I was thinking of hoverboards the other day because I saw a couple of guys tooling around town on a beefed-up skateboard that had gigantic wheels and a motor underneath (I think it was an E-Glide Powerboard, but I can’t find anything on their site that looks as “off-road” badass as the one I saw).
So I did a quick hoverboard search on Google, and ended up reading a Cracked rant about how the hoverboard was the lie that ruined childhood.
I didn’t realize this, but apparently the special effects were so good (for the time) that director Robert Zemeckis got tired of answering questions about them, so he paid for some “behind the scenes” footage to be faked, and started telling everyone that hoverboards were real. But he added an evil genius twist: you can’t buy them because parents’ groups pressured the toy companies to keep them under wraps. They’re too dangerous. Cracked’s take:
Let me put that in a more concise and accurate way: Robert Zemeckis intentionally made a short film entirely out of lies, for no other reason than to crush the spirits of children.
I’ve embedded it, above.
I saw this when it originally aired. My irritation with parents’ groups has not waned despite knowing that Zemeckis lied (or with becoming a parent myself).
I will forever yearn for a hoverboard of my own.