Do you remember the first major disappointment of your childhood? The first time you realized that the world was not exactly the hopeful, magical place that you had once believed it to be? Did it happen when you found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real? Did it happen when your first family pet died? I know when it happened for me. There is a silent core of sadness at the very heart of me that still resonates with loss every time I hear one word: Hoverboard.
The hoverboard, in case you are a soulless automaton who never experienced childhood, was a special effect from Back to the Future II that immediately replaced the flying car as the flagship dream of hyper-advanced technology. The hoverboard was the perfect storm of nerd-child fantasies. It had all the appeal of futuristic tech, the dream of pure flight and the raw aesthetic lust of all the best toys.
And, if left alone, that’s all it would ever have been: a fantasy.
Even children, upon coming out of Back to the Future II and immediately miming sweet hoverboard jumps while inexplicably making lightsaber noises for sound effects, knew that it was just a special effect, not real.
Oh, but the next day at school? The next day at school, there was that one kid. That one insecure little dickhead who had to make friends by lying. That sniveling little weasel who had a black belt in karate, who once met Chuck Norris and who had this super-hot girlfriend across town (but she goes to a different school; you wouldn’t know her). The next day, there was that horrid little bastard who first uttered the words “they’re real, you know. Hoverboards are real.”
The face we all made as soon as we heard that.
And instantly all his previous lies were forgotten.
“What do you mean they’re real?”
“They exist. For real.”
“What? Fuck you. How would you know?”
“My uncle works at Mattel. If you watch carefully in the movie you can even see the logo. They’re who makes it.”
“No way. You’re such a liar. Why hasn’t anybody else seen one?”
“It’s parents. They all say they’re too dangerous, because you can go too fast and hurt yourself.”
…aaaaand that’s where he had you.
Son of a bitch! Of course! It’s the parents! That is exactly the kind of bullshit parents would do, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like he’s saying he rode one, or hell, that he’s even seen one, because Mattel can’t release them. Nobody gets hoverboards! Fucking parents!
Goddamn you! GODDAMN YOU TO HELL, PARENTS!
And so for, let’s face it, way longer than you should have, you too probably secretly believed that hoverboards were sitting in a warehouse somewhere like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Forever locked away in a nondescript wooden crate marked “Too Dangerous (For Kids).” A large wooden crate, abandoned and forgotten… that hovered tantalizingly just inches off the ground.
I’m an adult now (sort of) and somewhere along the line I let go of that hope, but I’ve still held onto the vague sense of disappointment to this day. However, being an adult in the age of technology, there was now something I could do about it. I could now find out exactly how close we are to having real live hoverboards and, more importantly, find out who the motherfucker was that first started the “they’re real, but too dangerous for kids” rumor, and hopefully drag him screaming into Hell with me (I have no illusions about myself; I’m a complete bastard with poor-impulse control. I’m going down there, probably pretty soon, and the best I can hope for is a deserving travel companion).
And you know what? I found him. Quite easily. It was not hard at all to uncover, I’d just never thought to look for the bastard. The guy that first started it all? The insecure little prick who had to lie for attention? I found him.
It’s Robert Zemeckis.
Look at him. Even now trying to lie… about being bald.
That’s right. The director of Back to the Future II.
And no, this is not backhanded blame for some crap like “he popularized too cool a concept.” He actually did it. Every word of that now infamous lie first came from his lips. Apparently tired of being asked how the special effects were done, Michael J. Fox said that Zemeckis started answering those questions with “what do you mean, how did we do it? It’s a real hover-board. It flies. Michael [J. Fox] just practiced a lot.”
And listen, I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to call Michael J. Fox a liar. Michael J. Fox is literally the most lovable man on earth. He is equal parts underdog and superhero. He is the adorable, pixie-like champion of the common man, and he is bravely, humorously facing down one of the worst diseases on the planet. If he ran for president of the American people’s heart, he would win by a landslide. So you know what? I’m going to trust him over Baldy McDickhead up there.
Seriously, who are you going to believe here? Alex P. Keaton, or somebody who looks like the Devil’s accountant?
But you don’t have to trust Michael J. Fox (you monster) because it’s all on tape. During the Making of Back to the Future II Television Special, Robert Zemeckis went on camera and said “Hoverboards have been around for years, but parents’ groups worry that kids will get hurt, so they’ve pressured the toy companies not to put them on the market.” After which, presumably, he ate an entire baby seal whole by unhinging his jaws and horking it down his neckhole with a series of sickening, jerky swallows, like an owl. On that same special, he even paid a special effects crew to have “test footage” made of the actors practicing on “real hoverboards” off set.
Let me put that in a more concise and accurate way: Robert Zemeckis intentionally made a short film entirely out of lies, for no other reason than to crush the spirits of children. Here it is:
Look, I know: “Fake!! photoshop!!1! you can see the pixelz!”
We all know that. Now.
Everybody can easily spot this as bullshit today; when every other image you see is a political figure’s head expertly superimposed onto a penis, you get pretty good at spotting fakes. But in the late 80s, if somebody showed you something like this–the application of incredibly expensive movie-quality special effects in an off-screen candid setting–you just believed them. You believed them because we goddamn trusted them back then. It was a much more innocent, fluorescent-colored and conspicuously gay time.
So there it is, now you know: Robert Zemeckis is the one responsible. He is the one that stole the hope right out of the screaming bodies of millions of children, because he is a twisted sociopath who feeds on the destruction of joy.
But there is redemption at hand! There are real efforts being made, right now, by people who have somehow hung onto their hope throughout these dark years–never giving up on the dream of bringing into reality what Robert Zemeckis could only mockingly destroy: The dream of a real live hoverboard.
Here’s one example, the Airboard:
It is a hoverboard, technically, in that it does hover and you stand on it as one could stand on a board. You control it by shifting your weight dramatically in the direction you want to go. There are no brakes, but you can slow yourself down by squatting low until it stops.
You know what advantage the movie hoverboard had over this thing? You didn’t look like a complete tool riding it. You looked fucking awesome, and that is a hard thing to do when you have to poopsquat just to avoid careening into traffic on your giant air hockey puck.
Early 90s German Techno band, or the face of the future?
But all that doesn’t even matter, because the Airboard is not only ridiculously expensive (starting price around $10,000), has an exceedingly short life span and can only navigate on super smooth surfaces to begin with.
But there are other efforts. Here’s the Hoverboard (optimistic name, guys) which is a slightly more literal take on the concept:
Future Horizons, creators of the Hoverboard, seem to have drastically misunderstood the appeal of the movie version, so they just built a hovercraft shaped like a board. And the world collectively sighed, pinched the bridge of their noses, and reluctantly said “good job, guys, that is… that’s just real awesome,” because the world simply couldn’t bear to break their hearts. This is a board that hovers, sure, but just like the Airboard, it only does so on completely smooth surfaces, it runs out of fuel quickly and it looks like a shitty Ukrainian knockoff of Seaspray, the hovercraft Transformer.
Whut? Is good Transforming Person, yes?
You know what else can run only on perfectly smooth surfaces, achieves approximately the same speed but with better maneuverability and takes a very, very long time to run out of juice? A skateboard. That’s the whole point of the Back to the Future hoverboard fantasy: A super-speed skateboard that can go anywhere at high speeds, for long distances, and not spackle the sidewalk with a layer of bloody enamel if you hit a pebble wrong.
And here’s the closest thing we have to that right now, the Scarpar Powerboard:
It has everything great about the hoverboard: It’s super maneuverable, can generate speeds of at least 35 miles per hour (though they happily advertise you can double that), it can traverse any terrain (it even runs over a goddamn log in that video) and on one small tank of gas it can operate for up to 20 miles. There’s just one problem: It doesn’t fucking hover.
Now, admittedly, a skating tank is pretty high on the list of “rad things I would draw on my Trapper Keeper,” but no matter how awesome the Powerboard gets, it’s never going to hit that futuristic milestone of sustained, personally accessible flight.
At least is has the decency to look awesome, though.
But considering that the Scarpar Powerboard, once released, will only cost about $2,000, it may have to do for now. And as soon as it is released (they’re aiming for next year), I believe the only appropriate celebration would be to tie up Robert Zemeckis and drag his screeching demon husk through the woods with it until the fucking thing runs out of gas.
But hey, it’s not like I’m bitter or anything.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Libel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 15th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
The mattel hovrboards are if real most likely crap made in China that isn’t very reliable or sturdy. No doubt (if) there was a 2 hour boring bord meeting about quality of these things & the waste factor of marketing millions of useless VHS tape machines before DVD destroyed it. No doubt ‘2015′ resembles our next revolution of technology to boot Ebay ill be flooded with these dumb designs at 1.00 no reserve. As th new hoverboards fron Japan sell amazingly high. If you open up the panel on the mattel board it will be made with a curcuit board with no actual workmanship into it & very chinsy for something that would need to be more reliable. So they have offered the build it yourself version from science sites with radioshack parts & heavyduty sturdieness but as they thought, everybody who wants one is just an undereducated idiot that’ll make up strange lawsuits from their hoverboard mlfunctions wanting to be rich disregarding caliousness.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I found your blog on google and read about 2 of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the Wicked work Look forward to reading more from you in the future. sincerely
November 6th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
i’m so depressed now.. i don’t want them to not be real. i mean - i know they aren’t, but now i just wanna die!
hahaha
those are my views, goodnight
October 29th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Ok. Its official. Your a complete and utter moron! The whole idea of the Hoverboard and special effects in movies in general is to make the movie better, and if you believe a transporter can beam you up, or you lay awake nights because you are scared of a “Death Star” blowing up Earth, DON’T GO TO THE MOVIES! Every time you watch a movie, you are being lied to. Every time you read a Fiction Book you are being lied to. Thats the point of entertainment. Suspend your beliefs, and enjoy fantasy. From ” I caught a fish THAT BIG but had to let it go ” to the latest Movie in the cinemas, its all LIES! People dong go to the movies to be told the truth, they go to see what the next lie is! Unless you get your tiny mind around that fact, you will be a “Glass half empty” kind of person.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am
[...] So I did a quick hoverboard search on Google, and ended up reading a Cracked rant about how the hoverboard was the lie that ruined childhood. [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thank you for verifying a shady childhood memory of mine. I saw a bit of that Making of Back to the Future II where asshole talks about the hoverboards and how they got some. It cemented in my head that they really did exist despite attempts by my parents to convince me otherwise. If only we had the internet back then to quickly dispel these vicious lies and rumors.
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September 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
OMG I totally feel the same way. I actually asked for a hoverboard for Christmas one year. I wanted one soooo bad.
September 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am
awesome . just awesome. captured the collective angst of an entire generation and more importantly it was f-ing hilarious.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:22 am
The scarpar is way cool but, as you point out, it’s no hoverboard.
We can dream though.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:09 am
w00t for the Aussie guy who invented the Scarpar!!
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August 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
lol The video got stuck at the moment the word “unstoppable” hit the screen.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Yeah, the worst bit is that they included that footage on the behind the scenes of the DVD for the movie. They fooled me for a little while after I first watched it. Now I know who to blame. Thanks cracked.com for reminding me why to hate people.
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
I still remember writing to Santa and asking him for a hoverboard. I actually believed he would bring me one, too. Ah, to be young again. *wistful sigh*
July 27th, 2009 at 10:48 am
A kid on my block said the exact same thing.
And if we all knew a kid who said this and assuming we all grew up in different places///what if….what if….what if it wasn’t all made up and they just never released the hoverboards because they were too dangerous and it was all covered up!!!
My eight-year-old self still wants a hoverboard!!!
July 27th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Ha. Yeah, I heard about them being real as well and despite inner voice trying to “reason”, I think I did believe it, probably because it would be so cool if they actually did! Well, maybe one day.
And Zemekis isn’t ‘bad’ for starting it — we all pretty much believed it at least for a little bit, and that was one cool moment. 
People don’t normally hate their parents after finding out about Santa… oh, wait, not sure who’s reading… but if you think about it, in a way, he actually does exist. As does the hoverboard (and as the current efforts you highlight indicate, it may fully exist one day). For those who haven’t seen the Back To The Future movies, go watch them! Still my fav’s of all time. (And for those that haven’t seen the movie many times over and didn’t pick up on it, that ‘hoverboard short film’ was actually the test footage for the special effect. If I recall correctly, it is on the DVD extras). Cheers!
July 26th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Did we go to school together? That’s the exact same story I was told. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was at lunch setting with some friends. They were trying to get me to play D&D for the 20th time. I couldn’t figure out why I had to roll these fucked up dice so many times. And then that guys showed up with the story about hoverboards being real. That bastard.
July 26th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Segways are complete trash, btw. You look like a prick when riding one. You might as well walk, jog, or ride a bike. That way, you get some exercise.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] Links The Hoverboard Lie: How Back to the Future Ruined ChildhoodThe girl who doesn’t grow upFlash Slideshow with Flickr Integration - FlickrViewer 1.2.3Alternatives [...]
June 20th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I actually saw the TV special where Zemekis actually said these words. We were VERY excited and called our parents into the room.
It was on a “Back to the Future II” preview show back when network TV would do things like that and not save them for the DVDs.
I don’t think it ruined my childhood, but for a moment we all believed.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:27 am
You know that song on your Myspace profile? Well I just love it! It’s like…a soundtrack to the internet!
Wow, RvsB was right. I AM the first person to say that on here =3
June 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
We turned the wheel. The secret wharehouse has been moved. You will never find it. Just be happy we let you have THE SEGWAY.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:17 am
My first ever crush was on MJF in Back to the Future II (they never showed the first film on tv for some insane reason so i didnt see it until years later) and i was only like seven years old so that is a testament to the extent of his non-threatening hero awesomeness.
Incidentally it was the late nineties, so props to an everlasting film series in the face of time.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:38 am
what about the damn shoes “power laces” those were great and some were released, but they didnt have power laces and only kinda looked like the originals
May 30th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zemeckis
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May 25th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Add Lou Pearlman to the list of conspirators:
http://www.portfolio.com/images/site/editorial/Flash/graphics/2009/03/byebye-backstreet.jpg
Well, at least you could have bought one.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I believed it so much I actually bought plans on how to build one. I ordered it from the back of popular mechanics. It was of course total BS just a bad cutaway drawing and another sheet describing the concept of reverse magnetism. After seeing Robert on TV saying they were real I just couldn’t let go until I was in my 20s. I studied electronics in college try to build one.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
[...] - The Hoverboard Lie: How Back to the Future Ruined Childhood | Cracked.com Son of a bitch! Of course! It’s the parents! That is exactly the kind of bullshit parents would [...]
May 8th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Is it sad that I want to have his babies?
May 7th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I’m engaged, but I think I’m in love with you.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I wanted to believe these were real after seeing the ‘test footage’ but I knew in my heart it wasn’t true.
But I really, really wanted them to be.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:10 am
the Scarpar is kinda like YT’s skateboard from Snowcrash
May 4th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
[...] Movies Make The Future Too Good [...]
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Mostly because the lipstick setting hasn’t really been resolved yet, there’s a herd of 1000 genetically programmed bull dykes in an underground lab that the geneticists are too afraid to even confront.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
@Erin, actually the technology for lesbian reproduction through parthenogenesis exists, it just hasn’t been approved by the FDA yet.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:03 am
[...] 3) Speaking of great films from the 80s, I certainly hope you’ve seen Back to the Future: Part II. If you haven’t, then this beautiful, rambling indictment of Hollywood deception won’t make any sense to you at all: The Hoverboard Lie: How Back to the Future Ruined Childhood. [...]
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:56 am
@Phillipe
GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 am
@Jewshaveit
Funny, because I’m Jewish and I never grew up with a hoverboard.
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:49 am
I think it seems more likely that they could just be on strings with boards attached to their legs. Isn’t that how they did it in the movie?
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:51 pm
“Screeching Demon Husk” should be a band of some sort.
May 2nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Congratulations Brockway, this is officially the only page on the entire internet with the phrase “screeching demon husk.”
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
That Robert guy’s last name even SOUNDS like nemesis…..
May 1st, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Having not only lived for the 80s and spent the 90s in gay bars reliving the 80s, and then rereliving them as a would-be film critic I concur that that 80s were “a much more innocent, fluorescent-colored and conspicuously gay time.” Meaning all the movies and music have gay subtexts and the innocence as ever was feigned. Every time I see a new hoverboard on the market I die a little inside. I’ll wager we will have the technology for flying cars and lesbian reproduction through parthenogenesis before we see a working hoverboard.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:13 am
[...] Uma palavra: hoverboard. [...]
May 1st, 2009 at 1:17 am
This is now my favorite article on the site.
I can’t stop thinking about the hoverboard now.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Is it me or is the scarpar, in essence, two belt-sanders tied to a 2×4?
And I totally believed that hoverboards were real and someone DID tell me that parent thing, warehouse and all, but I’m 31 now so I’m not allowed to hold out hope anymore. I think they said some kid went off a cliff on one and died. Or maybe that’s just what I wished had happend to some bastard kid lucky enough to have one.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
and you were more impressed by the hoverboard than the fact you looked out the window and your dad wasn’t popping off down the shops in his suddenly now flying dump truck? Oh robert brockway you useless cunt, did it ever occur to you that the movie was set in 2015 and last time i checked it was still 2009? that means we still have 6 years for Pepsi Perfect, the internet to be replaced by fax machines, and Diana Spencer to raise herself out of the ground like the ghoul we know she is and take the throne in (probably) some brain eating orgy of violence.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I wish it were real. I’ve always wanted to skate. If the hoverboard were real I could do it!
It’s funny, because I can figure skate - I can jump in the air and land on the edge of a thin steel blade and not bust my ass (okay, sometimes I do), but I can’t even freaking STAND on a skateboard.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
@Fragg: Alright, I’ll let you off with a warning this time, son. Don’t let it happen again.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
haha when i was in middle school (about 11 years ago) some of the high school science students came with their teacher and they had made a hoverboard. u can prolly make one in ur garage. it was just a sheet of plywood on the top, but i duno the technicalities but i think they used enough air pressure spaced evenly that if u stood or sat exactly in the middle it hovered a couple inches above the ground and one push would send you all the way across the room. i got to ride it and it was awesome. dreams do come true.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“A large wooden crate, abandoned and forgotten… that hovered tantalizingly just inches off the ground.”
Nice.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
You’re a fucking champion Brockway. Well done.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Or I’d be offering you a nice crisp 5 dollar bill to spend an evening with Mr. Big Boss Man over here! XOXO!
April 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am
i’m 22 and i remember wanting a hoverboard since i first saw the movie back when i was like six or seven but i also always wanted those shoes mjf is wearing in that top pic up there. i heard they were actually selling like a year are so ago as limited editions or something but sadly i never saw any
April 30th, 2009 at 9:33 am
[...] não sonhou em ter aquele skate que levita do Marty Mcfly? Eu sonhei, e hoje dando uma olhada num dos sites que eu leio, me deparei com o depoimento de um cara que realmente acreditou que aquele skate existia. Na [...]
April 30th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Hello. Like you, I grow up dreaming with the levitation skate. So, I have good news. My Father is an PHD in maglev technology. We are working on an revolutionary maglev concept overhere in Brazil. (www.lasup.com.br)
A few months ago, we are talking about the real creation of levitation skate. Like you can see, if you use a superconductor with high critical temperature, you can levitate easily over an neodymium surface.
We plan just for fun a way to bring the zemekis dream to reality, in a way precisely like the movie. The idea is sell it to theme parks and shoppings.
Think about an rink with a big structure og superconcuctors, feezed by liquid nitrogen. Over it everyone can levitate with an skate containing two big neodymium magnets (like the movie!)
Well, you will not use it in streets, just inside the rink, but is a tecnological way to make it exactly like in the movie.
take a look ate this (eduardo is my father)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7167941242367687880&hl=pt-BR
April 30th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Jews have (own) Hoverboard Technology. They keep it at Area 51 (which they own). I’m only able to tell you this now, because well… they used to own me too.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:54 am
When I was a kid my cousin John convinced me he’d gotten a hoverboard for christmas, but my mom told his mom I wasn’t allowed play on it in case I got hurt!
It tore me up inside.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:56 am
[...] un exemple dans la vidéo en dessous, le Scarpar. Courage, encore quelques années de patiences ! - L’article de Robert Brockway sur Craked.com (en [...]
April 30th, 2009 at 1:37 am
@…
“We’re not gonna be able to build hoverboards until we discover a quantum theory of gravity. We don’t even know what particle mediates the gravitational interaction”
aaannnd…. Fuck You
April 30th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Excellent stuff.
My version of ‘Hoverboard’ is ‘Quarantine.’ I was led to believe that a quarantine involved people trapped in rooms and being observed by scientists behind glass, a guy named Patient Zero fleeing scary men in oxygen suits through eerily empty streets, large groups of people forcibly detained in Auschwitz-like medical camps surrounded by blockades and soldiers, helicopters darkening the skies above. So SARS rolls around, and the news says they’ve ordered a quarantine. Turns out, it’s more like people asking you to stay inside a hospital or your apartment for awhile, but no one really even checks. AAAARRRGGGHH
April 29th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
No?!
Hmmmm… guess it was just a rumor I started in a busy food court then:
http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=11&sku=ENGL-CD00296
April 29th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Holy Crap my friend… you should find new friends with far less indulgent (and insane) parents!!!
April 29th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
A director creating a hilarious rumor about his own movie? Awesome!
April 29th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
I have never felt a writer has so completely understood my childhood self. And I heard that rumor I remember going to Toys R us to look for it….
April 29th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
It’s true! MJF is the most lovable man on the planet.
That last ‘hover’ board may have looked kind of sleek, but they should have gone with a more appropriate name like ‘The Lawn Destroyer’, ‘The Gravel and Bits ‘o Glass Launcher’ or ‘The Octogenarian Agitator’.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I can’t even begin to tell you how true this article spoke to me…
April 29th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Oh my GOD it’s ROSS!
HI ROSS!
April 29th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
heh.. that is awesome. If I made a movie like that, I would totally try and get people convinced that a hoverboard was real. It’s like the mother of all inside jokes. Andy Kaufman if he had a million dollar budget.
we had the kid who said he had a hoverboard. He said that it would only work indoors because it needed the “wires” to stay up. I knew he was lying because he was very poor and I don’t think his house had wires.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
wow, I feel left out because I actually saw that movie and never gave the “hoverboard” another thought. Of course that movie was before my time, and I was 14 when I saw it, so that probably has something to do with why this is the second time in my life I have thought about hoverboards.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I can’t believe tallconnect.com is still at it.
I just broke 5 months of silence to point that out.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
they must always be that one asshole who started the rumour… in my scahool I was that asshole. feels good lying to my “friends”
April 29th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
And for this Joe Pesci punished Michael J. Fox by giving him Teh Shaky AIDS
April 29th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I’m spizzy spamming rite here lawlz
April 29th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I remember my minister using this as a parable in a sermon about faith. The man didn’t believe hoverboards would be invented by 2035, then found that they already existed. When I found out he was mistaken, I lost all faith in Jesus.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Except these things “hover” using bags of air.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I remember this rumor, but even at the age of 9, I knew a little too much about science to think that a hoverboard was possible. The same kids who insisted the hoverboard was real also believed that there were “anti-gravity chambers” where astronauts trained on earth, and that the military had holographic simulation rooms like Star Trek’s holodeck. I knew it was all bullshit- but I secretly hoped I was wrong.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Come and join hot tall dating club http://tallconnect.com
has lots of sports fans there! besides, it’s hot modelss, milfs, sexy chick s and handsome young men and chicks dating club!!LOL Don’t miss out!! 
April 29th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
As if ruining it once wasn’t bad enough, a hoverboard had to be awesomely featured in the animate film Treasure Planet.
Curse you Hollywood!
April 29th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
…that description of Michael J Fox had me laughing out loud.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Wasn’t this posted before? Oh well still sucked…
April 29th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
careful darek, you don’t want to OD on the 80’s
April 29th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
My dad has a hoverboard. I haven’t ridden it yet because my girlfriend, from another city, you don’t know her, says it would be too dangerous… So you see, it’s not always parents that ruin the fun…
My dad is also an astronaut and Sylvester Stallone… and a terminator… My dad could kick your dad’s ass…
April 29th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Is it just me, or does Robert Zemeckis look like if Glenn Beck molested children? That would make sense, because Robert Zemeckis raped my childhood. (*frown*)
April 29th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
You know what’s rad? Wielding a light saber while cruising by on a hoverboard with the ninja turtles following you in their turtle van (with Motley Crue playing on their radio) on your way to fuck up Cobra Commander.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I would’ve found this funny…if I hadn’t had this conversation in a dozen different movie discussion forums.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I’m 23, and I still wish it were real.
*sigh*
April 29th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I too believed until I was way too old. I’m 28 now and I’m not going to mention how old I was when I finally accepted the truth. Let’s just say it may or may not have been like two fuckin weeks ago.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:46 am
……sickening, jerky swallows. Like an owl.
HAHAHA!!! So funny.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:27 am
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April 29th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Oh man, you nailed it with this article. Though I don’t blame Zemeckis, I do blame the stupid kid who said they were real. That last paragraph was brilliant.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:19 am
http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=13&catid=19&sku=ENGL-CD00284
April 29th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Fisto McPuppypuncher:
does that mean its hammertime?
April 29th, 2009 at 11:09 am
That last video was awesome…
April 29th, 2009 at 10:51 am
<— I approve of this article.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:42 am
i have a hoverboard, it’s real. they just wont release it because Zemeckis has the patent and he genuinely believes its too dangerous for children. I have to say I agree, thankfully I am now 18
April 29th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Damn I was one of those kids that believed it until my parents gave me the Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy tape as one of my many presents for Christmas when I was a kid. NOT KOOL. But I would still settle for the prop…
April 29th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Wow Robert Zemeckis is a real douchebag… I thought it was just me… but apparently there is someone else who feels the same. You know what would solve this problem? A Hammer! By that I mean hitting him in the head with one.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:59 am
We’re not gonna be able to build hoverboards until we discover a quantum theory of gravity. We don’t even know what particle mediates the gravitational interaction.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Wow, that brings back some bad memories for me too. A stoner / skater buddy of mine about 2 years older had me totally convinced that they were real. He even had me help him build a new quarter pipe on his side porch so we could be ready for them when they came out. His line was that his uncle worked in special effects at Universal and was on the set when they shot the footage. He said that his uncle was going to send him 2 of the boards they actually used in filming because they didn’t need them anymore and couldn’t actually sell them. I dreamed about it for months and finally cried bullshit after they didn’t show and he had broken the quarter pipe we built. What an asshole, but he had great weed.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Sunny, never tell anyone you know that you think light sabers are just around the corner. For your own good.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:26 am
“A super-speed skateboard that can go anywhere at high speeds, for long distances, and not spackle the sidewalk with a layer of bloody enamel if you hit a pebble wrong.”
Brockway, you bojo! Those boards don’t work on water!
April 29th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I had one years ago, when I was a kid. It was pretty cool and all, but like most kids, I outgrew skateboards, you know? I think my mom sold it or gave it away to the Salvation Army or something. I don’t know.
I never knew about that rumor. But surely it’s not right? I mean, I wasn’t the only one who had a board. A couple of friends of mine had them, too. That’s weird that you think they aren’t real. They are. Maybe the prices were too high, or maybe the government wanted to hide the technology from the Russians. I don’t know.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:20 am
i want that scarpar right now.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:14 am
@Radar — Crap! Can’t I just get some points on my nerd license? Or maybe do some nerd community service?
April 29th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Dammit, I thought that the airboards went higher then that. Now I am sad….but I tottally want that last board.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:48 am
We all need to team up and make our own Hoverboard. Sure it’ll take awhile, and sure it will cost a lot, but can you look straight in my eye and tell me one person ( who isn’t old) that wouldn’t want one. Think of the all the money we’ll be rolling in.
I’ll be team supervisor.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:47 am
The hoverboard needs to merge with a tankboard and have giant fucking guns (preferably laser guns) on it.
@CamboD: That’ll be hard to do, as it no longer exists. But you could try and get either the Czech Republic or Slovakia to do it.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:23 am
getting better every week
April 29th, 2009 at 8:18 am
@Fragg: 2015. It was 2015. Your nerd card has been revoked.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Zemeckis has too many layers of fat to rub off with just one tank of gas from that thing. I’ll drive alongside in my car with a big gas can for refills.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Yes I do recall the “rumours” that Hoverboards were real, but I never believed them myself.
And fuck yea I want a Scarpar, I want one now!
April 29th, 2009 at 7:50 am
I remember the “Making of” documentary that was on regular ol’ TV after the release of BttFII. Not only did Zemeckis say what’s written above, but there was actually footage of him throwing one on the ground, and it floating.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I suppose we really have to wait for the far off distant future of…2014?! Holy crap, get crackin’ inventors! We also need obnoxious 3D holographic advertising and the ubiquitous flying car everywhere!
April 29th, 2009 at 7:38 am
But… but…
They have them in California!
April 29th, 2009 at 7:32 am
If the hoverboard were released I would definitely buy one but it’s not something that has plagued my being for the past 20 years. What I would sell my soul for in a heart beat is a lightsaber. The techs really not that far off either, someone just needs to figure out how to make an enormous industrial laser handheld. Then all you have to do is take care of the little problem of making the beam stop one meter from the grip, instead of you know, carrying on infinitely.
I was close to figuring it but my research hit a brick wall when GM banned me from the tours of their manufacturing facilities over the tinniest incident. The fact that the new Camaro has yet to be released is definitely not my fault.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:21 am
HA! I was the insecure little dickhead with the karate and the lying to make friends. Still, I was the one believing someone else about the hoverboard. I think they told me as a matter of revenge.
April 29th, 2009 at 7:11 am
The best thing about the Scarpar Powerboard is that fucking Tony Hawk had nothing to do with it. YEAHHHH!
April 29th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Robert Zemeckis is a cocksucker.Ruin my childhood will he.May he be beat with a sock of full of frozen feces.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Well done, sir. Funniest article I’ve read in awhile.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Fuck hoverboards, I want my tankboard.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:32 am
I never skated but when I saw that hoverboard I wanted one so bad. Great article.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I hope you’re being tongue-in-cheek about this; even when I was 8 and this movie first came out, it was a running joke to take the piss out of the stupid kids who actually believed in hoverboards. It was mostly the special-ed class, if that tells you anything.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I… I …. It’s not real? I have to go….
April 29th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Hate to admit it, but I was that kid telling everyone they were real. I watched the making of special, saw the “practice” footage, and immediately got mad at my mom and dad for hating fun and voting against hoverboards.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:54 am
[...] Posted in: Featured New Cracked column up dealing with an issue near and dear to my heart: Murdering the bastard responsible for telling everybody that hoverboards were real, just too dangero…. I found out who he is, and what the nearest approximation of a hoverboard is, so that we can use [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 5:53 am
It’s so weird. As soon as I started reading this all these repressed memories started coming back to me. Like, I’m sure - I’m *sure* - I saw an ad for a board that hovered, it involved this boy and he went down a little flight of stairs outside a house on this thing, and my brother and I were awestruck. And, naturally, assumed it was something that would be way too expensive for us to ever own. I’ve never questioned this.
Why have I never questioned this.
Is it because I never wanted to find out they weren’t real? Is it??
April 29th, 2009 at 5:44 am
make sure to drag doctor choas to hell with Robert Zemekis.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:37 am
I too was troubled by this growing up and I’m comforted in the fact that others share my pain. The hoverboard lie was almost as bad as the naked princess at the end of the castle rumor.
Oh, and “I’m a complete bastard with poor-impulse control. I’m going down there, probably pretty soon,” C’mon man, don’t be so hard on yourself. I hope you’re not serious about that.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:36 am
This was a great article, please keep them coming Brockway.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:36 am
yea i was convinced they were real too, just kept away for safety reasons etc, fuck man surely we have a technology to make em now, make em license only with training etc, damn it
also drchaos you are clearly a fucktard
April 29th, 2009 at 5:35 am
I am so disapionted that some government with nothing else to do (C’mon czechoslovakia, you’re never going to solve your countries crippling poverty, get over it already) has not devoted a significant portion (say 60%) of their budget into developing something like this in order to be ‘that awesome country that invented the hoverboard.’
April 29th, 2009 at 5:31 am
They’re Trapper Keepers.
BTW, I have four Scarpars and they are way more awesome than you could ever imagine.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:23 am
That powered skate board looks pretty cool. I doubt it can reach 35 miles per hour though.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:15 am
What are you talking about, Santa Clause not being real. You’re crazy man.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:12 am
I always thought that Mattel bought the patent rights to the “Hoverboard” — can anyone confirm whether this is true or not?
April 29th, 2009 at 5:12 am
Doctorchaos, fucking die already!
April 29th, 2009 at 4:59 am
That Scarpar is pretty sweet, too bad it’s top speed appears to 3. Which is about how many horsepower it has.
Let me know when they make the highway version.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:55 am
I want a hoverboard, or a scarpar, i wouldn’t mind
April 29th, 2009 at 4:42 am
This happened to a friend of mine in 6th grade. He was so convinced that hoverboards existed that he actually had his parents phoning Mattel corporate headquarters, and telling everyone he was getting one for his birthday. Just to fuck with him, I told him my cousin had one too, and they were totally awesome.
When I confessed later I was lying just to screw his head up, he started crying, and his mom tried to murder me.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:37 am
This article is lame…. yada, yada, yada… large words mixed with fart noises
Micheal J. Fox has some of disease that makes him shake funny… you’re not funny….
More pseudo-rambling…
Please flame to adhere to my ego.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
There, its done, saved you the hour it would have taken to state it yourself.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:23 am
I’m still waiting for hoverboards.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:04 am
Wow. tell me about it. But you can’t deny all the other goodies BTTF has given us. I mean, michael J. fox pretty much invented rock and roll.