212 · Back to the Future

• Help Marty McFly fix the past to save the future
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • One of the most fun movies of all time.
    • The classic chase scene between Marty and the killer bees
    • The looney tunes hijinx when Marty threw a bowling bowl at that girl with the hula hoop
    • Or when Marty fought off 100 thugs at a diner
• Overview
  • The player controls Marty McFly through various stages set in 1955 in which he collects various clock icons in order to advance to the next level
• Gameplay
  • The idea of Buying time wasn’t a theme in the movie.
  • Two power-ups can help improve Marty's control
    • bowling balls that can destroy enemies
    • and a skateboard which can speed up gameplay.
  • The “Bonus Games”
    • Marty repelling Biff Tannen's gang of bullies from a cafe
    • blocking all the kisses Lorraine sends Marty (in the shape of little hearts)
      • Ah, I can’t get kissed by my mom
      • She is shooting her love rapidly and in constant zig zags
      • Why does this look just like the diner?
    • and having to position his guitar properly to stay in tune at the dance in order for George and Lorraine to kiss.
      • The music coming to the guitar instead of out of it
      • The guitar is like a net and you have to catch the notes
  • In the final stage, Marty gets to control the DeLorean time machine on the street at night, dodging lightning bolts and obstacles while accelerating in such a way as to reach 88 miles per hour (142 km/h) precisely at the end of the stage, enabling the time machine to bring Marty home to 1985.
    • Thankfully you can’t exceed 88mph and it’s actually a pretty short stage
• Music
  • The game only contains two songs from the film. One is a sped up version of "The Power of Love" which plays throughout most of the game; the other is "Johnny B. Goode," which plays in the guitar level.
• "Tough luck Marty! It looks like you are stuck here."
• Who got it worse? BttF or Ghostbusters?
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • 3 Back to the Future games before this that all actually look more jank
  • We will play BttF Part 2 and 3 on the NES as well but only as one game
  • Deep Cut - Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure
    • a game where you explore the theme park and go on the rides. The BttF ride was a very interesting fun arcade adaptation on the GameCube
  • The most recent adaptation - Back to the Future The Game. A Telltale game
• EGL
• NEStalgia Byte - Exerion and Formation Z
• Next week - Back to the Future

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:20 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, for the last 200 something episodes, I've been using my microphone all wrong. Oh, no. And I finally sound right. Do you? No, no, for real though. No, I do sound good. I do sound better. And I'm sure the listeners are noticing that. And I apologize for anybody who ever listened to me when I sounded like I was coming out of a tin can for the last 200 episodes.

00:48 But we finally have fixed that issue. And thanks to all of our Patreon subscribers and everything, you know, we're making the show better every day. We got a website. Now we've got another spinoff show, Nostalgia Bites. And now we have, you know, a Michael who sounds pretty good with a microphone. But like, guys, why didn't you say anything? Like, you just let him do that? Like, I wasn't going to say nothing.

01:10 But but why didn't you? Sean was testing you. I think this now is the aha moment where everybody looks back and they realize what we really meant by Mike's without Mike's. And it's also like after 200 something episodes, I'm sure, you know, it's just I've brought awareness to the issue. Maybe some people thought like, oh, that's just how he sounds. And then they're like, wait, oh, Mike has bass.

01:31 Anyway, you know, we're not here to talk about my new microphone or any tech related stuff, right? No, we're here to talk about one of the most fun movies of all time. That's now a video game. I mean, who could forget the classic chase scene between Marty and the killer bees or the Looney Tunes hijinks when Marty threw a bowling ball at that girl with the hula hoop or when Marty fought over 100 thugs at the diner. Like this is one of the classic movies of cinema. Yeah. Well, one of the best parts of that movie is when Lorraine McFly rips her heart out over and over again and throws it at Marty in the biology lab. Is it the biology? Yeah, it's got like a little sink and everything in a little.

02:05 Okay, but they made it the biology lab specifically just because it looks like the bar, you know, the bar at the diner, but in reverse. Right. Yeah, that's probably I didn't think of that, but it's probably more just like it was easier for them to do than like a clever joke. It is funny, though, because like it, you know, I was looking through the manual and they they talk about like the places you're going to go, the things you're going to see. And you can tell that they're they're pretty insecure about this game because they just kept saying like, just like in the movie. And like, so, yeah, sure, there's like, you know, there's a DeLorean at some point, but it doesn't mean that everything else is just like in the movie.

02:46 Even the manual doesn't seem to know what a DeLorean looks like either. The game gets a decent, but if you don't look at the DeLorean in the manual, it looks like a like a go cart.

02:55 The guy in the manual had limited resources, obviously, because that's even that's not even close to Michael J. Fox. Well, to talk about that for a second, if you look at the it's not close to Michael J. Fox for sure. And he's on there twice. If you look at the at the first page, he's on there. And I think of the second to last page is on there. And he looks different from each other. Like those two pictures don't even look like each other. You got like a different facial structure and different hairstyle in each picture.

03:19 That was the stunt double. Yeah, probably. But for real, like this is a really good movie that is still like, you know, I still watch it every now and again. Even the whole the whole trilogy, honestly, it's it's still top tier stuff for me. But like, I just want to make sure you guys feel the same way. Are you like now back to the future is overrated? I like I like back to the future.

03:37 I mean, it was never one of my favorite movies, but I enjoyed the first two. And I think the third one's OK. This is I feel like I always feel a little guilty on these movie movie based game episodes because so many times I haven't seen these classic movies.

03:52 Back to the future is one that I have seen a lot. I loved it when I was a kid. I still like it now. And I'll even say I rewatched it like last year at one point. And I'll even say that I think back to the future part three doesn't doesn't get enough praise. You know, I can see people saying it's the weakest one. But like, I think it's pretty good movie still. Yeah, it was OK. I feel like any trilogy will just have a hard time ending or wrapping up nicely. Yeah. You know, there's always like something people wanted instead.

04:21 That's true. I want them to go to like, you know, in the time machine like that kind of future, like it 82,000 AD and have to like interact with the the was it the Eloy and the Mollocks or whatever? I don't know.

04:38 All the fans of the time machine know what I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. The underground people in the above ground people. Yeah. But that's that was my that's how I wanted them to wrap it up. I wanted him to go to the end of time like that last level in Chrono Trigger where you just like hang out at the end of time, you know, after after all time has passed. That's where I wanted to see Marty go. Yeah. Who is what is it? Mel Cure that's there or whoever's there. Gasper or whoever. Who is that? George McFly in this version.

05:10 Anyway, let's talk about this game. Back to the future on the NES. The player controls Marty McFly through various stages of, you know, I'm going to describe them as paper boy like levels where it's like an obstacle course. And even though you're not throwing newspapers into people's houses, you're just dodging the same kind of, you know, street level traffic. And, you know, you do that for like four or five levels in a row and then you get like a mini game. But the mini game portion, you know, we could break that down easily.

05:35 And I think it's important to note that in this like obstacle course, you're dodging people on street level stages and there's you got to collect these alarm clocks that give Marty time. And the reason why he needs to collect those clocks is because he has his picture of him and his family is slowly fading away and those clocks give him more time. But if you ran out of time, the photo on the UI screen would completely fade out into nothing and result in a game over.

06:00 So in this game, it's always a it's always a race. It's constantly a race against time in these obstacle course stages, which make up the bulk of the game. So I feel like we should just get that out of the way right now. The idea of buying time wasn't a theme in the movie as far as I'm concerned. So like if anything, it was about, you know, manipulating time and trying to change your future and then accepting it. And in some ways, like, I don't know where this whole conceit of collecting clocks to gain more time to spend in the past came from. I mean, I get the the barest bones of it.

06:31 They're like, oh, how do we how do we make this time based movie into a game is like, oh, make a collectible a clock. And but like, yeah, I don't quite remember. I remember the plot point of the fading picture, but I don't really know how much that played into like it was just to raise stakes. Like, was there actually any?

06:52 Uh, Joe, you remember the movie. Tell me about that. Yeah. So what it is in in the movie is that the more that his the more that his mother like strays from falling in love with his father, the more that the picture fades out. And which is not like a direct like race against time. It's like a race against the it's like a consequence of the events in the movie. Also saying stop attracting your mom. Yes. It really makes you realize how weird the plot of this movie is.

07:23 I mean, you know, same as you. I get that. Like, it seems like they were like, OK, yeah, we will have them have to get to the get to the different areas of the town. And maybe we're like, well, there's not enough to do here. Let's add these little clocks that that interact with time because it's about time, you know, but it doesn't really doesn't. I mean, not that it necessarily a game like this has to translate one to one to the movie, but it doesn't.

07:49 And Joe, you just mentioned, you know, that like maybe they thought the stages were kind of bare without the clocks, but I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of obstacles going on in this stage. Which everybody is out to get you, even though they you know, they don't know that you're like interfering with time or whatever. They're just it's a very busy town and they're all dealing with these events in their own lives. You just happen to be in their way. But I feel like even without the clock, like you still have enough in this level in terms of hazards and the auto scrolling and pitfalls like the sewer gaps and stuff like that.

08:17 Like there's more than enough going on. Right. Yeah, that's true. Let me let me rephrase that or present it in a different way. I think that maybe it's more that they were that they realized there's not enough that feels related to back to the future going on. So they tried to put something time related and it still didn't end up that related to back to the future. I think it's odd, though, too, because it almost seems like they're so common, like there's so many of them that it doesn't even matter.

08:45 Like you're as long as you try and grab the ones that are like in your direct path, you don't even have to go out of your way. You're going to be fine. The biggest obstacles are the actual obstacles in the game, like the dude that chases you and the birds. So many birds.

09:05 And like that, it's almost like the clocks are they don't even need to be there. Yeah, it's also window installation day for everybody in town. Yeah, but they're really damn clean windows because you actually just can't see them until you smash through them. I know exactly what you're talking about. But I feel like one time I was able to see the window and I was like, oh, is this the rest of the game glitching or was that?

09:30 Oh, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I maybe my game was just constantly glitching. No, no, I'm saying like like I had the same issue where it was like, for the most part, it looks invisible. And you just kind of make the assumption that like, well, there's two guys looking like they're holding something. There's probably something in the middle of them. But then one time I did see maybe with my own illusion, you know, a window. And I was like, oh, maybe this is just what wasn't properly coded into the game or something. Had you just walked into it? Because I know that it becomes visible when you break it and die. Maybe that's what it was. I only remember this after the fact. So, yeah, maybe that was what it was anyway.

10:05 The idea of the clock ticking. Right. Did that add anything to the game for you guys in terms of like excitement or, you know, we were we were talking about the air fortress episode, you know, and in that, yeah, there's a race against time and you got to try to find the escape pod and then get to the next air fortress. Obviously, that's not happening here because it's just a side scrolling level and you have to just get to the end of the level of the, you know, the end of the street. But does the time actually add anything other than just, well, now you have to collect clocks?

10:32 I mean, I agree with Sean that I think that it could have added something, but it's too the clocks are too easy to get into like right in your path most of the time for it to even be like a noticeable thing. Like you don't have to really do anything. The only thing that I kind of noticed about it is that like sometimes they would put them in places that are going to kind of lead you into a trap. Like, I don't know how how hand placed all the obstacles slash enemies are, but I did notice that like if I tried to go for, you know, the one that was the closest, sometimes I would end up like just stuck and I'd have to I'd have to take the hit.

11:11 But I don't know how intentional that was or even even if it was intentional, if it happens enough that it really matters. So I guess that's all I could see it adding. Yeah, that happened to me once or twice, too. But then once I realized how how like ubiquitous the clocks are, I just never let it trap me again. I was like, well, that looks kind of dangerous. I'll just get this other clock that's not in a dangerous spot. Yeah. And there are two power ups that can help Marty control in the level, however much help you can get in this. And that is the the bowling balls that you can pick up and you use those to attack enemies.

11:49 And then you have the skateboard, which can like speed up the scrolling. So, you know, that, you know, you have to, you know, that helps you get to the end of the level with more time to spare, which will give you more points. But the skateboarding comes with a trade off of now things are going faster than ever. They're not like rapidly going faster. But, you know, the screen is growing faster. So you have to be more reactive to what's going on. But it also acts as, you know, I think another form of taking damage without getting interrupted.

12:16 Like you just no longer have the skateboard. But now you back to the same place where you were. But with your feet. The one thing that I did appreciate about the skateboard, even though I doubt this is why they did it, is just like it made these little levels go faster and I can get it out of the way. So in terms of my own personal enjoyment, it just to get to at least something a bit more unique in these mini games, these bridge levels, which form like 80% of the game, just go by that much faster. And I don't know why they like break it up into like four identical levels for the most part broken up by these more set piece levels.

13:00 I don't know why the baseline is skateboarding through a hostile environment. Yeah. And to like, I think this is what you're talking about, too, is that like there's there's this path from, you know, from the beginning of.

13:15 From the beginning of the game to the bar or the whatever, the cafe, which is the first place you go to. And like that path is like kind of a straight line. But on that path, there are like six levels that are like invisible. Like you're like, oh, I got to the end. And it's like it shows the map again. You're like, oh, you're one sixth of the way there. And it puts you right back in it. And it's like the same thing again.

13:35 It's like, why not just make this one level instead of taking me out like I beat something and then putting me right back in and making me continue on the same path. Yeah. It's not like in Crash Bandicoot where you're like now saving progress and you can just, you know, hang it up for the day. Like, cool, I got past that level. You're just going to do the same level four times.

13:51 Essentially, you know, I'm sure that's not the exact same layout, but you get the idea, right? Yeah. I think the Crash Bandicoot thing probably rings true for you, Joe, because that's something where like, you know, you're someone who plays a lot of Crash Bandicoot. But even you could see that, like, even though the idea of doing the same kinds of levels changes enough, you might just want to put it down for the day. But with Back to the Future, you don't get that decision. You don't get to be like, oh, cool. I made it to this end of this part of the street. Let me just go do something else now.

14:18 Right. It's like, yeah. Like, to your point, Crash Bandicoot, it's like, yeah, I beat this jungle level. And now I see on the map where I am now. I see I've progressed. What's this level going to be like? And it's a new level. This is like, you could just take away all the little markers like, oh, you beat this level. What's the next level? Hey, it's the rest of the level you were already doing. Like, it's just like the next thing that comes.

14:41 And it's like it's broken up into these weird, arbitrary little points of like, I can't even explain it. It just looks like it should be one level. It's broken up into more levels. And it just takes you out of it for a second to show you you're on the next level and puts you back into it. If anything, it would have been that the levels are too long. Right. Like they thought, oh, if if we need to build more gameplay into this, we should just, you know, have these things added. You know, these street play straight, you know, sky scrolling levels.

15:06 You know, they've like, oh, they remember that these feel too long. So we should remind them that they're making progress. So let's show them the map to let them know that they're doing a great job. We don't have anything else to give them. So after they're done with this segment of the street, let's just, you know, show them the map again. That might be that might be a thing. Yeah. I think by the end of this episode, we'll have re like deconstructed and reconstructed exactly like every step of the development of this game.

15:32 But then this is the bowling balls. Oh, yeah. The bowling balls. What's up? What's up with that? Why do they add bowling balls? I don't remember Marty bowling in this game. And maybe bowling is big in the 50s because Fred Flintstone was always a big bowler, too. And that's like a parody of the, you know, I don't know where I'm going with this. No, that takes place in the 50s. Yeah. You know, it's like a parody of the honeymooners, which took place in the 50s and, you know, did the same thing. So why not write the 50s? They must have loved bowling back then.

15:59 I still love bowling now. I just went bowling yesterday, actually. But I don't think Marty needs a bowling ball as a weapon, let alone actually probably doesn't need a weapon at all. Right. Like the bowling ball is only cool for the moment where you see those pins randomly assembled on the street and you're like, cool. Let me throw the bowling ball at these instead and get more points. But otherwise, it just feels a little hostile for Marty to be throwing bowling balls at people in the past. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that there is not a single reference to bowling in any of the back to the future movies. I could be wrong there, but I don't remember anything. I also don't. I'm trying to think of another projectile that would like make some sense.

16:37 But but like you said, I don't think the projectile really adds that much to the game anyways. I would say it should just be another clock. Like everything should just be clocks. Just lean into the time thing. That's the only way to make it work. Yeah. He throws calendars and he collects. Yeah, that's a good one.

16:56 Or if we want to go crazy out on a limb here, I was thinking, even though this is more back to the future part two thing, I was thinking his weapon could be the NES zapper because in back to the future part two, he plays wild gunman. Oh, man, that's right. But he plays the versus wild gunman, which is even stranger. Like not many people can report seeing that in in an arcade, let alone in the future.

17:20 Anyway, let's move on. We've got the bonus games to talk about. And I don't know if there were, you know, I just don't know where they I came up with the term bonus games. I don't know if that's in the manual. I think it's mini game. Is it bonus? Well, it says like after you beat one of these bonus, I guess it just says bonus. That's crazy, though. That's crazy because like this, these these levels are the only things that contextually make it back to the future. Right. These are the plot moments.

17:47 Yeah. And so, you know, rather than try to like sum them all up or anything, let's just work through them. So the very first time you're introduced to the idea of anything other than just crossing the street in this game is when you're at the diner and you have to fend off Biff and his gang of bullies.

18:01 And, you know, they're kind of polite at first. They come to the door one at a time and you launch milkshakes at them at rapid speed to the point where it knocks them unconscious and no one's going to stop you from doing that. So the idea is you're going on the side of the stage and you have, you know, you have your milkshake in hand that you have to line up with the bully that is walking in a straight line right towards you. And then you sling the milkshake at them. And, you know, it's fine.

18:22 Actually, like I'm making a big deal of it, like making it sound stupid. But, you know, for all points and purposes, as in like an NES cartoon visual, it works. I knew exactly what they were trying to do. Yeah. But what happens here is it turns like you in any other context. Like if I didn't know that Marty was Marty, like you're the villain here. You have you have commandeered the bar at this diner and like you're just belligerent and will not leave. And they're just trying to remove you from the bar because you keep throwing food.

18:54 And and they're somehow the bad guys here. I don't I don't understand. Well, they're the bad guys because they're wearing white shirts and black pants. And that's just like, you know, it's a greaser look. Yeah, it's too greaser right away. Yeah. You know, to go off the rails a second here when you while you're talking about their clothes, Marty in this part is wearing like his what what they call in the movie. They call the life vest, you know, like that 80s vest that they call it like that orange life. And he looks like he's wearing Marty McFly clothes.

19:26 But in the rest of the game, he's just wearing a black T-shirt. Why wouldn't they just have this sprite that looks like Marty McFly be the sprite for the for the main part of the game? Does anyone know the exact threshold of bullies you have to take out to progress to the next level? No, it doesn't have a meter. It just like it just keeps going up. And then I remembered. Yeah, like I think again, because they kind of they call it a bonus stage. I thought I was like, oh, I guess I just have to do this until I get caught. And I was to my surprise, like I failed.

19:59 And and it said, like, oh, you suck. You got to do it again. And then another I don't even know how many I did the next time. But there's like, oh, you did a great job. So, yeah, I don't know. Even in the middle of the game, they start adding like rules to it where I'm like, I don't know what's what's happening. There's at one point. Yeah. Why do I get this cocktail served? Yeah. That woman comes down to the like waitress comes up and gives you a drink and like you can't hit her like you're like I'm assuming you don't want to hit her like she's like that's like the distraction.

20:33 Like thinking of like wild gunman or whatever was like the innocent person you don't want to hit. But then she just shows up one time after like after like two and a half hours of playing this mini game. One girl walks up like, oh, don't hit the girl. Oh, you did it. Keep playing the game for another six hours or whatever. Nothing's going to change again.

20:52 And like a couple of little things. They start throwing things at you. That's a little more consistent, I guess. But I think it's just that it's confusing because for the same reasons you were getting at Sean that you do it the first time and you're told you failed. Right. But if it's the kind of thing that just like not really like failure game over, it's just like, oh, tough luck.

21:09 Like the bullies really got you. And then you do the street level again before you go back to the diner. You get sent back. But then, you know, it's not like it should have been because it's actually a bonus game as well. Yeah. So you progress. But, you know, they decide once you get past their threshold, you can continue to just play this mini game forever. Well, but you cross the threshold, but there's no threshold communicated.

21:32 If they would have said, like, take down 30 of Biff's bullies. Right. Like that would have been, you know, more beneficial for everybody involved because then you would still get the idea after you got to the 30th one that you can continue going for more points.

21:44 Yeah. But then you also know that you completed the stage rather than, you know, imagine if you just thought this has to end for me to progress. You might be getting all the way to like the 99th or so on bully and you're still going. The manual doesn't even tell you. I looked it up in the manual for like an exact number. It doesn't tell you how many. I know it has to be more than 30 because it didn't let me progress until I got like 37 or something like that. Yeah. I think that was around my time as well.

22:09 Actually, one more thing I want to talk about with the diner. It's funny because, you know, you're throwing these like food or milkshakes at the guys and you know that they, you know, knocks them out and they're kind of, you know, that's kind of violent on its own. But if one of them gets to you, which, you know, eventually you have to do to progress on, then there's like a violent stare down at first where nothing happens on the screen. It's just the, you know, the stage is made so you can no longer move. You're you're paralyzed with fear.

22:37 And then he the bully just like grabs you and slides you across the cafe bar and then you hit the door and it just looks so painful. And I don't think of a worse punishment for any video game character in any NES game than Marty getting thrown at like warp speed through the glass door. And it really has that. Yeah, it really has that good feel if it weren't happening to me. Right. It's smooth. The animation is very smooth. And they really thought about what his punishment should be.

23:06 Yeah, it's funny because when you, you know, you mentioned that part when everything he kind of stops and there's like a there's like a stare down moment. And just I mean, I think it's just my interpretation of it because of how violent it is, my imagination. It's like he's got him around the throat at that point. Like, and he's like, you bastard, I'm going to fucking kill you. Sorry about the curse. And just like throws him across the room. That is the funniest. That's got to be on trivia thing somewhere. I'm sorry about the curse.

23:32 Sorry about the curse. Well, I don't know who's listening to this one. Children. We usually don't drop the F-bomb. I mean, I do a lot. So that's okay. Yeah. But honestly, Joe, I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm surprised it didn't cut to someone like, you know, a CG animated Marty getting a swirly in the bathroom, you know? Yeah. These developers just really hate him. So all of the, for some reason, all the most detailed scenes are when like Marty's getting beat up.

24:00 I like the idea that they put like all of their resources into like making the beat up scene as violent as possible. Well, when Marty is not getting beat up and he's not crossing the streets, he's trying to basically be seduced by his mother at. No, no, no. Avoid being seduced. Oh, yeah. He's avoiding being seduced by his mother who's trying her best to kiss him.

24:20 Um, presumably on the lips, but from very far away in this video game. Thankfully, they would never show you, you know, a mother son kiss, you know, that close. So they keep it at a distance, but you're in a classroom now and you know, it's, it's different because in the first level with the diner, you know, it's like one bully at a time entering through.

24:38 And then, you know, eventually they make it like a couple of bullies calling, but it's, it's always like surely this woman, her love is like unrelentless. Like she just continues to shoot hearts, which I presume are the kisses at you in like a zigzagging fashion. Like she's just unpredictable, but you really can't afford to slip up here at all because you have to follow this like constant stream of kisses she's throwing at you.

25:01 That's a, that's a great, that's a great phrase. You have to avoid this constant stream of kisses that she's constantly throwing at you. Guys, remember this episode for the next time we do, who said it trivia? There's a lot of content. Well, think about it, yeah. And it's weird though, too. Like the, the fact that you have to, you have to get in the way of the kisses. Like, I know that he's like holding up a book or something to block them, but like, if it, if you really wanted to avoid them, just like get, get, get away from them. I have at first, I thought I was trying to avoid the heart and not like, not like absorb them.

25:40 Cause like right now it contextually, again, it seems like the opposite is happening. Like it's like almost like, oh, uh, my lady doth protest too much. Like, let me get in the way so that I can turn you down. Um, it's just odd. It's a really weird way to frame all of this. Well, the, the, the goal of that level pops up beforehand, like your objective and it's break your mother's heart. Yeah. Or is it break Lorraine's heart? I can't remember, but either way it's. Yeah. I think it's Lorraine, but it, it still doesn't, it's not clear as to what you're exactly doing there. I don't know. It just feels like something that like the Simpsons would parody.

26:20 And like when Bart goes to the arcade, there's like that Larry, the looter thing where he's just smashing buildings and stealing stuff. And like, that's just commentary on video games at the time, but it feels, you know, it feels the same, right? It would be like, oh no, no. Can't get kissed by my mother. Like, oh, I gotta let you know. Like it's like, like an actual kid would like watch out for those kisses.

26:39 Watch it. They're coming. They're coming at you right now. Like your mom's going to get you. Those are like the kinds of things you're saying instead of like, you know, watch out for that ship. It's like, you know, they're coming down at you. Like the space invaders are getting closer. Instead you're saying, no, no, no, no. Your mom is going to kiss you.

26:55 Yeah. It does. Now that you mentioned it, this does feel like a parody of like a video game that would be in like a Simpsons or Futurama type thing. And the last of the like mini games before the end game sequence, you know, I think that's a different kind of bonus game. So I'm not including that.

27:10 But they have an official term for the name of the dance, but it's just the dance sequence at the end where it's like, you know, it's like their version of prom or what have you. Like under the sea. Enchantment under the sea. And this, you know, Marty playing the guitar as he does when he does like his whole Johnny B. Good thing and all that. And instead, now the music notes, instead of coming out of the guitar, now they come towards the guitar. And you have to like suck up the music. You know, the guitar is like a net and you have to catch the notes that come at you. So the music notes fly in from the bottom left, bottom right, top left, top right.

27:41 And you can kind of tell based on like which way they're curving. And middle. Oh, yeah. And the middle. That's fair. Just which way they curve. You can kind of you can tell in advance where you have to be, but no more notes will appear on screen after a while. It's not so easy as it sounds, but that is that's the game. I'm going to I'm going to blow your mind right now, because it seems like you're playing this game kind of hard. Like it was like you're making it harder on yourself.

28:05 I thought at first, too, that you kind of had to track them and their little sine waves and just and then extrapolate where they were going to end up. It's really just like the sharp, the sharp symbol is high. The base symbol is low and the note symbol is middle. And it's just that's as easy as it is. You're right. Yeah. Oh, I didn't notice that either. It was. And as soon as that clicked, I'm like, oh, this is the easiest one so far.

28:34 But I think that the whole like the notes coming to the guitar is a commentary on how wrong it is that Marty stole the song. And that's my opinion. I like that better than what I was thinking, which was just everything's going in reverse because that's time travel. That's time. But I like yours better.

28:56 And then there's really like no, I don't know. There's there's no difficulty to the guitar thing in the sense of like, I don't know. I feel like, you know, constantly catching the zigzag kisses and dealing with the bullies. Like, I don't know. I just thought like that that was a harder thing. And now, you know, we don't really have as much of a presentational aspect going on here. I mean, yes, Marty is strumming away like crazy, but you're just collecting notes. And that just makes the love meter go up until the thermostat burst just because I guess like their love is unbearable now. And, you know, that's all there is to this.

29:27 It just felt like almost a cut scene in a way that you just interact with. You were. So you found it easy when you were like just tracing where they went? No, not at all. But I think once I like, you know, yeah, once I did figure that out, it was like, I don't know. It wasn't as hard for me. The hardest thing was actually getting past the diner, if I'm being honest, like just matching up, just matching. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The bullies actually are on the screen. But I guess, you know, on the theoretical Z axis, that wasn't just obvious for me. Yeah. Because you have to be like a little off for where you are throwing the thing.

30:02 So this was just at least, you know, as long as I have the guitar pointed in the direction, then I just have to adjust where it's going to. Yeah. You know, whether it's going to be high or low or what have you, you know. So I just I don't know. I didn't feel like it felt like they were going in reverse challenging order, I suppose.

30:18 Yeah. Although I'll say that I actually thought that I agree that I could not. The depth perception of those levels were very difficult. But I think I had the hardest time with catching the hearts for similar reasons. But. Oh, wow. That was you guys. I get that. I thought it was I thought it was easier than the diner. And so, you know, since we're talking about difficulties and how things compare, how do these bonus games compare in difficulty to the actual street levels?

30:44 We've mentioned that there's like a lot of, you know, enemies and obstacles and you're dealing with the things that are coming in your way. But to keep dealing with these street levels again and again, do you feel like you're getting better at it and deal with it? And that's not necessarily like, you know, like a huge difficulty spike. Like, how hard can the street levels get?

31:04 I think that it's not like, yeah, the street levels, I think, are the easiest part. Right. Well, other than the catching the notes. But like. It's there also it's not like the bonus levels are really interesting and fun. And I mean, far from it, but the street levels are just really boring to me like it's basically just a shmup with sometimes you don't even have projectiles, but it's just like a not good shmup.

31:29 Yeah, I think it gets you're right that from earlier in the episode that it does get harder when you're on the skateboard and it's kind of hard not to try and get that. But especially when you're on foot and you just sort of have a bit more freedom of movement is just like a boring thing. So I don't think there's really anything in this game that's all that difficult. It's just like they're frustrating, which is the thing that we say about a lot of games. There's not it's not really as difficult as it is frustrating in the bonus stages. And it gets a little difficult when you're moving fast in the skateboarding sections.

32:11 Yeah, if anything, I'm just kind of surprised they played their hand with showing you everything that those levels will be in the very first level. There's no new enemies, no new anything, you know, just more, just more of it. But it's like, I don't know, I guess I just expected like at least in between the rounds, right? Like after you go to the diner right now, it's like, oh, those bullies might be on the street, too, or something. Oh, now they're, you know, like more time fucking things. Watch the curse, you know, like it's just nothing ever changed about those levels except for. Oh, yeah, that's true. Watch that.

32:42 But also, like, you know, the season looked like it was changing, right? Like the color of the they're just getting darker. Yeah, OK, getting darker. I get that. I feel like that's a better explanation than what I had. He was staying for the year. He was there from winter to fall.

32:57 In the final stage, Marty gets to control the DeLorean and you basically are the DeLorean. You don't you know, you're not Marty driving. I don't know. I guess you technically are Marty driving the DeLorean. But, you know, for all intents and purposes, you're controlling the car and I'm already driving the car. OK, OK. You're controlling Marty's brain firing the neurons that make him drive the car. I feel like you just blue screened for a second.

33:19 I just thought that was really funny. Just observe upon. Right. It's like at what point then is when you get the skateboard, are you Marty or are you the skateboard? I have a brain telling my hands to manipulate a controller, telling the computer to show lights on a screen that look like a DeLorean driving down a street. I want that on a T-shirt.

33:44 All right. Now, for real, though, you're you're in the DeLorean and you have to dodge the lightning bolts because obviously it's that, you know, crazy thunderstorm that caused this whole thing that he has to you have to like cross the 88 mile per hour threshold at exactly the right moment. And then you'll make him transport back to his home in 1985.

34:02 Thankfully, you can't exceed 88 miles per hour in this level. It's just the fastest you can go. So when I read about this stage in the manual, I was concerned that you were going to have to hit like precisely hit 88 miles per hour at the moment that they wanted me to. And everything else is going to be deemed like failure.

34:17 Kind of reminds me of trying to land in Top Gun. And before we learned in the episode how to actually do it correctly, they were just like, what am I doing wrong? I feel like I have to be perfect. But here you don't have to be perfect. You just have to make sure you're going at the car's max speed. But I don't really have much to say about this, though, because it is it's rather short. And like, yeah, the lightning bolts are all over, you know, in your way. And it's easy to see how like it's not, you know, it's not really possible to always be 88 miles per hour.

34:44 I feel like for the most part, though, it's just this is like a cool final ending sequence that thankfully they brought out, you know, the DeLorean and, you know, for some extra flair rather than just saying like, oh, Marty has got to try to get to the DeLorean. And I I actually had a little bit of trouble with this one because I just couldn't seem to realize I like I thought I was dodging these lightning strikes for the most part. But I just kept slowing down, which I imagine is what happens when you get hit by one of them.

35:15 And so, yeah, it was like I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. And eventually, I guess just through sheer luck, I was finally able to get through it. So, yeah, I don't think it was it was all that hard, but it definitely was something I couldn't wrap my head around for a while. Yeah, I like the idea of it where it's like making getting to 88 miles per hour part of the challenge. It feels it feels just like in the movie characteristically tied to the movie back to the future.

35:44 But yeah, I don't know if it was pulled off perfectly. I think that those lightning bolts have like an unusually large hitbox. I think that's what was tripping you up, right, Sean?

35:54 I think that's what it was. Yeah, I'll be honest and say that I didn't get this down until I wound up putting it up on YouTube and just like kind of mapping out where the lightning bolts go. If that makes sense, like, oh, you know, so like they're mostly on the right here and then they're mostly on the left. Like it was just, you know, it's a pretty short stage. So once you know like where you're going to be, it's easier to fly through it. You memorized where they went? No, no, no. You don't memorize every bolt, but you memorize like, you know, OK, I got to be I got to start on the left. Your path. Yeah, shift over to the right.

36:25 It's like something speed runners do all the time. So I'm not saying it's, you know, it's not impossible. Anybody who wants to beat this can do it. It's just that I, you know, I don't know if you consider that cheating or not. Oh, no. I was going to say that. I think that like maybe in other circumstances I'd consider that cheating. But if you think about this movie, you're in the past. And the major plot point of the movie is, you know, where the lightning bolt and when the lightning bolt is going to strike. It's true. And that's how you get back to the future. So the game probably wants you to look it up. And it knows that you're in the age of the Internet because it knows that you're in the future.

37:00 I'm actually surprised. Yeah. Having said that, I would have assumed that as soon as I get the game over screen or sorry, the game, the end game screen that I would have been transported to the future.

37:11 You're in the future. Right. Well, it's 2022. 2022. And now I think for all the people who don't like this game now in 2022, suddenly it makes sense. They had the foresight to know that it was going to be a game that works only in the future. It's kind of funny that I played this game a few days ago and now I'm recording an episode about it in the future.

37:31 Right. It's crazy. You can't do it the other way around. You can't record the episode and then play the game. And now we're listening to this in the future from when we recorded it. Oh, my God. It's crazy. And then for anything that the final stage had going for it, it immediately just goes to a text box saying, congratulations, Marty. You know, like, I don't know. I don't know what I really expected, but something more than a text box.

37:55 Like, you know, they could have shown the DeLorean like doing something kind of cool, like take off back into the future thing, like where it shows that they're back at the mall. And, you know, whatever. You watch Marty watch Doc get killed by the terrorist until he reveals that he's got the bulletproof vest. Like he could watch the movie in 8-bit or something, you know, I don't know. That would have been a novel idea.

38:15 Or just some little cut scene. And, you know, something you mentioned right there. Yeah. Isn't there another main character in Back to the Future? Isn't there one other character that should be in this game? Oh, yeah. Doc Brown. Isn't there a sister? Yeah, that's who I'm talking about. Yeah, like she should at least be in the picture. Yeah, Marty and his sister Doc.

38:38 Does he not have a sister? He does have a sister. He does, he does. But I'm talking about Doc. Where's Doc? Yeah, Doc needed to be in the game. It looks like Doc's in the picture, but I think that's his sister. No, no, no. I think that is his sister. No, that's the mom and dad. And him. And the picture at the bottom? It has to be the sister and brother, because that's what the picture is. The picture in the movie. You know, it's the three of them in the movie. Yeah, but it does look like Doc if you want.

39:05 Yeah. The sister does look like Doc. But if it is the sister, that means Doc is not in this entire game about Back to the Future. He could have been in. This could have been an easy thing for him to, like, give tips between levels, you know, even on the pause screen and just, like, doing something in a lab. Like, I don't know. He could have easily upgraded Marty's equipment or something, but instead.

39:27 All right, this is really just a very focused conversation on a very, like, wide, like, problem of this game. And it's that there's barely anything to do in this game. There's, like, there's five levels. One is repeated 20 times. And, yeah, you could have done a lot. I mean, I don't know how much of it is, like, game worthy, but there's a lot that they could have done just to make this more of a video game and less of, like, yeah, just a string of very repetitive levels.

39:59 And a lot of those include Doc. You're right. Also, speaking of a lack of content, the game only contains two songs from the film. One is a sped up version of The Power of Love, which I don't know, I've never associated with Back to the Future, like, on the same way as that Huey Lewis and the News song, Back in Time, which I definitely associate with Back to the Future. But here you get The Power of Love and then Johnny Be Good. But I didn't really, I don't know, it didn't sound like, I don't know, you know, maybe I don't remember that song that well, but it didn't sound like that to me in the guitar level. These are the ones that they could license.

40:50 Yeah, but, like, I was wondering, did they license The Power of Love? Because they just took that one riff and played it over and over again, sped up way faster than the actual song. If you speed it up, it doesn't count. It almost felt like they were trying to hide it. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't count as a licensed song if you speed it up. Yeah, it's like they were trying to, like, beat the YouTube algorithm by, like, doing a pitch shift. That's another thing that they knew about the future. That's true. And the game over screen. Tough luck, Marty. It looks like you're stuck here. Is that how it works? No, I think it was just going to fade away. Right. Yeah, it's not.

41:23 You're not stuck here. I mean, that's not even like, I could think of a worse punishment, right? Because if you're stuck here, then it's just like, well, eventually you'll get to 1985 just in 30 years. You know, like, that's not that bad. Just wait it out in here. But you know what? I won't go into this now, maybe in the post-show, but I'll say that the getting stuck there part makes more sense to me than what actually happens in the movie. A little teaser for what I can talk about once we're done with all the stuff we need to talk about. Oh, I can't wait. Okay. So who got it worse? Back to the Future or Ghostbusters fans?

41:55 Okay. Um, okay. No, no, no. It's definitely Back to the Future. Because at least, like, Ghostbusters can be viewed as, like, an anti-corporatism simulator where, like, all of your hard work is always just for naught. And, like, the price of gas is too high. And, like, there's, like, stuff going on there where this is. And, like, even, like, Jaws. That was an LJN game, too, right? I don't remember. But, yeah, I think you might be right about that. But Jaws, you know, Jaws is a good one. That's, yeah, that's, like, they simulate, there's, like, a system. There's systems that they're simulating there kind of almost. Whereas this is just a sequence of events.

42:38 Most of them are the same. And so I think this is, of LJN's very weird record, this is still, like, I'm giving away my thing right now. But this is still, like, lesser than what I would have expected.

42:53 Yeah, I'll say that I think that Ghostbusters, while I don't think, like, anyone who was really excited to play a game that felt like the movie Ghostbusters got what they wanted, at least some Ghostbusters fans might have been like, hey, this is still an interesting game. Whereas Back to the Future seemed to really try to be like, yeah, let's do all the beats of Back to the Future plus a bunch of other stuff. But, like, didn't really hit any of them properly. And none of them were very fun. So I think that, oddly enough, the Ghostbusters game did a better job than Back to the Future.

43:29 Sean, you're completely vindicated. LJN did make Jaws. So great. You're goddamn right. You really know your LJN games. You're goddamn right. On the sequels and spinoff side, we have, you know, a lot of people might think that this is the first time that they tried to make a Back to the Future into, like, a video game. But there are actually three Back to the Future games before this. And I can tell you, you know, I didn't play them. But just looking at them on YouTube or through screenshots, like, man, these games were even worse. You think Marty looks bad in this version? Check him out in the version, you know, for the MSX. He's, like, literally a Goomba. That's how big he is. Like, it doesn't even make any sense.

44:08 It's like, I don't know who thought this was okay. But yeah, those three games, one of them is, like, a Japanese-only text-based game with, like, you know, just pixelated versions of what the scenes were like from the movies. Like, a visual novel kind of thing for Back to the Future. It's a really strange concept for Back to the Future games. It's just odd that no one ever said, like, what if we just, you know, everybody else seems to be fucking it up left and right. What if we watch the language?

44:32 Everybody, you know, gotta, like, cool it down. And what if we just did one where we actually follow the plot of the game and just make it, like, you know, a level-based thing where each level is just a different location that you do something, you know. It's, like, nobody could wrap their head around that idea for the Back to the Future license. But, like, how much can you do? Like, what kind of gamey stuff can you do with the scene where his mom nurses him back to health in his underwear? Like, I don't know.

44:58 Yeah, I kind of see that, too. I think that there are, like, two ways to do a game like this. And one is to just, like, make it something different, like Ghostbusters did. Or even, like, you know, fast-forwarding to, you know, there was a Back to the Future 4 game.

45:16 Like, you could, you know, that's like a new story in the Back to the Future world. Or, I understand that you have to, if you're going to make a game based on this, you have to, like, add some obstacles, add some things. Okay, make a platformer about Home Alone, which doesn't really make sense. But, like, you can make it make sense and ask your audience to, like, play along. But this, like, this and it seems like these other games that you're talking about seem to, like, have the exact wrong balance of those things.

45:47 I think what would have worked is you do the complete opposite. And the only character from the movies that's in it is Doc. And it's a prequel about trying to get the plutonium from, what, like, the Haitians? I don't know. And it's all... I think Syrians. Syrians.

46:06 And it's all just, like, this whole action-based, like, he's basically a spy, or, like, you know, secret agent man getting this stuff. I think that'd be great. I mean, it wouldn't be very Back to the Future, but at least Doc could be in it. Yeah. We will find out what else they can do with Back to the Future as a franchise, because Back to the Future Part 2 and 3, as one game, it's not, you know, two separate releases. That game will come out on the NES, so we will get to play that, and that'll be interesting to see how they tie up two games instead of breaking them up. So we have Back to the Future Part 2 and 3 in the NES, not made by LJN, as far as I know, but maybe that's not true.

47:03 I didn't look into it, but Sean knows LJN better than anybody, so he could tell us. So you're just gonna make that claim and not even, okay. I'm just saying I'm so wrong about LJN in this episode, I feel like why not double down on it? Yeah. I didn't think they made Jaws, now, I don't know, they just made Back to the Future Part 2 and Part 3. I don't think the game was made at all. Yeah, it's actually, we won't be playing it.

47:25 No, we will be playing it, but again, you know, one that we won't be playing, and I feel like I wanted to mention it as a deep cut for the sequels and spencers, spinoffs of Back to the Future, because, you know, there's many Back to the Future games, but this might be one you've never heard of. It's called Universal Studios Theme Park's Adventure on the GameCube. It only came out on the GameCube, in fact, and it was like one of their launch titles.

47:45 But I bought this game, and it is a game where you explore the Universal Studios in Orlando Theme Park, and then go on the rides for the movies that they're based on, and there was a Back to the Future ride that was like a really interesting, fun adaptation, you know, of the arcade. But not the arcade, but like the ride itself, the ride at Universal, now making that into an arcade game where it's like a shmup slash simulation experience,

48:11 where, you know, instead of being in the DeLorean, obviously you're controlling the DeLorean now this time, and you're doing the same things in a race against Biff's DeLorean. So I thought that was like a pretty... It says a DeLorean? Okay. Yeah, what? Yeah, well, I don't know. You know where it like falls in the movie timeline, but that's the ride.

48:30 It sounds like the ride did what we suggested, and it came up with like a new story in the Back to the Future world. Now, the most recent adaptation that I know for the Back to the Future series is the Telltale series Back to the Future, the game, which I never played, but I heard really good things about that, and that was like an early game for Telltale games. Yeah, I do own it. I just never installed it.

48:50 I think the appeal, though, was like, you know, probably what most of the appeal for these Telltale games are is the dialogue and like the writing of the relationship between Marty and Doc, right? I've played a little bit of the... I've played like the first couple of chapters of it. I'm interested in it, but I've actually heard mixed things. I've heard it starts out really good and then fizzles, and that kind of makes me disinterested. Well, the episode is fizzling, and we can't let it... We can't let it end before we do the arguably the most important thing that you have to do on any episode of Nostalgia, and that is the Essential Games list. Sean, what do you got? I mean, I can kind of feel myself fading away.

49:33 Like the picture in the game and movie, because this was not good,

49:42 and it's getting not a vote for essentialness from me. All right, so if we're just going to do like... If we're just going to record things that people are saying this episode, make sure that one is written down as well.

49:57 It's not on the Essential Games list. Thank you. Joe, how about your vote? Yeah, like I said, I really loved these movies as a kid, and if I had played this as a kid, I like to think that I'd be pretty disappointed and pretty let down by this franchise that I loved. Who knows? When I was a kid, maybe I would have been like so defensive of it and been like, oh no, it's so great because it's Back to the Future, but it's not. And I think we've said so much about it in this episode. I don't really have too much more to say,

50:31 but my brain is telling my mouth and my voice box to make the sounds that say it is not on the Essential Games list. There is a page on our website where you can view all the Essential Games, and it may be in another timeline. Back to the Future was on that list, but in our universe, I am slowly watching Back to the Future come off the Essential Games list and fade away like it never happened. I just did that. No, you faded yourself.

50:59 You're gone. You can't even object now. You faded. Yeah, see, you faded yourself. I'm saying that the game, right? Yeah. Who said that? Actually, I don't know that person in this universe. We never met Sean. Anyway, the point being that no one actually came from the future or from the past to make us record this episode and not put it on the Essential Games list, but it's not going to be on there. We've talked enough about why it's not going to be on there, so I feel like the most... We've talked longer than this game is, like, I think a playthrough of this game is, I think. Yeah, exactly. I feel like if anything we've done,

51:32 everybody a service with this episode being better than the game. Yes. Like, next time you want to play Back to the Future on the NES, listen to this episode instead, and I think you'll have a better time. There's a lot more nostalgia content coming your way. We have, you know, speaking of everything that we got going on with the website and stuff like that. That's all funded, too, by our Patreon subscribers, and we have many patrons to thank for that, and they're all thanked on the website.

51:55 You can also be thanked on the website for just $1, and for $5, you can get access to Nostalgia Bites, our next episode, a double feature of Exerion and Formation Z, and I'm sure you're like, what's he talking about? Those are Famicom games. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not doing this again, but if you want to do more regular Nostalgia episodes, next week is Bad Street Brawler, and I don't know anything about that game,

52:21 but we're going to check it out, and we're going to play it, and Sean, you know, you're going to come back into the picture. Yeah, yeah, come back to the future, into the picture. Power of love. Sean, you be good. Everybody fill in your Back to the Future references here. We're going to continue the future of this podcast with our next episode, Bad Street Brawler.

53:04 Well, Joe, do you want to elaborate on your time travel stuff? I would love to. This is, you know, I love time travel in movies or media, and I often notice that, you know, it's not like I know how time travel would work in the real world, but I know how the movie tells me it works in their movie, or their book, or their show, or whatever. I feel like too many things break their own rules, and that bothers me so much. Back to the Future, prime example. Someone correct me if there's flaw in my logic here. But, in Back to the Future, part two,

53:44 Marty, because of Marty and Doc's actions, Biff is able to go back in time and make himself rich, right? By giving himself that sports almanac. Marty goes back to 1985, and he remembers what 1985 used to be like. He hasn't changed because he was the time traveler, but everything around him has changed to this new future, or this new 1985 where Biff is large and in charge and in control of Hill Valley.

54:14 So, that gives you, you know, that means that, like, the time traveler, Marty and Doc, they're the only ones whose memories didn't change to this new timeline, and they didn't change. And, like, Doc Brown, it said, had been, you know, committed

54:27 in this new future, but Doc was still walking around free because he was the time traveler. He was immune to the changes. That all makes sense so far, right? I agree. So, that's what that tells me, is that, okay, that makes sense. The time traveler is immune, except in the first movie, Marty makes his parents never meet, and he's not immune. He starts vanishing. He starts literally disappearing. The whole plot of the first movie is contradicted by the plot of the second movie. So, there's, like, a couple different styles of time travel that I've seen, and, like, the two most prevalent ones are, like, you know, timelines. Like, you're kind of, like, branching a timeline,

55:08 and the closed loop. And, like, it's using, it's mixing and matching those. They can't exist at the same time. Like, the closed loop one would be your, I don't even know if it, like, I guess it's, like, a probability. That's like Harry Potter 3 one, right? That's, like, where, like, everything you change, if what you're talking about is what I'm thinking, it's, like, everything you change is something that already happened. Yeah. You can't actually change anything. Or even then, like, if you are changing, it's affecting you because there's only one timeline, and thus you're fading. But then, like, all the stuff about,

55:46 like, I don't, oh, this isn't my future. Like, this has to be a different future. That would be more of, like, a hopping between timelines thing. But you can't mix and match that stuff because none of it makes logical sense. So, I get you there. Always bothered me. But watch Dark on Netflix. That does good stuff. And watch Primer. With time travel. But Joe, question for you, now that you're, you know, mentioning the plot of Back to the Future 2. Biff with the sports almanac, right? How does he get the sports almanac? From the future. Yeah, he just gets it from where he's living. Old Biff gets it from 2015, which is funny to say,

56:25 and brings it back to 1955 young Biff. But does he do that with, like, a different time travel device? No, so he runs, so Marty and Doc run into old Biff, and by running into him, they lead him to figuring out that they have a time machine. And then he steals the DeLorean for, like, 20 minutes and... So that's, so there we go. Takes it back. That's my point, Joe. I'm wrapping up on another thing that we discussed on the show, which is that the Back to the Future Universal theme park ride is canon because that's just Biff with the other DeLorean. Oh, you're right, you're right. Yeah, that's just... But is he an old man? That I can't confirm or deny.

57:02 Do not remember what the voice actor sounded like. They never show Biff on screen. Oh, okay. They're just like, you know, you hear his voice, so I can't remember if it's old Biff or not, but why not? Why wouldn't it just be old grumpy Biff?

57:16 It stays canon, you know, because Robert Zemeckis has to approve the ride before it happens. Of course. Great episode. Yes, it is. No, it still is. Yeah, it still is. We're still going. Keep this in. Are we still recording? We're done.