November 5 was the same date of time travel in Time After Time (1979), which is the story of H.G. Wells following Jack the Ripper from the late 19th Century to San Francisco of 1979. It stars Part III's Mary Steenburgen as a woman Wells meets in 1979

November 5 is also BTTF co-creator Bob Gale's father's birthday. In fact, Bob's father inspired the original movie, in a way. While looking at his father's high school yearbook, Bob wondered - if he went back in time and he and his father were the same age, would they be friends?

 When Marty approaches the old couple who are driving past in their car, the old woman screams "Don't stop, Wilbur."

This scene is most likely an homage to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) which contains scenes of people-possessed-by-aliens approaching cars, to the horror of driver and passengers. The whole sequence continues to allude to the fact that this boy from the 80s seems very alien to anyone from the 50s. It also serves to make Marty feel very out of place straight away - because of the extreme reactions he's been getting

 After Marty looks at the newspaper, he thinks he's having a dream - so he asks a passerby to pinch him. The woman slaps him instead. This is all observed by a policeman - the same one who later asks doc if he has a permit for his "weather experiment"

DVD alert! This scene is included on the disc for Part I

 Below is an extract from the phone book from Lou's Cafe.

Brown, EA
Brown, E Lester
Brown, ET Indry 431 56 E

 BILLY ZANE as Match

It was a quiet entry into cinema for Billy Zane. As one of Biff's gang, he didn't say much, but he knew how to chew a match. Director Robert Zemeckis, being the stickler for continuity that he is, brought back Billy for Part II to re-create and re-interpret his debut film character.

Billy is a bit of an enigma. BTTF led to Critters which led to Dead Calm, which would have been his break-out role, except it was an Australian film, so most of the rest of the world didn't see it. It starred Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman, too, so it's not without actors with which to sell it. Though it was pre-Jurassic Park and Tom Cruise.

Part II was followed by Going Overboard and Megaville, neither of which I had heard of until I typed them into this sentence. His actual American breakthrough performance would then be as Lt. Val Kozlowski in Memphis Belle, starring opposite Eric Stoltz, with whom he worked on Back to the Future until Eric was replaced by Michael J Fox. I assume the reunion on Memphis Belle was bittersweet, if in fact Eric remembered who new boy Billy even was.

Billy entered a weird period after this - probably best defined by his part in David Lynch and Mark Frost's gothic soap opera parody detective mystery dramedy series, "Twin Peaks". While this series lives on in infamy and top ten lists, most of his films from the early 90s are largely forgotten. Or, perhaps, they were never actually seen, so there was no need to forget them.

"Twin Peaks" wasn't his first foray into television, though. His TV debut was in "Matlock", if you can possibly believe a single show can help develop the careers of both Billy Zane and Jason Scott Lee. Zane was recently lured back to series TV in David E Kelley's school room drama, "Boston Public".

After what I'll refer to as the Blood and Concrete / Posse / Demon Knight years, Billy had another break out performance in the luke-warmly received super-hero flick The Phantom. Fans of the Ghost Who Walks might praise this film left and right, but all I mainly remember is that the girl flew off and left him at the end. Unexpected and, therefore, unexpectedly satisfying.

Titanic assures him a place in pop culture history as bad guy Cal, who tried to kill the prettiest passengers on the whole ship. I can't remember if he had a mustache to twirl, but he might as well have. James Cameron spent so much time making Rose a feminist hero before her time that he forgot to do anything with Cal at all. Pity, as the people who saw Billy's menacing work in Dead Calm can attest, he gives good villain.

I can't say I know much more about Billy's oeuvre. It's quite extensive, to be sure, but it's also very subtle. Maybe some of you have seen more of it. It's not like he's disappeared, he works quite a bit.

Ben Stiller's satire on male supermodels, Zoolander, features an array of cameos but none as humorous as that of Billy Zane playing Billy Zane. It's an uncredited turn, but it's well worth the price of hiring the DVD. As Owen Wilson's Hansel McDonald says, "Listen to your friend Billy Zane - he's cool!"

 JASON HERVEY as Milton Baines

When Jason spoke the line "What's a rerun" he couldn't have conceived that he himself will be discovered year in and year out in sitcom re-runs all over the world. For Jason is a child of the situation comedy.

Although his early work was in TV movies with names like, exactly like, Daddy, I'm Their Mama Now and The Ratings Game, this wasn't enough to satisfy the young actor. He, like any kid actor, wanted to be in the movies.

In 1984, Jason was cast in a short film made at Disney by director Tim Burton. Called Frankenweenie, Jason was perfectly cast as "one of the neighborhood kids" - a role he'd almost become typecast in. When Burton made the leap to feature films, Jason followed and was cast in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

His success in television sitcoms was just around the corner. The same year he starred in BTTF, Pee-Wee and Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, he would win the recurring role of Charlie in the series "Diff'rent Strokes". He played a neighborhood kid.

In 1986, Jason starred in the short-lived sitcom version of Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe's feature film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In the series "Fast Times", Jason played Curtis Spicoli, the brother of the character played by Sean Penn in the movie.

A few films and a short-lived sitcom under his belt could have turned him into the next Tom Hanks. Yet TV was where young Jason would hone his craft. From a guest spot on "Punky Brewster", Jason would then be boosted into TV history by starring opposite Fred Savage in "The Wonder Years".

From that moment on, people would only recognise him as smart-mouthed Wayne Arnold, who killed his brother's hamster, used the charming 60s insults "scrot" and "butthead" and had the fortune of being Juliet Lewis' first on-screen kiss.

Jason is a TV producer now. His post-"Wonder Years" acting work has included "Baywatch Nights" and "The Love Boat: The Next Wave" (his first TV appearance was in the original "Love Boat" back in 1981.) Unwilling to leave his love of sitcoms behind, he also guest-starred in Fred Savage's sitcom, "Working".

Catch him in re-runs!

 The episode of "The Honeymooners" (1955) they are watching in 1955, "the one where Ralph dresses up as a spaceman," didn't actually air until December, 1955.

Regardless of the error in airdate, "The Honeymooners" did air live from New York at 8:30 PM Eastern. That would make it 5:30 PM on the West Coast when they are having dinner

 The TV special The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy (1990) includes a scene where Doc Brown finds a hairdryer in his 1985-counterpart's suitcase and a copy of 'Playboy.'

DVD alert! This scene is included on the disc for Part I

 A scene that was scripted, shot, but finally dropped, takes place here. The scene is in the novelisation. The scene involves Marty looking in on his mother in class where he sees her cheat on a test. The film then cuts to Lorraine leaving class saying she thinks she got an F anyway.

DVD alert! This scene is included on the disc for Part I - a parody of this scene is also included in the outtakes section

 A longer version of this scene was shot, with a further reference to "Star Trek" (1966) ("The Supreme Klingon commands you...") ending in Marty using chloroform on George - which plays as quite a dark moment for the character, in stark contrast to the rest of the original film. The hairdryer is used to threaten George (as the character later says, to melt his brain) and "Darth Vader" also says that George has "created a rift in the space-time continuum".

Future Features #3, "Erased from Existence", details further differences between the film and finished script. And why the scene really needed to be cut down.

DVD alert! This scene is included on the disc for Part I

 Marty can't open the 1955 Pepsi bottle without help from George - compare this to the 2015 Pepsi bottle, which he also couldn't open

Twist top bottle caps were first introduced in 1956, but weren't standard until the late 1960s

 The manure truck is owned by D. Jones - a family run business stretching back to at least 1885 when it was run by A. Jones

D. Jones is a reference to BTTF Unit Production Manager Dennis E. Jones, who also served in that capacity on the SF films The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension and Twilight Zone: The Movie. A. Jones is named after his son Arlen.

 The scene with Marty and George in George's backyard was longer as originally written. The extended version is included in the novel and most likely was shot given the way the scene is edited and how the shooting script looks. It involves Marty teaching George how to punch.

See the "Erased from Existence" Future Feature for more details and a guess at why it was edited out

DVD alert! This scene is included on the disc for Part I - it is not the full scene as scripted, but maybe all that was shot