BIFF H. TANNEN (Thomas F. Wilson), in the Back to the Future : franchise, is a retired automobile detailer. In school, he was a bully. And in other time lines, he was a manager who got ahead using another man's brain--and a murderer. Contents [hideshow] 1.1. Life of Biff Tannen before the timeline split 1.2. Timeline 1: Bully 1.3. Timeline 2: Auto Detailer 1.4. Timeline 3: Gambling Tycoon 1.5. Timeline 4: Auto Detailer to the Stars Life of Biff Tannen before the timeline splitBiff Tannen was born in 1938, the great-grandson of Buford Mad Dog Tannen, a notorious gangster from Hill Valley's Old West history. In 1955 he was a senior at Hill Valley High School. He lived with his grandmother, and was insolent most of the time, not to mention a classic slacker. In every generation, every Tannen has a gang. (Whether that holds true in all timelines is not settled.) In 1955 Biff Tannen's gang consisted of Skinhead, 3-D, and Match.He advanced in high school mainly by singling out the class nerd, George McFly, and making him do his homework for him. And he developed a habit of grabbing George by the lapels, knocking on his head, and saying, Hello? Anybody home? A typical refrain: Think, McFly, think! I've got to have time to recopy it! Do you realize what would happen if I turned in my homework in your handwriting? I could get kicked out of school! And we wouldn't want that to happen...would we?...Not too early; I like to sleep in on Sunday. Your shoe's untied. AP! Don't be so gullible! He also fell hard for Lorraine Baines. But Lorraine would have nothing to do with him. And the clique of girls around her would always tell him, Make like a banana and split! Of course, Biff never could get those expressions. He ruined them all the time. He would say, As funny as a screen door on a battleship, though the word was submarine. He would say, Make like a tree and get out of here, instead of Make like a tree and leave. And so forth and so on.Timeline 1: BullyIn the first timeline, he continued to bully George McFly into doing his homework for him. Eventually the two signed on to work at the same company, and Biff was George's boss. A boss who now made George do his reports and said, I've got to have time to get them retyped! On October 25, 1985, he demanded George lend him his automobile. He wecked it and had it towed back to George's house, and insisted George, not he, file the insurance claim.Timeline 2: Auto DetailerThe second timeline didn't go so well. A new boy, whose name, he gathered, was Calvin Klein, got in his way several times. Biff first saw him on November 6, as he bullied George into delivering his homework yet another time, and told George never to enter that coffee-and-ice-cream shop again. The second time, Biff caught George in the cafe--and this Calvin Klein character actually tripped him up! Just who did he think he was? Biff and his gang gave chase. Calvin Klein actually borrowed a scooter from one of two little boys, wrenched the frame off it, and went off down the road, skating on it. Biff, with his gang in his car with him, still gave chase--until suddenly Calvin Klein walked right on top of the seats of their open convertible before they knew what was happening. And then, too late,l they found themselves about to crash into a truck carrying... SH______! On November 12, Biff got his car back--and a bill for $302 for the clean-out and the repairs. That evening, at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, Biff caught up with Calvin Klein again. He was parked outside the dance hall with Lorraine. Biff yanked Calvin Klein out and told his gang to stash the interfering butt-head somewhere while he, Biff, attended to Lorraine. So he started to take her, as he always wanted to, when he heard a voice: Hey you! Get your d____d hands off her! It was George McFly! Biff's world was spinning out of control. Since when did George McFly dare talk to him that way?Biff got out of the car. McFly actually swung a fist to his stomach! Biff caught it and twisted McFly's right arm behind him. Lorraine tried to break in, and Biff shoved her down with his other hand. The absurdity of this rebellion struck him as uproariously funny, and he laughed. And laughed. And laughed.And then stopped laughing. Because the next thing he knew, an express train hit him in the right jaw. Or rather, George McFly's left fist. He spun around in a full circle, saw stars, and passed out.George McFly never copied him on his homework ever again. So Biff did not graduate. Biff survived by starting a business as an auto detailer. Ironically, George McFly hired him to wax, paint, and otherwise keep up his late-model BMW and the Toyota 4x4 he bought for his son, Marty. If Biff ever once connected Marty McFly with the Calvin Klein who had ruined things for him in 1955, he never said a word to anybody.On October 26, 1985, he had just started to apply a second coat of wax to George's Beemer, when a package of books arrived, which he took into the McFly home. It was full of copies of George's latest best-seller. Science fiction. Of course. The nerd grew up to write for nerds.Then, Biff was just going to show young Marty his new matchbooks, with his business name on them--when he saw something that he never shook loose of. Marty, Jennifer Parker, and that crazy old Doc Brown got into a DeLorean DMC-12. Which then lifted up into the sky, streaked off into the distance, and disappeared!The next day came the story that created a scandal throughout Hill Valley. Marty McFly, returned from whatever trip he'd taken, had gone drag racing on the street. Their old acquaintance, Doug Needles, had been involved somehow. Marty had hit a Rolls Royce, breaking his hand. The owner of the Rolls sued him. So his life went down the toilet.That didn't help Biff any. Thirty years passed, and Biff was basically a bum, getting around on a cane. His grandson Griff treated him like dirt, but also got up a gang, just as Biff had.But then, the original Marty McFly, and Doc Brown, showed up. In that same trick DeLorean. Of course, in 2015 everyone drove a levitating car. But that DeLorean was still strange, for nobody had built a car like that since 1983. Biff tagged along, and was on hand when Marty bought a copy of Gray's Sports Almanac, and Doc told him to throw it away, and not even think about going back in time to profit by it.Marty threw the almanac in the trash--and Biff fished it out. He then followed the two of them as they drove into Hilldale ( Helldale, the Address of Suckers! ) to pick up Jennifer, after the Hill Valley cops picked her up and brought her there. Biff managed to steal the DeLorean, figure out how to go back in time (ridiculously easy), and jump back to 1955, the day everything had started to go wrong.Biff made it back, to November 12, 1955, the day of the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. He confronted his younger self. He told him, You want Lorraine? I can tell you how to make that happen. He told him about the Almanac. It tells the future, he said. It tells the outcome of every game in every sport 'til the end of the century. All right, old man, : said his younger self. Now why don't you just make like a tree, and get out of here? IT'S LEAVE, YOU IDIOT! Make like a tree, and LEAVE! You sound like such a FOOL when you say it wrong! But somehow, he persuaded his younger self to take the Almanac. The key: they tuned in a football game, which turned out exactly as the Almanac predicted, and in a last-minute score, too.The older Biff also gave the younger a warning: if a crazy scientist, and a kid, were to come after that Almanac, he must kill them both.He then returned to 2015 and landed at the same place. As he got out, he broke off his cane and left a piece of it behind, and also the receipt for the Almanac, and the bag it came in..He would never know why his efforts produced, essentially, no change. He just went back home, frustrated.Timeline 3: Gambling TycoonThe Biff Tannen of 1955, on November 12, received a strange visit from someone who looked like him, but was older. Way older. But someone who knew where the kill switch was on his car, and even where he lived. Let's just say we're related, : was all he said. And that being the case, I want to give you a present. The old man gave him a booklet titled Gray 's Sports Almanac. He explained: that booklet held the result of every game in every sport up to 2000. And to prove that, he tuned in a football game on the radio. And sure enough, the booklet called the game exactly!Biff took the hint. His attempt on Lorraine was a debacle, of course. But with the Almanac in his hand, he started to bet on sports. And get payoffs. Big payoffs. Beginning with a million-dollar payoff in 1958. And another two years later. He thus gained a rep as The Luckiest Man on Earth. But he knew he had to guard his newfound fortune the same way those who really ran sports betting would try to take it away from him: with guns. So he still had his gang, though now they were armed with real weapons.Using his winnings, he started his own company, Biffco, specializing in toxic waste reclamation. That let him sustain his fortune, while he lobbied long and hard to get gambling legalized in California as well as Las Vegas.When Richard M. Tricky Dick Nixon lost the California governor's race in 1962 and said, You all won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore, Biff was by his side. In this reality, Biff Tannen, and not Bebe Rebozo, became Nixon's fast friend. Biff it was who engineered Nixon's renomination in 1968. And then engineered the repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment, so that Nixon could keep right on running for President forever if he wanted to. Came 1972 and the nomination of George McGovern--and it was not Haldemann and Ehrlichmann who engineered the Watergate break-in, but Biff Tannen, who sent Skinhead, 3-D, and Match to pull that job, and not any third-rate burglary, either. Nor were they afraid to crack a few heads, or even drop a few people with acute lead poisoning, along the way.Biff also pulled enough strings to keep the Vietnam War going well into the 1980s, so that Biff, through his new defense subsidiary, could continue to profit from it. Tricky Dick proved an easy tool. All Biff had to do was push the Communist button, over and over and over again.On March 15, 1973, Biff personally accosted George McFly and shot him down. If he ever realized the meaning of his choice of date (March 15, or the Ides of March), he gave no sign. Nor did that matter. What mattered was that he compelled Lorraine to marry him, as he had always wanted.In 1979, Hill Valley High School burned down. Whether Biff had anything to do with that, is speculation, mostly because it's difficult to see how he would have profited from it. But also in 1979, he achieved the legalization of gambling and built Biff's Pleasure Paradise on the site of the old Hill Valley Courthouse.Marty McFly did not attend Hill Valley High in this timeline. For one thing, Hill Valley High School burned down. One of Biff's biker customers (bikers were always welcome in Hell Valley while Biff ran things) no doubt set it off. For another, Biff didn't want Marty around. So he sent him to boarding schools in Switzerland. Where Marty got kicked out of one boarding school after another. Dave McFly got involved in a robbery and was sentenced to probation. Linda McFly became an overweight binge shopper. Biff bailed these three out just to keep his hold on Lorraine.In 1984, Biff finally managed to have crazy old Doc Brown committed. In that year, his friend Tricky Dick decided to seek renomination for what promised to be his fourth re-election.But on the night of October 26, 1985, a strange thing happened: Marty showed up at the casino--at the penthouse, even!--demanding to know about Gray's Sports Almanac! So Biff dismissed the girls he had been with, and gladly told Marty all about it. And then he announced he was going to shoot Marty where he stood, as his distant relative had warned him to do.But he didn't count on the crazy scientist coming to his rescue. The scientist knocked him out. And after that, time would cartwheel. Biff would never have a chance to play that timeline out any further.Timeline 4: Auto Detailer to the StarsAs in Timeline 3, his distant relative gave him the Almanac. But this time, Calvin Klein seemed to be all over the place. It was as if there were two Calvin Kleins--one interfering between him and Lorraine, and the other after the Almanac. The second Calvin Klein knocked him out all over again after George had laid him out, and took the Almanac. Biff tried to get it back. That adventure ended when he again gave chase to the second Calvin Klein and, as before, crashed into a manure truck.He never saw the Almanac again. And as before, he would become an auto detailer. But the timeline was different for another reason: Marty McFly did not ruin himself by taking on any drag racer on the street. He did not, therefore, hit a Rolls Royce and get involved in a nasty lawsuit. Instead, Biff found himself in the employ of Marty McFly and the Pinheads, doing auto detailing for all their cars.Doc Brown didn't get committed. But after October 26, 1985, Doc Brown simply vanished. Biff Tannen never saw him again.Needless to say, Biff Tannen never befriended Richard M. Nixon. Nor indeed could he have anything to do with town, State, or national politics. The Twenty-Second Amendment stayed in force. Nixon's men would get caught red-handed at Watergate, and Nixon would have to resign nearly two years later. In the year that Doc Brown received a commendation as a good citizen of Hill Valley, Ronald Reagan decided to seek his second term of office. Show less «