a lot of ways.
Yes it's an action movie in some ways. But it's
really a character story about this family unit more than anything.
And like it's it's the ties to the reality of
situations that not anybody would find themselves in. But it's
(18:29):
it's it's a it's the heart of the movies. What
makes it work, I guess, is what I'm trying to say,
propelling it forward, which is a great transition point to
why we have you here today. It was a couple
months ago I was at the Reality Wrestling television tapings
and I got a text on my phone from you,
and you said that you found a particular item that
(18:50):
you finally procured into your possession. And I literally was like,
set out loud, and I'm in the production meeting, so
I've my directors there, Ken Kevin barnhardsh hat to Kevin Booker,
T's there. And I read this text, I go no way,
and I put my phone down like that, and everyone
looks at me and they're like, what happened? I go,
(19:11):
he found it, he's got it. And I had to
explain the situation to everybody, and then they still looked
at me like I was crazy. But tell everybody exactly
why I marked out so much over your text message?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
All right, So buddy, Yeah, this is an item that
has been on my personal you know you hear that
term like holy Grail items for people with collective collections
and stuff. This has been one of my personal Grail
items for a very long time. As long as I've
been doing this, seen every once in a while one
(19:46):
or two come up for sale. I've missed out on him.
Finally got my hands on it. Admittedly, no fancy story
from some big contacts or anything. It was a lucky
eBay find and finally got my hands on it. But
it is where it all began. This is not a
reprint and original. This is an original nineteen forty University City,
(20:12):
Missouri yearbook. This is the yearbook of Bob Gail's father.
I even marked the page just so I wouldn't have
to waste any of your time. This is the page
that started back to the future. Wow right there, if
(20:33):
you can se let me turn off the blur.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, okay, yeah, turn the blur off. I saw an
image of a rather striking individual, handsome man, and that
is a Mark Gail, Mark Gail, class president. So we
have a everyone says it says it on the beginning,
it says what the dial? What's that say at the
top of the page there if.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You came out, Yeah, it is class of June nineteen forty,
the dial for nineteen forty. I guess that's either the
school's theme or whatever. It's on the front as well,
if you can see it in on there dial nineteen forty.
So this is the yearbook that started at all. It
(21:16):
was I believe nineteen eighty when Bob Gail came across
his dad's yearbook and came across that exact page I
just showed you and wondered to himself, well, what I
have been friends with my dad when he was in
high school? If we went to high school together, and
(21:38):
from there that inspired the story back to the future
and goes on from there. So I think the way
I had mentioned it, like on social media was like
as far as our real lifetimeline. So I'm not counting
items that existed in fiction in the eighteen hundreds. I'm
talking about like actual, real items. This is the oldest
(22:03):
direct tie into back to the future in existence. And
some people challenged me and said, well, what about the
books that doc uses along his eighteen eighty five train
track in the bar And I'm like, all right, you know,
we don't have to nitpick about it, but you get
you get the point. So this is the yearbook that
(22:25):
inspired this. This one actually used to belong to one
of Mark Ghill's classmates. There is one or two like
classmates signatures in it, and but that page happened to
be pristine, so I was very happy to see that.
But yeah, this is the yearbook that started it all.
Without Bob Gail finding this yearbook and having that thought
(22:47):
to himself, you and I may not be talking right now.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
I think that we very well wouldn't be talking right
now at all, because it's just what a phenomenal find
what you can credit fine, and so let's go. Let's
walk through it a little bit. Okay, So do were
you just doing eBay searches, like consistently over some months,
over some years to try to find it? And then
(23:12):
it popped up like kind of walk us through, how
how many times have you tried to find this book?
And has it only been through eBay that you've been
able to figure it out?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
No, I've I've looked for this from other places in
the past. I I've spoken to just people saying because
I have a few other yearbooks. I actually have Bob
Gehl's senior yearbook as well, so technically I had both
of theirs.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
What was his year he graduated?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I don't remember, honestly. I can get back to you
on that, but I had been looking for it for
a while and on eBay. I have, you know, various
searches set up with alerts so that if there's new
hits on certain things, and I've got a few custom
(24:02):
I guess queries in there for you know, nineteen forty
University City yearbook, stuff like that, and a lot of
times things come up and it's not relevant. I just
moved past it, and it just so happened one of
my alerts flagged and this came up. The person who
sold it did know what they had. This wasn't like
(24:24):
a case of some random person selling an old yearbook
and didn't realize the history behind it. So the listing
did say like back to the future, Mark Gale blah
blah blah blah blah. So it it put a little
bit of a premium on the price, but I still
got what I considered it to be an incredible deal
(24:45):
on it, and the rest is history. So wow.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Okay, So the person you said who sold it was
one of the classmates of Mark Gaile, Is that what
you said?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Oh, I don't know. I don't think they personally were.
I don't know their direct relation with the but the
yearbook itself I found out from the seller. I forget
if it was on the listing, but I did have
a brief conversation too. It came from a former classmate.
Whether that former classmate is this seller's relative friend or
(25:16):
just some thrift find I'm not sure a state sale.
Who knows.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So you've seen only a couple of these come up
over the years, Yeah, yeah, And so you've tried to
where you just outbid before and you weren't able to
get it.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
So I can remember two times off the top of
my head. One time I was outbid and another time
it was just gone before I could even go in
to purchase it.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
And you don't have to say exactly what you paid for,
but what have you seen these kind of you'll float
at price wise, like from low give me a low
to its high range.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I don't remember how much. So the one time that
I got out bid, it was in the mid three figures.
I mean, it wasn't crazy, but it was you know,
it wasn't twenty bucks.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Right, We're talking maybe a four five hundred bucks or something.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, like about that. And the time it was just
bought before I even saw it. I didn't see what
the price was, so I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Okay, So yeah, so we're probably looking at at low range.
If you were to be able to find one of
these online, a few hundred dollars at the very least
is kind of what we're looking at from a low side.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, and I will say that this one didn't even
cost me that much, so I got a really good deal.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Wow. Okay, So yeah, now was it a buy it
now feature?
Speaker 1 (26:41):
No, this one was. This one was auction auction. So
I was really worried because this was one of those
like I will have to explain myself to my wife
if this goes up really high in price, but at
the same time, I wasn't gonna let it slip, so
full disclosure, it was about one hundred, which you know,
(27:03):
to my frugal wife, it's like you spent one hundred
and thirty dollars on an old write a yearbook. But
to me, it's like, I only spent one hundred and
thirty dollars on this year.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
But how I was thinking, I was like, oh man,
what a deal, A double pay. That's amazing. Okay, so
you win, you win the auction, and I'm sure when
the counting minutes down you kept refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. Okay,
I'm good, I'm good. I'm good because you know, those
snipers come in. I'm sure it happens a lot, you know,
with stuff that you've tried to procure over the years,
(27:33):
the snipers at the very end where they come in
and all of a sudden the price goes from you know,
fifty two dollars and all of a sudden you had
one hundred and sixty dollars within a couple of minutes.
You're like, well, what happened here? What happened? So you
were the top bitter the whole time.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
No I'm not gonna lie I sniped it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
You're one of those guys who's you.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I'm not always but I was not taking any chances here.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I understand. I'm not mad at it. So you were
the sniper, so you were watching it, and then you're like,
ok I'm going to go all in here in the
closing minutes. Okay, with about five seconds left, you dirty rat.
I love it. I love it. I would have done
the same thing. It probably would have been down to
me and you if had I known about the listic.
(28:18):
It's okay, you get in the last five seconds. There's
probably just a thrill of dopamine that goes through your
body that you finally got this thing after the years.
Now walk me through your getting it in the mail
how because this is how nerdy I'm going to get
how long did it take to get there? Because I'm
sure you're counting the days down and then you get
it out of the mail. Won't me through that part?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So my heart was racing when the auction ended, because,
especially with eBay auctions themselves, once it ends, it takes
a few seconds for everything to calculate to know if
you were actually the winner, and all that and I'm like, oh,
don't let me. Like when I put in my max bed,
like if I had lost it because someone threw in
(29:00):
like some huge max bit of like two grand and
it got up to there somehow, like some other two
people were big against it, I wouldn't like I'd be
pissed that I lost it, But at the same time
they're like, all right, like you know, I'm okay. But
if I lost it by like two dollars, I probably
would have broken a window. And so it ended I
(29:22):
was the winner. I paid immediately. I didn't want to
take any chances, and I got it. I think it
was within a week if I remember correctly, And to
the seller's credit, it was packaged really well. It was
wrapped in like three layers of bubble wrap inside of
a cardboard box and just came very well prepared. And
(29:44):
considering the yearbook is let's see, how many years older
are you talking about something like that?
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So yeah, so yeah, five years yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, And considering it's eighty five years old, it's still
in great condition. I mean it's is it mint conditioned
right out of the yearbook factory? No, of course not,
but it's it's in great condition. So I it's one
of my you know, prized items. Now.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, well think about that though. That is a longer
time from the time of the production of that yearbook
to now than it was from eighteen eighty five to
nineteen fifty five, Right, so you're five years older. Wow,
that's crazy. Okay, So you open it up. First off,
the leather bounding looks really great. This is kind of
also harkening back to an era where they made things
to last. You know, my yearbooks are probably like disintegrated
(30:36):
by now, and this like looks really good, good leather,
it looks like not super thick. So I guess it's
not a huge class. But could you read all some
of those officers again? So he was the president of
the graduating class. The dial is the name of the yearbook.
I remember ours was called ORNDA or something like that,
which I'm not even sure what that means. That was
(30:57):
the name of our yearbooks ORNDA. Did your yearbook have
like of a thing?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
It did, but I forget what it was. You know,
like our school's mascot was the Bears, and I don't
remember what the yearbook we might have been, like the
Emeralds something. Okay, I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Our mascot has changed since I graduated. There was the
Redskins was the original name of the mascot, and then
it changed a few years ago, you know, when everything
else kind of did, like when the team, you know,
the NFL team changed name. Okay, read us some of
those officer names there? Who do we got?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Yeah, so let's see if I could do this kind
of like your I'm a like reading at a library
and kind of.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, I feel like this was an infant go ahead,
So what a year?
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Oh, and here's something I never even put two and
two together on until just now. I don't know if
this was unique to the time period or if it
was that area, but like, this is the class of
January nineteen forty, and then Bob on the or Mark
on the right as part of the class of June
(32:02):
nineteen forty.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I'm seeing that.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
So I guess they split it up. I guess by
half years. I'm I'm not sure, well, because.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
You know, like a university, right, if you graduate, you
either graduate in the winter or the or the what
is it the spring? Right, So I guess that's kind
of what they were doing for high school. But yeah, continue, Yeah,
I guess.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
But I mean this was, you know, high school. Like
when I went to high school, it was just you.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Know, y'all graduating in May or June or whatever it.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Was, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. We were just the class
in my case, class of two thousand and two. I mean,
it was just that's how it was.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Well, who was the president of the graduating class of
January of nineteen forty.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That was Bob Rawlings. Bob Rawlings and vice president June Brown,
with Ralph Blomberg as the treasurer and Adeline or Adeline
Brownham as the secretary.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Well, Adeline, that's and that's definitely a name for the
nineteen forties. You don't hear that name?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah? And then joining Mark in the class of June
nineteen forty, Mark Gali the president. And what a handsome man.
He was very handsome.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
What ahead of hair Betty?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah? Really and you could see a lot of Bob
in him.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I see it.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
It's uncanny. Betty Osbourne the vice president, Bob Ausbeck as treasurer,
and Pat Doyle as the secretary.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Wow, look at that thing. Man. So let me ask
you this. So we have Bob, what was the one
in January nineteen forties, Bob who.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Was a president Bob Rawlings.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Bob Rawlings versus Mark Gail. Let's figure this out right now,
who do we feel looks more presidential? I think Gail
really does. Honestly, Gail, he looks like the leader. I
feel like that he would win in a fistfight between
the two of them.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Wrong, wouldn't have to stand a chance. He looks like
and you know what, Mark Gale looks like. He might,
you know, throw some bows. He looks like he's got
some athletic structure to himself.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
I don't think his classmates would put a kick me
sign on him in the hallway, No.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I don't. So it's interesting. So I wonder if if
because I'm just going off a picture here, maybe there's
some information in the yearbook, but I wonder if if
Mark Gaile was kind of like a jock? Do we
know is he a jock? He looks like it.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, I could see that. You've now got me curious.
I might have to look into that. But yeah, I
mean Bob always said that, you know, the difference was
like his dad seemed very like straight laced and very
you know, serious and all that, whereas Bob saw himself
as the goofball, So it wouldn't surprise me if if
(34:31):
Mark was, mister Gail was, you know, very much into
the straight routine of you know, being a good student,
maybe playing some sports stuff like that, and staying out
of trouble. You know, wanted to goof off.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
But as we all as we all do what a
graduating class. Just those head shots too, man, Just such
a harkening back to such a different time. And you
could see why if you were to find your father's
year book and you look at that and go oh wow, man,
and you start to have these same questions because I
don't know a lot about my dad in high school,
so I'd be like, I wonder what he did, Like
(35:08):
was he who's he hanging around?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Who were his buddies? Like what did they do for
fun in nineteen forty? You know, if he's eighteen in
nineteen forty, so what is that? That means he's born
in the in the twenties right at some point? So
nineteen twenty two, I guess would he be born? So
just such a different time, man. So have you thumbed
through the whole year book or if you just really
(35:30):
saw the Mark Gale page and then you decided this
is enough for me. I don't need to see more
and more of the class of University City, Missouri. Was
it in high school? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I've skimmed through it, you know, looked at the various
class pages, like here's an example of where it had
been signed at one point. Okay, and you know, I've
gone through. I haven't paid really much attention besides the
main page.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So I feel like for people in the Back to
the Future world, that is other than owning something from
the movie itself, right, like an actual screen used hoverboard
or the you know, a piece of the Delorea or
the flux capacitor itself, an actual pepsi perfect. There's like
(36:22):
some right, but I feel like that is the holy
Grail because it is really like the origin of the concept.
It's the moment of conception, you know, in different terms.
I mean, this is this is like having some of
the great It's like having the quill that John Hancock
wrote his name in on the Declaration, like having that
(36:44):
just quill in your hand. This is the this is it.
This is where the America started, baby, And it feels
like that's back to the future for me to a
lesser extent, I don't know how familiar are with James Bond.
Are you familiar with James Bond? Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Kind of look very casually.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
So Ian Fleming was the guy who wrote the James
Bond novels. This is the guy who invented James Bond.
And he was asked, you know where did you get
this name, James Bond? Because when you hear that name,
it sounds great. Bond, James Bond, perfect. You can't think
of a better super spy name than James Bond. And
it's just so in the world's pop culture, not even
(37:24):
just the American lexicon, you know, the European, the Japanese,
everyone knows James Bond. And so he said he lived
in Jamaica. Ian Fleming did after the war. He lived
in Jamaica, and he called his house GoldenEye, which is
where the name of the game in the movie would
come from. But he said that he did a lot
of bird watching when he was out there, and he
(37:46):
had a book called Birds of the West Indies and
that was his bible. He called it out there because
they would have all the birds that he would look
at and look it up and the author of the
book was James Bond. That's the guy's name and so's
and he just lifted it and made it the name
of his superspy. So one year, similar to you, I
went to rare bookstores. I went to all kinds of
(38:08):
eBay listings, everywhere I could think of to try I
could find The Birds of the West Indies, a book
written in the thirties by James Bond. And then one
day I finally found it and I gave it to
my father for Christmas, because he and I have a
big Bond fandom together. But that was like for me,
not the holy grail of James Bond merchandise, but it's
(38:29):
one of the foundational documents. It's the magna carta. If
we're going to speak in historical documents term, which I
feel like, is what you have. You have the magna carta.
You have what's based everything on. You know, what we
know of democracy, freedom and independence and back to the future.
Terms is started in that moment of conception seeing that
(38:50):
yearbook and I just I just wonder, you know, that
is like really the genius of the Bobs and Bob
Gail in particular, because ninety percent of people would look
through their dad's yearbooks see that, not think twice about it, like,
oh dad's graduating president of graduating class. Oh that's cool,
boom move forward. But he was like, this is it,
(39:12):
this is how we can get into the time travel story.
That because they wanted to do the time travel story
before he found the book, right I believe so, yeah, yeah,
and so they were trying to figure out how to
get into it. And then that hook of what if
you went to school with your parents? I mean, most
people wouldn't go that far with it, do you think.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, yeah, it goes back to what I said before
about the genius of the Bobs. They are just one
of a kind or two of a kind, I should say,
But they're just they're incredible. And yeah, who knows what
would have happened if you never had that random thought.
You know, maybe he would have had some thought in
a supermarket about something else and the story would be
(39:53):
completely different.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah. Maybe they have a different idea of back to
the Future and they go into it a different way,
or they do. I mean, there's butterfly effect. Was actually
one of the great things about Back to the future.
It makes everyone think of that, like, what if I
didn't meet this person at this time and have this interaction,
my whole life could potentially be different if Bob Gail
didn't have this moment in his parent's attic or is
his basement? Is the parent's basement. We don't have basements
(40:18):
in Texas, so that's why I always call it an
attic his parents' basement. You know, everything could have been
so much different. And you know, even though this start
of the trail back to the Future, as we talked about,
the script, was completely different, and it's always fascinating for
me to see how it starts like a screenplay starts,
versus what we end up finally getting, especially because the
(40:40):
Back to the Future screenplay is so tight and well
well thought out and taught in classes because it's so
great and pays everything off. It's interesting to see the
first draft. If you did, I could be completely making
this up. Did you say you had written a screenplay before?
Am I making that up? Or you had worked on one?
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Well?
Speaker 2 (41:00):
No, no, you didn't. Why do I remember you saying
something like that? Did you ever try to?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, I'm confusing you with somebody else, I'm sorry, but
like I've written, I've written a couple of things, and
it's interesting because it's true that first draft is I think,
just getting the idea out, like let me get it
on paper, and then you sit and you think about it,
and you think about it, and you think about it,
and you think about it and you kind of move
things around a little bit more. But I just think
(41:28):
that that year book is such a great fine man,
it's got to be. Where do you rank it in
your Back to the Future memorabilia? Is it high?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Honestly, as of right now it is probably number one.
It's so right now most of my collection is kind
of stored away, pending some like finishing my basement stuff
(41:57):
like that, putting a little bit more on display. But
when I do get things back out of storage, it
will probably be, in my opinion, the center point. It'll
be the focal point of how I display things. And
you know, you go back, going back to what you
said about how everyone has their items that you know,
(42:17):
their magne Karta items and stuff like that. There's various
levels of Back to the Future fans and specifically Back
to the Future collectors, and there's a lot of people
that are much more casual about it, and they don't
necessarily know the history of that yearbook. They don't they
don't care about having stuff like that. They just want
(42:40):
the action figures, the scale model, stuff like that, and
that's fantastic, And you know, I love that people get
the stuff that they want. So this yearbook isn't necessarily
that magne Karta item for everyone, but for people that
are diehard devoted and a little bit obsessive like me,
(43:02):
like finding that was just you know, the tip of
the icebrick for me, Like it's it doesn't get better
than that. So I don't want to say it's all
downhill from there, because there's still plenty of other great
stuff out there. But you know, it's, uh, it's something
I'm very happy and proud to own. You know. I
(43:23):
think I've mentioned in the past that, you know, my
wife is very supportive of my addiction and and understands it.
But she's not a fanatic like me. You know, she
tolerates it at best, it's the best way of saying it.
And so there's times, you know, these random eBay things
(43:44):
that I'll get or just some from someone or somewhere else.
Things will come in and she'll be like, oh great,
you know, like it just kind of like roll her
eyes a little bit, Oh great, you needed another DeLorean,
you know kind of thing. When this year book came
in and I showed her and I explained it, even
like her eyes were like, wow, that is cool. Like
she was like impressed, and I was like, all right,
(44:06):
that's how I know this was a good item, Like
for her to be like, oh man, that is really cool.
Like I was like, all right now, not that I
wasn't happy with the burgess, but like now it's justified
to me, like like just seeing people's reactions to that.
And I had some friends over last week and they
(44:27):
we had been talking and they knew I was a
big back to the Future guy and they were like, like,
how much do you actually own? So I showed them, like,
you know, the stuff, and they asked like what's the
what's like the piece that's like the top And I
told him about the yearbook and they were like, Okay,
that is awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
It it really is, you know, And to have that,
I think it's just because you know, you got to
think I don't remember. Look this small town in Missouri,
I don't know how many of these people actually were
in you know, I mean, how many were in the
graduating class in both years, right in January in June.
You don't know how many of these things were made,
(45:05):
and out of the ones that made, you don't know
how many of them are still around most of the
people from that graduating class, probably safe to say, like,
you know, there might be a few of them still around. Maybe,
you know, maybe we're talking, you know, people who have
to be knocking on the door to one hundred or more,
So it's safe to say there's not a lot of
(45:26):
them still around. So now these items are in the
care of relatives of some kind, you know, sitting in
boxes and storage units, I'm sure. So we don't know
how many of them were produced, and out of those
how many were produced, how many of them are still around,
and out of the ones that are still around, how
many of them are in that grade of a condition.
From what that one looks like just on the surface,
(45:48):
from me seeing it through the zoom chat, it's a rare.
It's got to be a rare, rare find. We're talking
just a few hundred of these have to be in existence.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, if that, I'm sure a lot of them lost
the time, destroyed stuff like that. And as you saw
when I opened it, like go to Bob or Mark
Gale's page, and the page is still like pure white.
It's not ripped, it's not weathered, it's not discolored or
anything like that. So this has probably just been sitting around,
(46:21):
closed in some person's attic or somewhere in storage for
for many many years, and now it's here with me.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Now it's here with Eric Tait of all people, I
think I get one more question when you say you're
going to put it as the centerpiece of the basement,
are you decking the basement out like all back to
the future. Are you going to have like demand the
quintessential back to the future man cave? Is that what
you're telling me?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Well, this is kind of all in theory right now,
but I am hoping in the near future to redo
my basement, gut it, and finish it. And yeah, so
the room I'm in right now that you can see
is my office at home, which is the spare bedroom
(47:06):
in our in our house, and I would like to
eventually have that be an actual spare bedroom and move
myself into the basement. And when I do. That's where
stuff will come and go out on display.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Because you can really get a little wild. You've thought
about it.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I've got I've got pictures in my mind of how
this would all work out, and yeah, that that yearbook
would definitely be right there. There's been a couple of
times that I've wanted to, you know, ask Bob Bob gal,
you know, like his thoughts on it, and just hear
(47:44):
more directly from him. I ran into him in La
at Universal fan Fest a couple of weeks ago, but
obviously I wasn't gonna, you know, make him stop and
chat with me, so I just said a quick hello
and moved on. But I would love one day to
just check with him about hearing more of his story
with this, you know, like you said, I'm sure unfortunately,
(48:08):
most if not all, of the people in this year
book have probably passed away by now. But like, for example,
the vice president of his class, how cool would it
be to chat with like that vice president's child or
grandchild and hear like, hey, are you you familiar with
you know, your grandpa and how he was in school.
(48:28):
I'm sure they probably said no, I have no idea,
but it would be cool. If someone had a story
about like, yeah, I heard that. You know, my grandpa
was friends with Mark and they used to, you know,
go aut partying all the time. You know, I would
love to just hear some cool story about that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
But you know, yeah, because he really is the If
we call Bob Gail the father of the future, I
mean literally, Mark Gail is the grandfather of the future. Yeah,
to hear more about him. Those are the things I like,
Those are the things I nerd out about and like, man, wow,
I just want to dig deep and find out more.
In general, so you've got you. You've got yourself, in
(49:06):
my opinion, probably the holy grail of Back to the
Future collectibles. And now I'm extremely jealous, and we'll probably
buy every dial year book I can find from I'll
get I'm sure, I'm no. My look, I'll get thirty nine,
I'll get forty one. I don't know if I'll ever
get forty but uh now I'm going to be on
(49:28):
the hunt and on the lookout because that's something that
I would love to have too. Let me ask you
this is if.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
We ever cross paths in person, I'll hand it to you.
Feel free to through it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
So I'll flip through it, but then I'll take off
with it. No, we we do have to beet in
person one day. I'm sure that we will. You know,
I know that you were at WrestleMania forty right, as
was I. But there was no way we could have
found one another in that sea of people. The security
that was there and the frigid temperatures probably would have
shortened our patients to try to find one another. But
(49:59):
we will do it. Let me ask you this just
a little bit of a crossover. If you were to
cast Marty and Doc but they were pro wrestlers. Oh gosh,
who you going with? I think I got this question
at a comic con about a year ago when I
was doing a panel, and it did stump me for
(50:20):
quite some time. I believe I said Doc was the
macho man Randy Savage.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, that's where my mind was going at first, even
though macho man wasn't blonde. I'm thinking about just the
hair and the persona. And I'm also kind of in
a little tangent, I'm thinking about Roger Bart's performance as
Doc Brown from the musical and how he was a
little bit more you know, comedic with the role and animated,
and I'm envisioning that cross with Macho Man. I could
(50:51):
just see that by comparison. So I'm gonna go with
you on that. I'm gonna say, Macho Man is gonna
be doc. Oh, Marty, that is.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
A hard It really is.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
There's some there's some names out there, maybe like a
heartbreak kid, Shawn Michaels maybe. Uh. You know, I'm trying
to think of somebody who's like young and cool.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
You know, I'm going to I've got one. I won't say.
I won't say the names all I describe my reason,
but I'm thinking like someone who's confident but still a
little reserved, kind of like Marty was. And he, you
know he was he was a confident guy, but you know,
(51:41):
wasn't confident in himself enough for like turning in his
tape to the record company stuff like that, So he
still had some reservations, someone who kind of in a
way maybe felt like they lived in the shadows a
little bit. So I'm going to go with an earlier
babyface Owen Hart.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Wow, that you know what? There we go. That is
a great answer, Owen Hart, as Marty, Macho Man is doc,
Come on, Heaven help us out here. That is a
hell of a hell of a duo there. I'd love
to see it. And let me ask you this too
(52:24):
before I get you out here. You've seen the touring
production of the musical, right, big differences between that and
the Broadway show.
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Yeah, so I've only seen the touring production once. It
was Wallows in Chicago, and it's not quite like you're
seeing it on Broadway for obvious reasons. When you're in
Broadway and you have your permanent location, you can do
a lot more with it versus traveling. So there are
(52:53):
a couple of differences with the big ending. You saw
it on Broadway, so you know what the ending is like.
So the the big ending is more like a medium ending.
I'm trying not to like spoil it for anyone, but
it's not quite the same. But it's still good. And
the cast, you know, these are all people that would
(53:15):
do the job significantly better than I would. Uh. So
they're all fantastic actors. You're not getting I don't want
to say this in a negative way, like if you're
talking about like a plus performance on Broadway, then like
B plus to a minus performers on the tour. They're
still great. But it's not Roger Bard, it's not Casey Likes,
(53:38):
it's not from the UK like Ali Dobson when he
was original cast stuff like that. So they're still they're
still great. Anyone that has the opportunity to go see
it on the national tour, I highly suggest they do.
But boy do I miss the Broadway run. Oh so great.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, the Broadway experience is something that I'm so happy
that I actually got to to feel and see for myself, because, yeah,
the big ending, it's big ending, you know, as one
time Elane ordered the Big Salad. It's the big ending,
right and and is a it's still and it's not
just because it was back to the future. I've seen
(54:17):
several shows on Broadway and it is the most impressive
Broadway production I've seen to date.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
It because special effects alone were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
That's what I was like, wow, And that's why I
understand the amount of effects that were in the Broadway version.
I understand that you can't bring those on the road.
It's just such you need something to where it's there
night in, night out, and you need a lot of
time to probably set those things up and be able
to pay them off, and especially when you're touring in
(54:48):
different theaters. Every theater has a different setup and a
different grid, and a different this and a different that.
And it's just hard to bring all those things to
life on the road because you're there for a week
and then you're off to the next one. It's tough.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah. Now with Broadway, knowing that you know the ending
and what happens and all that. I was at the
very final performance on Broadway. I brought my wife and
daughter and we had the direct center seats of the
second row. So think about the ending and think about
(55:23):
the view we had for that ending exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
M god, you do so many cool things that I'm
so jealous of you. You live close to New York,
you can do the Broadway. You got the year book.
You've got a basement which is really one leg above
me here. I don't have a basement. Well I can
have this back to the future man cave. I got
a corner of a room. So h so you're living
the dream. Eric Tate COLLECTBTTF dot com on all the
(55:52):
social media's. Again, thank you for your contribution to my book.
It added so much. I truly mean that and I
will see you in the future of my brother Great.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
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