20 Things You Somehow Missed In Back To The Future Part 2
7. The Man Fundraising For The Clock Tower Also Appears In 1955
A minor but memorable character in the film is Terry, an elderly man working on behalf of the Hill Valley Preservation Society in 2015, and who asks Marty for a donation to help preserve the town's iconic Clock Tower.
Terry is played by actor Charles Fleischer, who in addition to providing the voice of Roger Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, was also only in his late 30s when the film was being shot.
As such Fleischer was piled under extensive old-man makeup to give him the appearance of someone much older, as pays off when Fleischer slyly plays the same character in the 1955 portion of the movie.
In 1955, a decidedly younger Terry appears as Biff's mechanic, who gets into an argument with Biff over the bill.
And so, if you ever wondered why they didn't just hire an actual old man to play 2015 Terry, there's your answer.
Zemeckis did shoot a scene which set up Terry's former job as a mechanic and more explicitly bridged the two versions of the character, yet this was cut for unknown reasons.