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‘Back to the Future’ actor has a hilarious card for fans with questions about the movie

Thomas F. Wilson played one of the most recognizable villains in film history, Biff Tannen, in the “Back to the Future” series. So, understandably, he gets recognized wherever he goes for the iconic role. The attention must be nice, but it has to get exhausting answering the same questions day in and day out about…

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Tod Perry

Array
Photo credit: via KrustyKhajiit / YouTube – Array

Thomas F. Wilson played one of the most recognizable villains in film history, Biff Tannen, in the “Back to the Future” series. So, understandably, he gets recognized wherever he goes for the iconic role.

The attention must be nice, but it has to get exhausting answering the same questions day in and day out about the films. So Wilson created a card that he carries with him to hand out to people that answers all the questions he gets asked on a daily basis.

The FAQ page provides the inside scoop on hoverboards, manure, and even the word “butthead.” It also addresses Wilson’s feelings about his co-stars from the film. Evidently, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are “nice.”

Here’s what the card says.

“I’m Tom Wilson. I was in all three ‘Back To The Future’ movies. Michael J. Fox is nice. I’m not in close contact with him. Christopher Lloyd is nice. He is a very shy man. Crispin Glover is unusual, but not as unusual as he sometimes presents himself. We got along nicely. Lea Thompson is nice. Eric Stoltz originally played Marty, but was fired due to performance issues.

The first movie was shot in 1984 and ’85. The sequels were shot ‘back to back,’ never before attempted by a movie studio. The hoverboards didn’t really fly, we were hanging by wires from a crane. The manure was made of peat moss, cork, dirt, and a food agent that made it sticky. The Delorean was an inferior automobile, and nearly impossible for a person of normal size like myself to enter and exit.

There are many tiny plot points hidden in the movies, but I don’t know what they are. Among many improvisations of the set, I coined the term ‘butthead,’ as well as ‘Make like a tree, and get out of here.’ The third movie was my favorite, since I got to learn western skills like riding, roping, quick draw, and shooting a six-shooter, a great adventure for a guy from Philadelphia.

I hold my co-workers in the best light, but have no idea what any of them are doing right now. Steven Spielberg was the executive producer of the movie, but Robert Zemeckis directed it. Nobody had any idea that the movies would become a cultural touchstone, but the themes of friendship and adventure moved the audience so powerfully that I felt the need to create this postcard as a time-saver. It was the first movie I ever acted in, if you don’t count being killed in the Kung-Fu movie ‘Ninja Turf.’

Love is more important than material possessions. I made less money than you think. I don’t talk about the movies much because I’m busy with standup comedy and music performances. Those performances aren’t near the magnitude of the movies, but I find them enjoyable and satisfying, so that’s the area of my concentration.

I’ve performed on ‘The Tonight Show’ with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, but not at the same time. I’m pleased and proud of my acting credits, listed at imdb.com. I’m a painter as well. You can contact me at www.tomwilsonusa.com. Thank you and God bless you.”

Wilson also wrote a hilarious song that deals with the same questions.

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    Yep, the boomers were definitely right here. The more apps you have on your phone, the more likely some obscure security vulnerability will end up with your data getting leaked.

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    “The world is safer than it’s ever been and people are more scared than ever. I blame true crime and local news.” – Unhappyhippo142

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    “The same could be said about most adults.” – DrunkOctopus

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    Gentle parenting definitely has its merits and benefits, but the boomers were right to be a little bit skeptical: In the wrong hands, it can backfire tremendously.

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    17. Don’t follow leaders

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    This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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    @marcsebastianf

    someone get whoopi on the line girl i have some goss for her #ultimateworldcruise #worldcruise #serenadeoftheseas #cruisetok #cruise #9monthcruise #titanic

    ♬ original sound – Marc Sebastian

    “Who knew that? I didn’t,” Sebastian said. “I brought it up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic – when I tell you that utensils dropped. Waiters gasped. It’s dead silent.”

    The room went completely silent

    Sebastian was flabbergasted. “It wasn’t in the… handbook,” he joked. “Not that I read the handbook, clearly.”

    After the unexpected reaction, his cruise friend told him, “You’re not allowed to talk about the Titanic.” It makes sense.

    Who wants to be reminded of the tragedy that killed around 1,500 people while sinking one of the most impressive engineering feats of the era? More experienced cruisers chimed in that they were familiar with the unique piece of etiquette.

    “When I went on a cruise, my mom told me saying Titanic was equivalent to screaming ‘bomb’ at an airport,” Mikayla wrote in the comments.

    “It’s like saying Macbeth in a theatre, it’s an unspoken rule” another commenter added.

    “I’m sorry you’re telling me you had a Harry Potter like experience saying Voldemort at Hogwarts but it was the titanic on a modern day cruise I’m cryingggg” joked another.

    Later in the video covering little known cruise facts, Sebastian admits he was surprised to learn that cruise ships have godmothers and that the pools are filled with seawater.

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    This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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  • ‘Wicked’ author reveals subtle clue in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ that Glinda and Elphaba were friends
    Photo credit: Public domain – Gregory Maguire was inspired by a line in the original 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."
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    ‘Wicked’ author reveals subtle clue in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ that Glinda and Elphaba were friends

    “I fell down onto the ground laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together.”

    Annie Reneau

    Upworthy Staff

    Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, “How did they come up with that idea?” The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don’t always know where their ideas come from, so It’s a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s often not what you would expect!

    If you’ve watched Wicked and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

    The many iterations of Wicked

    The hit movie Wicked is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West written by Gregory Maguire. It says a lot about how powerful the story is that it has succeeded in so many different mediums and continued to find new audiences that connect with it.

    While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origins of the two witches from “The Wizard of Oz”—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship popped into his head.

    The moment of inspiration that started it all

    Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter’s farm in Cumbria, England (Potter was an author and illustrator who created Peter Rabbit) and thinking about “The Wizard of Oz,” which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

    “I thought ‘alright, what do we know about ‘The Wizard of Oz’ from our memories,’” he said. “We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

    “There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [The Wicked Witch] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, ‘I might have known you’d be behind this, Glinda!’ This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda’s first name? They have known each other. Maybe they’ve known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together.”

    Sometimes it’s the crazy idea that works the best

    Maguire must have thought the idea of Glinda and The Wicked Witch attending college together was absurd at the time. What a kooky idea! But he pursued it nonetheless and, well, the rest is history.

    In “Wicked,” Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it’s the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

    Watch his explanation and inspiration here:

    Why the Wicked Witch specifically?

    Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the “Wizard of Oz” characters in the first place.

    “I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: ‘Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?’ I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad,” he said.

    “I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times,” he continued. “But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye.”

    What the story is really about

    Authors and artists, and their ideas, help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and “Wicked” is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we’re seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

    The second Wicked film, For Good, hit theaters in November 2025 and is now streaming on Peacock.

    This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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