Forty years later, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd revisit Back to the Future at Calgary Expo: 'It's the best thing that ever happened to me'
At first, he said no.
'Things were going kind of good for me in the theatre,' Lloyd told the audience at Calgary Expo Friday evening. 'I'm getting to think that not much is happening here in L.A. So I figured I should go back to New York and continue doing what I was doing. About that moment, I got a script from this new agent. I go through it and I read it and (I said) I don't want to do this. I'm going back to New York, I had the opportunity to do a play. So I took the script to Back to the Future and I put it in the waste-paper basket. That's a seriously ill-thought career choice. I retrieved it and looked at it a second time a little more seriously and I went back to L.A. and met (director) Bob Zemeckis and that was it.'
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‘How have we never seen it?': Filmmakers searching for missing guitar from ‘Back to the Future'
Michael J. Fox plays a Gibson ES-345 guitar during a climactic scene in the 1985 film 'Back to the Future.' (Universal Studios/YouTube) Todd Harapiak will never forget the first time he saw 'Back to the Future'. The former Manitoban was a teenager in 1985 when the movie was first released. He drove from his home in Cowan—about five hours north of Winnipeg—to sit in the Garrick Theatre and watch Marty McFly travel back in time to 1955 and try to save his parents' relationship to ensure he still exists in the future. 'It was such a pivotal moment in our lives,' Harapiak said in a recent interview, noting he watched the movie over and over when it was eventually released on home video. 'The movie really spoke to me.' Harapiak now lives in Los Angeles, where he works for Gibson Guitars as its media director. Superfans will remember it was a Gibson guitar—specifically an ES-345—that Michael J. Fox used to play 'Johnny B. Goode' at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, prompting Marvin Berry to call his cousin Chuck to listen to 'that new sound you're looking for.' Gibson's director of brand experience Mark Agnesi believes the scene spurred many to pick up the instrument themselves. '(Michael J. Fox) wasn't in a band and didn't have a hit record, so he kind of gets passed over on the lists of influential guitar players, but he literally inspired an entire generation to play the guitar,' he said. Michael J Fox In 'Back To The Future' Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) plays 'Johnny B. Goode' at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance in the 1985 film 'Back to the Future.' (Universal Studios/YouTube) (Photo) () Despite being used in the memorable scene, the guitar itself has been missing in action for decades, and nobody knows where it is. Harapiak, Agnesi and filmmaker Doc Crotzer have spent the past six years trying to find it. The search is the subject of a documentary called 'Lost to the Future,' which includes interviews with cast members to mark the 40th anniversary of 'Back to the Future.' Their search would probably be easier if they had access to a time-travelling DeLorean. 'We could go back and grab the guitar and put it somewhere for safekeeping,' Crotzer said. 'This guitar has never surfaced' Here's what is known about the guitar. It was a cherry red Gibson ES-345, believed to be from 1960 or 1961. It was rented from Norman's Rare Guitars in Tarzana, Cali. in 1985 for the filming of 'Back to The Future.' The guitar was returned to the store after filming, but may have been sold at some point. But to whom is unknown. Back To The Future Guitar A Gibson model ES-345 guitar is seen June 5, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) (George Walker IV/AP) 'We're not in the era of digital receipts; we're not in the era of things being tracked the way they inherently are now,' Crotzer said. Coincidentally, Agnesi was the general manager of Norman's Rare Guitars from 2009 to 2019 and remembers spending hours looking for the guitar, to no avail. 'All I know is there's been massive guitar displays at the Metropolitan Museum, Hard Rock Cafes, Rock and Roll Hall of Fames - all of these different things, and this guitar has never surfaced,' he said. 'It's one of the most important guitars ever, definitely the most important guitar of our generation. How have we never seen it?' The guitar does have one distinctive feature that sets it apart from other similar guitars. Agnesi said the ES-345 typically has split parallelogram inlays—small blocks of wood between all the fret marks. The 12th fret on the guitar in the movie doesn't have a split inlay. Having exhausted all options, the group has created a website to get the word out on their plans for the movie and to get tips from people around the world about where the guitar might be. They received hundreds in the first week and will begin sifting through them to find their next lead. The search is a labour of love from three people with a shared passion for the classic film. 'As hard as it is when you're talking about trying to find a needle in a haystack that's the size of the globe, we've been so fortunate to have these moments where we all kind of look around at each other, saying to each other, 'Can you believe we're doing this?'' Crotzer said. 'It's been really special in that way, because even though we each experienced 'Back to the Future' individually as kids, there is this like common bond and this common experience of what the movie did for us that the three of us feel together.' Anyone with tips can reach out to the group on the 'Lost to the Future' website.
Winnipeg Free Press
10-06-2025
- Winnipeg Free Press
Bringing McFly's Gibson back from the past, er, future
The cherry-red Gibson ES-345 Michael J. Fox plays as Marty McFly in the 1985 film Back to the Future is, to use an overused word, iconic. It's also been missing for decades. And now, in honour of the movie's 40th anniversary, Gibson wants to find it. The guitar brand has launched a worldwide missing-guitar campaign complete with a tip submission website and 1-800 line to assist with the search, which will be featured in a forthcoming documentary called Lost to the Future. Jason Goodrich photo Huey Lewis (left) and Michael J. Fox took part in a teaser video asking for the public's help in finding the guitar. Jason Goodrich photo Huey Lewis (left) and Michael J. Fox took part in a teaser video asking for the public's help in finding the guitar. Gibson also released a buzzy teaser video last week featuring Back to the Future stars Fox, Lea Thompson, Christopher Lloyd and Huey Lewis — who had a cameo in the film — asking the public for their help. 'We're trying to find the guitar I played in Back to the Future,' Fox says in the video. 'It's somewhere lost in the space-time continuum, or it's in some Teamster's garage.' 'This is a global search that we're inviting fans to embark on with us. We're taking this to the back alleys of London and the pawn shops of Brazil, the prop houses of L.A. to the streets of Winnipeg,' Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak tells the Free Press. Harapiak, as it happens, is from Winnipeg. 'Who knows where this guitar is?' It's a guitar that's long captured the imagination of filmmaker Doc Crotzer, who is directing Lost to the Future. He even has photographic evidence of himself as a little kid recreating that famous scene of Marty McFly performing Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, sliding across the floor. '(The idea) traces back to when we each first saw the movie, honestly, and it inspired each of us, like so many other kids of our generation, to pick up guitars, to get into rock 'n' roll,' says Crotzer, whose 1983 birth year puts him squarely in that demographic. 'The through line of the documentary, of course, is the search for this instrument. But the heart of the documentary is what the movie and that scene and that guitar means for an entire generation of people who were inspired by it in so many different ways.' Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, has been looking for that guitar for 16 years, fascinated by the lore and mystery surrounding it. Steve Rose photo From left: Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak, and filmmaker Doc Crotzer Steve Rose photo From left: Mark Agnesi, Gibson's director of brand experience, Gibson's media director Todd Harapiak, and filmmaker Doc Crotzer How the story goes: Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis realized the guitar was missing when it was needed for 1989's Back to the Future: Part II and it's been lost ever since. 'My story with it starts in 2009 when I became the general manager of Norman's Rare Guitars in Los Angeles,' Agnesi says. 'Norm rented them the guitar for the movie. 'And obviously that guitar is the reason why I play guitar. That scene is the whole reason that has sent me on this journey.' Universal Pictures Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly: playing the Gibson 'like a-ringin' a bell.' Universal Pictures Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly: playing the Gibson 'like a-ringin' a bell.' Agnesi figures Marty McFly's guitar would be a late 1960 or 1961 model. They do not have the serial number for it, which makes things a bit more challenging, because there are hundreds of red 345s from that era floating around. But this one has a distinguishing feature. 'Gibson ES-345s have what we call split parallelogram inlays — two parallelograms with a little piece of wood in between there. All of them have this,' Agnesi explains. All of them except the cherry-red Gibson ES-345 in question. 'If you look at the 12th fret, you will notice there is a solid parallelogram that's not supposed to be there,' Agnesi says. 'That's the smoking gun.' Since the tip site went up last week, Gibson has seen about 100 people per hour either signing up to stay updated or submitting tips, which the team will now have to sort through and vet. They fully expect to be sent on some wild goose chases, but that's part of the fun, too. Any tip is a good tip, Agnesi says. 'Did you see it in the '90s? Did you see it at a store? Did you see it at an auction? Did you see it on the wall somewhere? Do you know somebody who has it? Like any kind of tip that we can get to piece together what happened from 1985 and the chain of command all the way to where it is now.' The hopeful outcome is that they find it and are able to display it somewhere so that other fans can enjoy it. They also hope to reunite it with Fox. Steve Rose photo Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd takes part in the documentary Lost to the Future. Steve Rose photo Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd takes part in the documentary Lost to the Future. 'We don't expect whoever has it to just hand it over to us,' Crotzer says. 'But there's something poetic, whether it's for an hour or forever, about reuniting the guitar with Michael J. Fox, especially in the documentary when you hear how he talks about that guitar and how special it was to him.' When all three men talk about meeting Fox, they are instantly transformed into '80s kids again. 'Yeah, the whole 'don't meet your heroes' saying? Does not apply,' Crotzer says. 'One of the things that I really hope that we can accomplish with this, too, is I want Michael J. Fox to get his due as a guitar hero,' Agnesi says. 'He's a lot of people's guitar hero, and because he wasn't in a band, he's always overlooked. But Michael J. Fox needs to get his proper due as the guitar hero that he is.' And if they don't find the guitar? 'Oh, we're going to find it,' Agnesi says. 'I don't know where, but we're going to find it.' Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
