If my dog had never been infested with fleas, it's possible that I never would have seen Back To The Future.

You see, back in the summer of 1985, my dog Smokey was doing an awful lot of scratching and chewing on himself, and it had my mother worried sick. It was obvious the dog was covered in fleas, and she was concerned that he would spread the fleas to my cat, the furniture, and probably to me. And she had good cause to be worried--my curly locks would have made for a veritable flea paradise. Besides, nothing freaks a mother out more than the thought of parasites invading her home. That's why she'd never let us have hamsters as pets, because she was convinced they would escape their cages, chew through the dry wall and breed in the walls. So, one sunny Saturday afternoon she decided to take matters into her own hands and declare war on the fleas.

"I'm going to flea bomb the house today," she told us, "So you boys need to stay out of the house for a few hours."

Now, I'm not even sure if they still make flea bombs anymore. But just in case you've never heard of them, allow me to give a brief explanation as to what they are; They look like ordinary cans, but there's a tab or a lever that you pull off the top--and once you do, the can unleashes a noxious, chemical cloud of death which is supposed to kill all living things in your house, especially those with more than four legs. They probably give you cancer, too, now that I think about it. But what can I say? Those were more innocent times, so we didn't worry about things like that.

Anyway, once you set off one of these bombs, you need to flee your home immediately, and stay gone for at least a few hours. Otherwise, you see, the smoke will kill you. So, my mom had a few hours to kill--and rather than drag two young boys around on a bunch or boring, "mom type" errands, she decided to drop us off at the old Quo Vadis movie theatre. The movie we saw that fateful day of the flea bomb was the 80's classic (and one of my all time favorites) Back To The Future.

That was more than 20 years ago, but I'll always remember how big of an impact that movie had on my young, geeky mind. For me, it must have been something like a kid watching The Wizard Of Oz for the first time in 1939. By the time I left the theatre that day, I wanted to play the guitar like Marty McFly, I idolized Doc Brown, I had a big crush on Lea Thompson, and I wondered what my parents were like when they were in high school. I was also convinced that Doc Brown's Delorean was the coolest car EVER.

So yes, I guess you could say that I'm a "fanboy" when it comes to the BTTF trilogy.
I saw the second and third films the night they opened in theatres, and I was probably WAY too happy to be there. I can quote obscene amounts of dialouge from all three movies. I even joined the Back To The Future fan club, if you can believe that. And you know what's even more pathetic? My nickname for the longest time was "Doc," after Christopher Llyod's character in the movies. Some people (like Dann, who writes The Book Of Daniel here on Dean's Planet) still occasionally call me Doc to this very day. Even back in high school, while other kids my age were decorating their lockers with Beverly Hills 90210 and Cindy Crawford pictures, the inside of my locker was covered with pictures of The Beatles--and an 8x10 of Marty McFly and Doc Brown.

Anyway, I think you get the point. And I think it's safe to say that poor Tom Wilson, who played Biff in the films, had no idea what he was in for when he agreed to do an interview with a BTTF geek like myself. Actually, Tom played more than just "Biff." If you want to get technical about it, he played Young Biff, Middle Aged Biff, Old Biff, Griff and Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen--but I'm starting to creep back into "fanboy" mode again, aren't I? Sorry about that. I suck.

Of course, Tom Wilson knows that Biff Tannen will always be the role he's best known for. When you're in a movie that was as huge as Back To The Future was, that's to be expected. He played his myriad roles very, very well, to the point where it took me several viewings of Part III before I realized that Tom was the guy playing Buford Tannen. So either he's a pretty good actor, or I'm just an idiot. Or maybe it's a bit of both.

The ironic part is, Tom Wilson is NOTHING like that character that made him famous. In real life, he was the one getting bullied, not the one doing the bullying. People that have met him describe him as a friendly, funny, rather soft spoken guy who also happens to be a devoted father and husband. And, of course, he's done a lot more in his career other than just playing Biff Tannen. He started off as a comedian, where he cut his teeth at the legendary Comedy Store. His success as a comic led to work in TV commercials and, eventually, roles in films such as April Fool's Day, Action Jackson and Camp Nowhere. Somewhere along the line he got involved with doing voice acting as well, and just like E.G. Daily, you can hear Tom's voice on numerous cartoons and video games, most notably SpongeBob SquarePants. He's also a talented composer, and some of you might have noticed that he wrote the score for the recent SpongeBob movie. Pretty nifty! You may have also seen Tom on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Late Night With David Letterman, the cult classic Freaks And Geeks, and even a televised Prince's Trust benefit, where he got to meet Princess Diana. These days, he still performs on the stage as both an actor and a comedian, and he draws rave reviews wherever he goes. He also made a name for himself as a painter, and you can check out some of his work at BigPopFun.com, his official website. Tom would consider himself a creative artist in every sense of the word, and not simply as "the guy who played Biff."

But therein lies the problem--Tom really doesn't like to talk about Back To The Future anymore, preferring instead to talk about things he's doing now. I can certainly understand why when I look at it from his viewpoint. I mean, people have been asking him about those movies for over 20 years now, so it's bound to get a bit tiresome. But then again, put yourself in my position--I am a child of the 80's, I grew up on the BTTF films, and now I have an opportunity to interview one of the main stars of a trilogy of films I've loved for most of my life. Honestly, how could I not ask him about Back To The Future? Our readers would have been pissed at me if I didn't!

So, Tom and I had a slight conflict of interests during this particular interview. I had a million Back To The Future questions that he really wasn't too keen on answering. There was also a question I asked him about the whole SpongeBob Squarepants "gay" connection that he flat out ignored. I was actually worried that I might have offended him, but as Tom explained to me later, " I just never come up with a funny enough answer that doesn't offend anybody. You'd be amazed at how little that SpongeBob issue affected the people who work on the show. Not much of a blip on the radar screen, you know?"

Anyway, enough of the build-up, here's the interview--and even though Tom wasn't thrilled about all of the BTTF questions, to his credit he still managed to answer most of them (however begrudgingly). Read on:

JTL: From what I hear, Robert Zemeckis' mantra on the set was "Pain is temporary, film is forever." What was the toughest part of making the Back To The Future trilogy?

JTL: Okay, I'm going to blatantly steal a page from the guys at Metal Sludge and throw out a few name. Based on your personal experiences with these people, tell me the first thing that comes to mind, okay?

Crispin Glover...

-JTL

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