Biff's gang

Biff's gang surrounds the McFlys in 1955.

""Hey, McFly!" a voice suddenly called. / Marty nearly knocked the cup over. Spinning around on his stool, he looked toward the direction of the voice. / Four young fellows of about seventeen were moving from the entrance of the shop towards the nerdy boy several stools away. The face of the leader looked vaguely familiar. The beady eyes, lips into a sneer and beefy jaw presented tantalizing clues but Marty couldn't solve the puzzle. The other three gave him problems, being nondescript types of the period. One chewed a wooden matchstick and obviously thought it made him appear cool or tough or both; the second wore his hair in a crewcut that was just this side of being bald; the third peered out at the world through red/green 3-D glasses. / "Answer me when I talk, McFly," the leader said. / The superior tone in his voice provided the last piece of the puzzle for Marty. Of course! The punk was simply a young version of the biggest punk of them all, Biff Tannen."

—From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, pages 88 and 89)

Biff Tannen's gang were a group led by Biff Tannen in 1955 and 1985A.

History

The gang was comprised of three members: Match, Skinhead and 3-D.

1955

3-D, Skinhead and Match spotting Marty's "other" self on stage at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.

The three were first seen with Biff when he showed up to bully George McFly about doing his homework at Lou's Cafe. Skinhead and 3-D were also present when Biff nearly started a fight with George's son Marty McFly from 1985 (who passed himself off as a new student named Calvin Klein) and then later when Marty did manage to start a fight with Biff at Lou's Cafe. After punching Biff, Marty ran outside, knocking Match, Skinhead and 3-D down on the way. When Marty tried to escape on a makeshift skateboard made from an orange crate scooter borrowed from a young boy, the gang chased after him in Biff's car. A brief chase ensued, ending with Biff's car crashing into a manure truck, causing the car (and the bullies) to end up covered in manure.

The three later showed up with Biff at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance to get back at Marty, who had brought Lorraine Baines as a "date". While Biff tried to have his way with Lorraine, he told them to take Marty around back so he could deal with him later. The three carried Marty over to a car and locked him in the trunk; Skinhead telling Marty "That's for messin' up my hair!" Unfortunately for them, the car happened to belong to the band playing at the dance, Marvin Berry and the Starlighters, who promptly chased the bullies off after they offended the band with racist remarks.

Match, Skinhead and 3-D also managed to cause trouble for Marty when he returned to 1955 to get the almanac back and restore the timeline. After Marty managed to take the almanac off Biff at the dance, the bullies chased him through the school. Although Marty managed to lose them, the gang spotted Marty's other self performing onstage at the dance. Assuming it was the same person (though Match was puzzled as to how Marty had changed his clothes so fast), they got ready to jump him when he got offstage. To protect his other self, Marty climbed up into the rafters and dropped a set of sandbags on the bullies, knocking them out. He dropped the sandbags on the gang again after they started to get up, laying them out cold a second time.

1985A

Biff's gang catches Marty in the Biff Tannen Museum in 1985A.

"They were older than the last time he [Marty] had seen them, but those three bouncers looked an awful lot like those guys that used to hang around with Biff back in the fifties — Match, Skinhead and 3-D. All of them wore suits now. Match now wore a cowboy hat, while Skinhead's crewcut was a lot grayer than before. And 3-D's glasses were a lot fancier. The way they gleamed under the neon, they almost looked like they had jewels embedded in the rims. But all three were the same bullies they'd been back in 1955."

—From Back to the Future Part II by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, pages 108 and 109)

In the alternate timeline created when Biff became rich making bets using a sports almanac he received from his older self from 2015, the gang is still working for Biff in 1985A, apparently serving as his bodyguards. This was the only timeline in which they were seen after 1955. The three knocked out Marty when they found him in the Biff Tannen Museum (no doubt having been tipped off by the security guard at the entrance as to Marty's presence and whereabouts) and took him upstairs. They later chased Marty through the hotel after he confronted Biff about the almanac, though he managed to lose them in the stairwell.

In this timeline, Match still had a match in his mouth in addition to wearing a cowboy hat, 3-D had traded his 3-D glasses for a pair of customized aviators, albeit with red and blue lenses, similar to 3-D glasses, while Skinhead's hair was now gray.

Behind the scenes

• Biff's gang did not appear in Back to the Future Part III (Buford Tannen had his own set of cronies in 1885, as did Griff in 2015) or Back to the Future: The Ride, although J.J. Cohen would play one of Douglas J. Needles' gang towards the end of Part III, who may possibly have been Skinhead's son.
• Unlike Buford's gang or Griff's gang, and like Needles' gang, they're all of high school age so they aren't as dangerous or violent, never having committed any actual atrocity.

Appearances

• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future Part II
• Back to the Future: The Game
  • Back to the Future: The Game - Episode 1: It's About Time (One of Edna Strickland's newspapers describes them as juveniles crashing into a manure truck.)