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Back to the Future Day Update: Cubs Win World Series!

November 3, 2016/0 Comments/in October

Most holidays don’t require frequent updates. They happen once a year and the details don’t change much. That is not the case with Back to the Future Day, which has continued to evolve since its first observance on October 21, 2015.

Back to the Future Part II was released in 1989. In it, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) utters the following line as he and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travel through time in his trusty DeLorean: “We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California, at 4:29 pm, on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015.”

While the time machine has not been perfected—as far as we know—some of the “technology” dreamed up for the movie has come to fruition. When Nike was offered product placement, execs imagined a pair of sneakers with self-tying laces. To celebrate the date when the real world caught up to the movie’s timeline, Nike created a working pair of Air Mags with self-tying laces and delivered them to Fox on October 21, 2015.

Fox tries on first working pair

For Back to the Future Day 2016, it produced 89 pairs of the sneakers and raffled or auctioned them off, raising more than $6.75 million dollars for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The quest to create a hoverboard like the one McFly rides in the movie has been less successful. One prototype levitates over a special surface, has a battery that lasts less than two minutes and is so hard to steer that one reviewer simply spun around until someone came to his aid. Still, its maker produced 10 and sold them for $10,000 each.

Most hoverboards could be called HINOs (Hoverboards In Name Only). They are self-balancing scooters with wheels, like a Segway without handlebars. Many models have batteries that can overheat and burst into flame while being charged or ridden, presenting a potentially exciting yet possibly disastrous experience for riders. We’re still waiting for the real thing.

Without a doubt, one of the things Future fans will discuss for years to come isn’t a product but a “prediction” made as a joke by screenwriter Bob Gale. In Back to the Future Part II, the Chicago Cubs beat Miami to win the World Series on October 21, 2015.

Gale, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, later said he was trying to come up with something completely outrageous that could only happen in a fictional universe. He also pointed out that Miami had no team in 1989: “People don’t automatically realize when they watch the movie today, but we were predicting there would be a major league team in Miami.”

In reality, on October 21, 2015, the Cubs played the New York Mets in the fourth game of the National League Championship Series and lost. (The Mets swept all four games, obviating the need to continue the seven-game series.)

The Major League Baseball schedule has changed since the movie came out, which explains why the timing of the World Series isn’t quite right.

The story doesn’t end there. On November 2, 2016, the Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians to win its first World Series since 1908. Coincidence or fate a year late? You decide.

Whatever Happened to Visit a Cemetery Day?

October 30, 2016/0 Comments/in October

Visit a Cemetery Day is supposed to take place on the last Sunday of October each year but the unofficial holiday has vanished without a trace.

The inaugural event in 2010 was intended to create an annual ritual of remembrance, according to organizers mysendoff.com, International Memorialization Supplier Organization (IMSA), Kates-Boylston Publications and American Cemetery Magazine.

By 2012, the founders were so confident in their new tradition that they announced the next Visit a Cemetery Day a year in advance, yet there is no record of it taking place in 2013 or any year since. Where has it gone?

Perhaps it has been forgotten as the industry adjusts to an evolving marketplace. (Check out this TED Talk on the Infinity Burial Suit that uses embedded mushrooms to digest dead flesh and promote “an individual engagement with the process of decomposition.”)

American Cemetery Magazine has rebranded itself as American Cemetery and Cremation “to better connect with the expanding readership and better align with the changing dynamics in the death-care profession.”

Order a subscription through MortuaryMall.com, where you will also find disaster pouches a.k.a. body bags, cremation pan cooling racks and stainless steel body trays with and without drain holes. If Very Berry spray “neutralizes body decomp odors” as advertised, imagine what it could do for your litter box!

Perhaps the most compelling reason to resurrect Visit a Cemetery Day lies in the game introduced on mysendoff‘s Facebook page on October 25, 2012:

“For those of you who are planning to introduce children to “Visit a Cemetery Day” we created a Cemetery Search game that is easy to play. Just click on the image and print your own card(s). It’s a fun way to start finding out some of the history that can be found in your local cemetery.”

Just in case Visit a Cemetery Day ever comes back from the dead, it may be a good idea to start the therapy fund for your kids now. It’s not a terrible thing for children to learn about death—but isn’t that what hamsters are for?

October 25 is Cartoonists Against Crime Day

October 25, 2016/0 Comments/in October

Cartoonists Against Crime Day was introduced in 1991 by Illinois artist Adrienne Sioux Koopersmith, who bills herself as “America’s premier eventologist.” Mayor of Chicago Richard Daley declared October 25th, 1993, Cartoonists Against Crime Day.

Later in 1993, Illinois governor Jim Edgar honored another of Koopersmith’s self-styled “holidates” by proclaiming December 3rd, 1993, Day Without Crime Day.

Many of the thousands of occasions Koopersmith claims she invented are listed in Chase’s Calendar of Events, the major reference book for offbeat observances published by McGraw-Hill.

A brief history of the cartoon: In the Middle Ages, a cartoon was described as a sketch or preparatory drawing for large scale art such as paintings, frescos or stained glass. Renaissance artists used them as well. Some examples survive to this day.

In 1962, London’s National Gallery acquired such a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci. After a vandal hit it with a shotgun blast in July of 1987, it was restored through an elaborate process in which dozens of tiny paper fragments were glued back together, one by one. It went back on public display in May of 1989.

In 1843, British magazine Punch published drawings that parodied a competition for the decoration of the Palace of Westminster. In doing so, it inadvertently changed the word cartoon to mean a humorous or satirical drawing employing exaggeration for effect, often accompanied by a caption. This definition has endured ever since, expanding in the 20th century to include comic strips and animated films.

Everyone from Far Side fans to Calvin and Hobbes aficionados can take a day to recognize the work of cartoonists to entertain, inform and enlighten. In 2015, Koopersmith dedicated the holiday to the remembrance of four artists who were murdered on January 7th, 2015, at the Paris office of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

October 21 is Back to the Future Day

October 21, 2016/0 Comments/in October

“We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California, at 4:29 pm, on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015.”

Fire up the DeLorean and put the pedal to the metal. You’ll need 1.21 gigawatts of power at 88 miles per hour to get back to the future or, in this case, the past.

Today is Back to the Future Day. In the second film of the series, Doc Brown and Marty McFly travel to October 21, 2015. The movie franchise inspires the adoration of fans all over the world. It is also a model of the early days of product placement and two brands, in particular, made the most of it.

PepsiCo ad execs imagined a futuristic drink called Pepsi Perfect and paid for its screen time with free soda for cast and crew during filming. In the 1980s, product placement was a relatively new practice, one not yet recognized as the cash factory it would become for marketers and the entertainment industry.

To honor its role in Back to the Future Part II, Pepsi produced 6,500 bottles of Pepsi Perfect and sold them on October 21, 2015, for $20.15 apiece. A year later, you can snag one of these bottles on eBay for $75.00 and up. Though the movie’s beverage was nutrient-enriched, the soda in these bottles is just regular Pepsi.

In 2011, Nike produced and auctioned off 1,500 pairs of Air Mags identical to the ones worn by Marty McFly except for one crucial element: power laces. Although prop men achieved that bit of movie magic by pulling on cables to “lace” the sneakers, Nike turned the concept into a reality four years later when it delivered the first self-lacing pair to Michael J. Fox on October 21, 2015, just in time for a tie-in (get it?) with the movie’s anniversary.

10/21/15: Fox tries on first working pair

Nike has since manufactured a limited edition of 89 pairs of the sneakers, awarding most on October 17, 2016, in an online draw. The cost per entry was a $10 donation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which raised $6.75 million. Two small real-world auctions were conducted as well. In London, a pair fetched $65,000. In Hong Kong, the winner paid $104,267. The final pair will be auctioned off in New York City on November 12, 2016.

One thing that has yet to catch up with the movie is the hoverboard. The Omni works like a helicopter with rotors under a rider’s feet. It holds the Guinness World Record for longest distance traveled by a hoverboard: 905 feet, 2 inches, but the battery is too light to last for more than a couple of minutes. There is also the distinct possibility of dicing a bystander with the blades when landing.

The Lexus and Hendo hoverboards use magnetic fields and will only levitate over a specially made conductive surface, meaning you won’t be able to zip down a street, let alone skate over water. On October 15, 2015, Arx Pax issued a press release announcing it would unveil the Hendo 2.0, designed with the input of skateboarder Tony Hawk, on Back to the Future Day. Sadly, it didn’t materialize.

Most “hoverboards” available today don’t hover at all and could best be described as self-balancing scooters. The batteries of many models can overheat and burst into flame. Owners are cautioned not to leave them unattended while charging, which might be an acceptable risk for someone who gets to fly around on a hoverboard afterward but not so much for the person juicing up a silly-looking skateboard/Segway without handlebars.

A “prediction” screenwriter Bob Gale added as a joke came closer to fruition than anyone could have guessed. In Back to the Future Part II, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. In reality, on October 21, 2015, the Cubs played the New York Mets in the fourth game of the National League Championship Series. (The Major League Baseball schedule has changed since the film came out, so the timing of the World Series is a bit off.)

If the Cubs had beaten the Mets and gone on to win the World Series, it would have been the team’s first pennant in 70 years and first World Series win since 1908. It didn’t happen, though. The Mets won all of the first four games, obviating the need to continue the seven-game series.

In the movie, the Cubs beat Miami, which had no team in 1989. Gale says, “People don’t automatically realize when they watch the movie today, but we were predicting there would be a major league team in Miami.”

Love for the Back to the Future trilogy reaches back decades. The movies continue to attract new fans and inspire companies to pursue their vision. Who knows what the 50th anniversary will bring? Until someone soups up a DeLorean, we’re all going to have to wait to find out.

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