656: October 30th

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October 30th

Title text: Not enough houses on your block? Just hit them at 30-year intervals from here to 2300 and get 10x the candy.

Explanation

For Halloween, a child has dressed up as Dr. Emmett L. Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) from the Back to the Future film trilogy. In the films, Brown created a time machine out of a DeLorean DMC-12 car, which he and teenage protagonist Marty McFly use to travel through time.

The joke of the comic is that Halloween is on October 31st, and by showing up dressed as Doc Brown on October 30th, the kid can make the joke that he "overshot" the time machine and went back one more day than he meant to. Doc is heard throughout the movie franchise saying "Great Scott" as an exclamation of surprise.

The title text flips the joke on its head by insinuating that the child really time traveled. It does this by suggesting an inventive use of time-travel to get ten times the candy — hitting each house at a 30-year interval up until 2300. This would only be possible if the child was really time traveling, and not, as the comic suggests, pretending to time travel. The interval matches that of the first two BTTF movies, which take place in the years 1955, 1985 (the present at the time), and 2015.

Of course, one would have no idea starting off if Halloween is still being celebrated in 2300.

Transcript

[A kid dressed up in a lab coat and goggles is standing on a neighbor's doorstep.]

Kid: Trick or treat!

Neighbor: Nice Doc Brown costume, but today's October 30th.

Kid: Great Scott, I must have overshot!

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Discussion

I like this. I might do it next time I go Trick or Treating :) ‎108.162.249.218 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The 30 year-interval is probably an allusion to the interval between years 1955, 1985 and 2015, the years in which BTTF 1 & 2 take place.--141.101.96.222 11:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I updated the explanation to reflect this. 108.162.236.49 19:08, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I overshot the other way... in Puerto Rico time, at least. Greyson (talk) 05:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)