{"id":2090252,"date":"2025-10-14T13:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2090252"},"modified":"2025-10-14T13:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T13:09:07","slug":"this-iconic-80s-michael-j-fox-sitcom-created-issues-for-back-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/this-iconic-80s-michael-j-fox-sitcom-created-issues-for-back-to-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"This Iconic ’80s Michael J. Fox Sitcom Created Issues For Back To The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

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40 years later, “Back to the Future” is still the biggest movie of Michael J. Fox’s career. It’s the time-travel blockbuster that made him a household name, the one so successful it spawned two sequels and countless sci-fi rip-offs. And those sequels weren’t bad either<\/a>. Sure, they gave Marty a weird character arc about him hating being called a chicken, but they also moved away from all the incest stuff; I’d consider them a win overall.<\/p>\n

But although “Back to the Future” feels like a vital part of Fox’s legacy, he almost didn’t star in it. At the time he was busy filming the hit sitcom “Family Ties,” a show where Fox played the young Republican teenager Alex who was constantly arguing with his ex-hippie liberal parents. (It was the most ’80s sitcom ever made.) The show went on for seven seasons, all of which were over 20 episodes. This was the norm for TV shows of the pre-streaming era, but that didn’t make it any less of a heavy workload. The sheer length of each “Family Ties” season made it hard for Fox to make time for anything else.<\/p>\n

In a 2010 interview<\/a>, the movie’s producer and co-writer Bob Gale explained how the filming schedule had to revolve around Fox’s “Family Ties” day job:<\/p>\n

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“Once Michael J. Fox was in it, the hardest thing was the schedule. … Michael would work on ‘Family Ties’ at 9 in the morning. He’d work there til 5 or 6. He’d go over to Universal, and we’d work with him til 1, 2 in the morning. So shooting a movie under those conditions, that was hard.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Filming the two sequels was a bit easier for Michael J. Fox, especially the third one where filming took place entirely after “Family Ties” had wrapped up on NBC. By the time the trilogy ended Fox had left the world of television for the world of of film, which was less time-extensive and more respected by critics.<\/p>\n

Read more: 5 Star Trek Characters Who Disappeared Without Any Reason<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael J. Fox wasn’t the only sitcom actor to struggle through a busy schedule<\/h2>\n
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