BTTF Headcanons

A list of headcanons I've developed over the years, sprinkled with information from/for my fanfics.

DISCLAIMER: What follows are my personal headcanons for Back to the Future. These are not official canon in any way, and may in fact contradict the official canon. I am completely unaffiliated with Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, or anyone else who has anything to do with Back to the Future or any elements of the franchise. I am just some guy on the internet. Use at your own risk!

Contents

Marty

  • Born on June 12, 1968.
  • Went to Blue Canyon Elementary School (south of Lyon Estates and Lone Pine Mall) and Emigrant Gap Middle School (north of the mall, south of Lyon Estates). (See also the map.)
  • He has intense ADHD. He was not diagnosed until well into the 1990s.
  • Got an AA in Music from Hill Valley College in Fall 1989. Other than his music classes, his favorite class was Hill Valley Community History, during the fall ’86 semester.
  • Did much of the work building the amplifier, and had to rebuild it after he blew it out. On more than one occasion.
  • Met Jennifer in fourth period English on the first day of their junior year, Tuesday, September 4, 1984.

Doc

  • Born on August 8, 1914.
  • Graduated Hill Valley High in the class of 1931 at the age of 16. He graduated exactly one week before the events of The Game.
  • Received his first doctorate (PhD, physics) in 1938 at Princeton. Albert Einstein was his thesis advisor.
  • Received his second doctorate (ScD, nuclear engineering) in 1958 at MIT.
  • Is very much on the autism spectrum, but has never been diagnosed.
  • After the events of The Game, he (retroactively) lost his virginity to Edna Strickland in 1931. In earlier iterations of the timeline, it was to Jill Wooster when he was 38.
  • The reason the rejuvenation clinic removed his spleen and colon is because both had pre-cancerous cells in them. He would have died from colon cancer in 1992 back in the Twin Pines timeline.
  • Doc burned down his mansion for the insurance money. Strictly to fund the time machine, of course.
  • Doc’s father rarely spoke German at home, but Doc still picked up enough to be conversational (at least in the Prussian dialect). He is also fluent in Spanish.
  • He is the fourth cousin of Werner Von Braun.
  • He was about 110 in 2020 due to time travel, rather than 106.

Jennifer

  • Born on October 29, 1967, the only child of Daniel Peter Parker, Jr and Susan (Lewis) Parker.
  • Her parents divorced when she was about five, and had split custody. Her stepfather is named Ray Campbell.
  • Went to Ulysses S. Grant Elementary and Canton Middle School, both on the opposite side of the freeway from Marty’s schools.
  • Went to college with the goal of becoming therapist. However, after playing with Marty and the Pinheads when their bassist came down with mono, she ended up joining the band.
  • Jennifer is bisexual, and first came out to Marty—while they were taking a class on Human Sexuality at Hill Valley College in 1987. Before that class, she assumed it was a "phase" that every girl went through.
  • Jennifer was a cheerleader from her freshman to junior years. She soon hated it, but continued out of a feeling of obligation. She was inspired to quit by Doc’s indifference to what people thought about him.
  • She was a secret nerd in high school—and always loved time travel stories. She can think fourth-dimensionally, thank you.

Clara

  • Born on February 5, 1855 in Union Township (now Lyndhurst), New Jersey, the second of five children of Daniel and Martha (O’Brien) Clayton.
  • Clara discovered a small comet in 2001, Comet P/2001 L3, using the observatory dome she and Doc built on their ranch in the 1990s. She has also discovered several asteroids and trans-Neptunian objects.
  • Assisted Doc with the time train, in both design and mechanical work. She suggested several practical, 19th century solutions to problems regarding storing enough energy to hit 1.21 GW and building a suitable computer system.
  • Occasionally teaches astronomy at Hill Valley College.
  • Was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage in the 1880s, until Doc accidentally let slip that women wouldn’t be able to vote in California until 1911 and the US as a whole in 1920. This rather dampened her enthusiasm, and accelerated her desire to leave the 19th century behind.
  • In the 20th/21st centuries, she wears Hawaiian shirts that match Doc’s.

Junior and Marlene

  • Fraternal twins, born on July 23, 1998.
  • Graduated Hill Valley High in the class of 2016.
  • Marlene sings, while Junior likes film writing and directing. He produced her YouTube music videos, which went viral in 2014. By October 21, 2015, she had a record deal and tour dates.
  • Marlene later forms a band called The Bombshells.
  • Marlene is bisexual. She dated Griff Tannen during her junior year of high school. She later marries someone who died in the past, like Clara.
  • Junior is probably bi. (I’m not entirely sure.) He eventually marries Doc and Clara’s daughter (see families, below).

Jules

  • Born November 11, 1886. When the family relocated to the future, his birth certificate was forged with that same date in 1986.
  • Graduated high school at 17, class of 2004.
  • Was very into Pokémon when it first came to the US in 1998. Thought Missingno was a legit Pokémon, and didn’t get why Verne was so upset when he took advantage of its useful properties.
  • When the family moved to the 1990s, he fell in love with cars and automotive design. He took shop class in high school and does mechanical work as a hobby. His day job, though, is at Doc’s company. (See tech, below.)
  • As a child, Jules had a crush on Minnie Van Dalen (1888–1963), which was rather unfortunate as she was the future wife of William McFly.

Verne

  • Born October 29, 1888.
  • Graduated high school in the class of 2007.
  • When he’s an adult, Verne looks exactly like Doc.
  • Fascinated by computers and computer programming as a child. Knew bits of programming from watching his parents work on the train back in the 1890s.
  • Was also very into Pokémon, and thought Jules was cheating by exploiting a computer glitch when he used Missingno. But unlike Jules, he very much believed that the “PokéGods” lurked in secret parts of the game.
  • He works in video game design as an adult.

Biff

  • Full name Buford Howard Tannen, born on March 25, 1937. His mother’s name was Agnes Noll.
  • He is a high-functioning sociopath, at best.
  • He has two older half brothers, Clifford Eugene and Rutherford James, who he has no contact with. (Except in that one timeline in The Game, that is.)
  • For his daughter Tiffany, see “Families” below.

Griff

  • Full name Griffin Clark Tannen, born May 12, 1996, only child of Tiffany Tannen.
  • Griff was a fairly sweet kid (almost the “white sheep” of the family), who got illegal bionics so he wouldn’t get beaten up anymore. As Doc said, they had a few “short circuits,” and these drove him insane.
  • Griff’s father was an abuser, and his mother fled with Griff when Griff was two.

The Pinheads

  • Bassist Nick West, drummer Stephen Wallace, keyboardist Rory Lundquist.
  • By the time they achieved commercial success, their sound was a mix of hard rock/metal and the alt rock/grunge sound popular at the time, with a bit of rockabilly mixed in.
  • Their first album was Too Darn Loud, released in 1994. Their biggest hits on the album were “Chapel O Love” (which hit #11) and “It’s Like Lightning” (#8).
  • They won the Best New Artist Grammy at the 1995 Grammys.
  • Their first number one was their 1998 song “You’ve Got The Music In You,” from the album That New Sound You’re Looking For.
  • In the early 2000s, they released a concept album called Spaceman From Pluto that was secretly about time travel. (Full disclosure, I’ve stolen this from @jedflah on Tumblr!)
  • In the early 2010s, they released a “retro” album called I Dream In VHS.

Other characters

  • Strickland’s birth name was Gerald Stanford Strickland (born 1925). When he joined the Army to fight in WWII, he was accidentally enrolled as Stanford Gerald Strickland. He changed his name to, in full, Stanford S. Strickland after the war. (The S to honor both Harry S. Truman and Ulysses S. Grant—Grant had the same thing happen to him.)
  • Needles had a punk rock band called French Kiss in 1985. They got the gig to perform at the dance, despite being even louder than the Pinheads.
  • Doc’s father was a fierce opponent of the Ku Klux Klan during its surge in popularity in the 1920s.

Families

  • The Tannens originate in England. There are three main branches: English, American, and Australian, with the American branch split into Californian and Texan sub-branches. The English ones are good, the Texan ones pleasant but sneaky, the Californian ones bastards, and the Australian ones pure evil.
    • The American line to Griff goes Beauregard Benjamin Sr > Buford Wilkes > Howard > Irving Lawrence > Buford Howard “Biff” > Tiffany Suzanne > Griffin Clark.
    • Buford was the seventh of eight children. His father, Beauregard Sr, was the fifth of eleven.
    • Tiffany was born February 23, 1968. She bullied Jennifer rather than any McFly.
  • Doc’s family left from October 1, 1894 and relocated to October 1, 1994. Also, Doc and Clara have a daughter after they return—Pauline Nightingale, AKA Polly, born October 23, 1996.
  • William McFly (1885–1959) served one term as Hill Valley’s mayor in the 1920s.
  • The line to Jennifer goes Wendell & Genevieve (DuBois) Parker > Henry Vernon > Daniel Peter Sr > Daniel Peter Jr > Jennifer Jane.
    • Wendell was on the town council in the 1890s.
    • Daniel Junior was the youngest and only boy of six children.
    • Jennifer’s aunt Marilyn is a lesbian, and was in the closet until 2006, when she turned 70.

Hill Valley

  • Located a bit southwest of the intersection of CA-20 and I-80 in what in our world is Nevada County, California. It is basically on top of the very small community of Emigrant Gap. See also the map.
  • CA-20 is the road behind the Courthouse, i.e. the one the Town Theater is on.
  • I-80 runs northeast-southwest across town, dividing it into northern and southern halves. The Courthouse, Doc’s garage, and basically everything in Hill Valley that was there in 1955 is on the north side. Lyon Estates, the mall, and Hilldale are on the south side.
  • Surrounding towns are East Valley to the, uh, east (it’s across the county line in Placer County), and Haysville to the southwest along CA-147. Hilldale is technically in East Valley.
  • Hill Valley’s population was about 500 in 1885; 7,200 in 1955; 18,000 in 1985; and 34,500 in 2015.
  • Hill Valley gets its TV out of Reno.
  • In the 1990s, Hill Valley got a new high school called Gale High, after early civic leader M. R. Gale (the newspaper editor in 1885). Jules and Verne went to Gale High.

Time travel and time machines

  • The Ripple Effect only works forwards. For example, going by comics canon, Doc never built the time machine in 1985A, so the Marty in 1955 in Part II should not have been there—he no longer had any means of getting there. But because the effect only moves forwards, and because 2015!Biff arrived after 1955!Marty’s arrival, that Marty is still there.
  • Time travelers do get memories of altered timelines, albeit after an adaptation period. Relatedly, there isn’t a separate Twin Pines Marty and a Lone Pine Marty. They merged.
  • Only one timeline exists at a time; there aren’t branching timelines or tracks. (Think of a new timeline as taping over a VHS tape.) That said, if a paradox isn’t prevented, it may create a parallel. Doc isn’t sure, and doesn’t want to find out.
  • There are no predestination paradoxes—though you can fake one. (What TV Tropes calls Tricked Out Time.)
  • In the late 90s, Doc built a spare time machine into a 1997 Ford Contour. It’s less conspicuous than a DeLorean.
  • In the 2010s/2020s, Marty and Jennifer have a time machine built into a Ferrari Modulo, which was put into production in the 2010s in the BTTF universe.

World events, technology, etc.

  • 9/11 didn’t happen in the BTTF universe.
  • The 2008 recession did happen; however it wasn’t as prolonged as ours was.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic also occurred in their universe. As of January 2022, about 60,000 Americans have died from it (as opposed to 1,200,000 in our universe).
  • The BTTF universe has more advanced computers and a more advanced internet than we do. Hence the “smart house” features the McFlys had in the original 2015, even though they weren’t well off.
  • Conversely, they have less advanced cell phones, the tech being delayed by about ten years. So in 2015, it wasn’t unusual for a teen like Marlene to have to use the landline (video) phone to talk to her friends instead of her own phone, a la 2005. Their world’s version of the iPhone was introduced in 2018, by Toshiba.
  • Doc invented antigravity devices (i.e. hover conversions and the like) in the late 90s, first going public with them in 1999. E. Brown Enterprises licenses the technology. Flying cars were still a rarity until 2008 or so, when the government invested in an “aerial interstate highway” system.
  • Additionally, Doc is indirectly responsible for cold fusion: his papers on his portable nuclear reactor inspired the first design, and his paper reproducing the 1989 experiments in Utah showed cold fusion was possible. He was on the ground floor of Fusion Industries as a result, and is now very rich.
  • Mr. Fusion isn’t from 2015, but 2030. In 2015, a truck-sized cold fusion generator was needed to power a building (as seen in the alleyway that year). Doc jumped ahead to get the portable device (using up the DeLorean’s plutonium in the process), and “jailbroke” it to get it to produce 1.21 GW.
  • Al Gore became president in 2000, and was reelected in 2004 (defeating John McCain and Elizabeth Dole).
  • In 2008, Mitt Romney was elected over Joe Lieberman.
  • In 2012, it all went to hell, as Romney was successfully primaried Sarah Palin. Romney ran as an independent against her and Barack Obama. Obama won the popular vote by twelve points, but Palin became president due to the electoral college. Obama beat her in a landslide during their 2016 rematch.
  • Note that it is due to Palin that “they abolished all lawyers.” 1985!Doc didn’t realize this was massively unpopular and led to even more mass incarceration. It was overturned when Obama became president.
  • In general, their politics in 2020 aren’t as divided as ours are, being more akin to the mid-30s to mid-60s “New Deal Consensus.” They were pretty damn divided in the late 2000s/early 2010s, though.
  • The 1994 World Series was won by the Montreal Expos, who swept the New York Yankees.

Congratulations on making it through the list! 88 points to you!

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