Jason English
Dear Slate: Bob Gale Is Locked in Our Basement
by Jason English - August 18, 2011 - 7:57 PM

As surprised as I was that Back to the Future co-creator Bob Gale actually responded to our question about the origin of Marty and Doc’s friendship, I could not have imagined the splash his explanation would make. This “scoop” was covered by New York Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, TIME, MTV, and Slate, among others.

Some people (understandably) didn’t take my word for it that we were dealing with the real Bob Gale here. Slate‘s Will Carlough, in particular, was skeptical:

“No one on the Internet knows you’re a dog, or whether you’re really Bob Gale … I’ve seen enough Internet hoaxes to say I’ll wait for a picture of him holding a sign that says ‘Yes, it’s me’ with today’s newspaper before I buy it completely.”

Our new best friend Bob Gale, with whom I’d emailed before posting his original comment to make sure he wasn’t, in fact, a dog, was willing to oblige.

I hope the no-newspaper thing doesn’t raise any red flags with conspiracy theorists.

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Comments (24)

  1. How do we know that’s the real Bob Gale? Imposter! Imposter!

    posted by JennB on 8-18-2011 at 8:35 pm

  2. That is the best thing *ever*.

    posted by H on 8-18-2011 at 8:36 pm

  3. I don’t see a newspaper, but I trust it anyway–Bob, you rock!

    posted by Wayne Stevens on 8-18-2011 at 8:51 pm

  4. How do we know the message is not Photoshopped?

    posted by DaveP on 8-18-2011 at 9:00 pm

  5. That is so awesome!!!!!!!!

    posted by Eden on 8-18-2011 at 11:03 pm

  6. I’m Will Carlough and I’m convinced. And very excited that Bob Gale has read something I wrote.

    posted by Will Carlough on 8-19-2011 at 1:39 am

  7. @DaveP: We must do handwriting analysis immediately!

    posted by musing on 8-19-2011 at 1:51 am

  8. I posted my comment saying, “Sorry to be skeptical here, but how do we know this is actually Bob Gale? I could post calling myself that.” Before the Slate author wrote that article. Where’s my mention?:P

    posted by Rhazya on 8-19-2011 at 5:50 am

  9. Bob Gale Rocks!!!!!!!

    posted by JaneM on 8-19-2011 at 8:38 am

  10. Love. Love. Love it.

    posted by Jodie B Dodie on 8-19-2011 at 8:49 am

  11. SO COOL!!!

    posted by krissie_d on 8-19-2011 at 9:35 am

  12. love the headline…locked in the basement…priceless! and thanks Bob, always nice to see someone stand up and support friends against the bullies on the playground! way to go!!

    posted by Megaroo on 8-19-2011 at 9:47 am

  13. Bob Gale is an old friend of mine. I did the very first movie with Bob and Bob Zemeckis back in 1978. It was a Beatles movie called “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”. I personally e-mailed Bob and told him about the question on “Mental Floss” a few days ago, and thought he might like to answer it. Bob, like so many others, was already a huge fan of the site.

    posted by Eddie on 8-19-2011 at 10:02 am

  14. My new best friend is also locked in my basement. JASON, HOW DID YOU KNOW?

    TELL NO ONE.

    posted by Chris Higgins on 8-19-2011 at 11:24 am

  15. Ah, but how do we know you’re the REAL Will Carlough?

    :)

    posted by suebee on 8-19-2011 at 12:35 pm

  16. @Eddie –

    As in Eddie Dezeen? From grease? (thank you IMDB)

    Wow I thought m_f was cool enough already, but now we have all these geeky famous people…. its becoming too much. I don’t know if I can handle all the stars! LOL

    posted by Justin L on 8-19-2011 at 1:15 pm

  17. Now, to make this even more authentic, shouldn’t Bob Gale be holding tomorrow’s newspaper?

    posted by John on 8-19-2011 at 6:02 pm

  18. I’ll believe it when I see Gale holding the long form sign.

    posted by Danny on 8-20-2011 at 3:39 am

  19. @John – I think you mean a newspaper from 2015, amirite? ;p

    posted by Brainlock on 8-20-2011 at 3:08 pm

  20. Wait a minute, now, we’re all missing a very important point here…

    how do we know we’ve been dealing with the REAL ‘Jason English’?!

    Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Imposter!!!! :-)

    posted by Amy on 8-21-2011 at 10:05 am

  21. Nice. Let Bob Gale Rocks like..
    http://goo.gl/flFt4

    posted by Aleina on 8-21-2011 at 12:06 pm

  22. I love the Bob Gale is “in touch” with fans of BTTF and cool stuff like Mental Floss (the best magazine EVER!) I remember reading somewhere last year (maybe when the BTTF Blu Ray DVDs were released?) in an interview with Bob where he explained some of the backstory for stuff in Doc Brown’s garage/domicile in the beginning. One of the more interesting suggestions he made was that Doc brown may have burned his house down intentionally for the insurance money to continue funding his “science experiment”. Not sure I totally understand that one, but interesting anyway.

    posted by Ryan Fink on 8-21-2011 at 5:52 pm

  23. Bob Gale holding Fluffhead sign or nans.

    posted by Mrid on 8-22-2011 at 1:41 pm

  24. Yup, that’s him. Awfully nice of him to comply with your demand-of-proof.

    posted by Thatoneguy on 12-6-2011 at 9:39 pm

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