Future Boy, a book by Michael J. Fox, and a missing Gibson guitar

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Future Boy, a book by Michael J. Fox, and a missing Gibson guitar

20 August 2025

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey through the Space-Time Continuum, is a book written by American actor Michael J. Fox, of, of course, Back to the Future (BTTF) fame, in conjunction with TV and film producer, Nelle Fortenberry.

Fans of the 1985 time-travel caper, and Fox himself, probably already know the story. Fox was also on the cast of TV sitcom Family Ties, and during the filming of BTTF, would shuttle back and forth between the sets of TV and film. TV during the day, film by night. If working two jobs each day was tiring, Fox sure as hell didn’t show it, as he seemed to do nothing but burst about the screen in BTTF.

Future Boy delves deeper into this story, through interviews with the cast and crew of both Family Ties and BTTF, and will be published on Tuesday 14 October 2025.

That’ll definitely be a red-letter day for BTTF aficionados.

And in other news, BTTF cast and crew are searching for the guitar, the Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 to be precise, which Marty McFly played when performing Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, at the Enchantment Under the Sea high school dance.

This is no publicity stunt (I don’t think). BTTF producers realised the iconic guitar was missing when they went to film the sequel, Back to the Future Part II, back in 1989.

They’re hoping to find it today, soon, this century, to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of BTTF, and the release of a documentary about the film, Lost to the Future, which I think goes to air later this year. Members of the cast, including Fox, Harry Waters Jr, Lea Thompson, and Christopher Lloyd, are among those who have issued an appeal for information in the search for the Gibson.

I’d forgotten 2025 was such a red-letter year in the history of BTTF. I think this calls for a screening this evening of BTTF.

STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, a documentary by Davis Guggenheim

15 May 2023

This I am looking forward to seeing.

Although Canadian actor and activist Michael J. Fox has featured in a host of movies and TV shows, he’ll always be Marty McFly to me. As someone with a penchant for time travel and science fiction, the Back to the Future films Fox starred in made a lasting impression on me.

STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, trailer, is a documentary directed by American filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, that explores Fox’s life and work, and his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, at the age of twenty-nine.

Despite the debilitating nature of Parkinson’s, Fox has refused to allow the disorder to stop him in his tracks. He continued to work, and with wife Tracy Pollan, raised four children.

And, deep in the disassociated archives, here’s footage of Fox performing Johnny B. Goode in 2011, at an event staged by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which he created in 2000 to research Parkinson’s disease. To my mind, his rendition of Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit is one of the many highlights of the original Back to the Future movie of 1985.

Something that really cooks: Michael J Fox replays Johnny B. Goode

17 November 2011

Michael J. Fox who played Marty McFly in Back To The Future, recently re-performed Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit Johnny B. Goode at A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson, an annual event staged by his foundation that supports research into Parkinson’s disease.

Fox’s, or rather McFly’s, rendition of Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment under the sea dance in 1955, is one of the (fictitious) historical events I’d like to witness. It’d also be an opportunity to be a dance floor innovator/early adopter, by showing 1950’s dance-goers a whole new way to trip the light fantastic.

Originally published Thursday 17 November 2011