Hydrator

"Hydrate level 4, please!" Grandma Lorraine hydrates a pizza for the McFly family's dinner.

The Black & Decker Hydrator logo.

"The Hydrator beeped. His [Marty's] mother bustled happily back to the machine, pulling the now fifteen-inch pizza free. And she was nice enough not to mention that it had taken the Hydrator a full twelve-second cycle to finish their dinner — Marty wished he could afford one of those new six-second models."

—From Back to the Future Part II by Craig Shaw Gardner (quote, page 83)

"Boy, oh boy, Mom, you sure can hydrate a pizza."

—Marty McFly

A hydrator was a device in 2015 that hydrated and presumably reheated dehydrated foods in a similar way to a microwave.

History

Hydrators were controlled by speech recognition, as Grandma Lorraine gave the instruction "Hydrate level 4, please!" aloud into a speaker grille on the device, and had at least four levels of hydration. After placing a four-inch diameter dehydrated pizza into Marty and Jennifer's hydrator for twelve seconds, Lorraine brought out a large pizza that was at least fifteen inches in diameter. The pizza was piping hot, but the metal plate beneath it was at normal temperature, as Lorraine was able to handle it with her bare hands.

Black & Decker made a model of hydrator, including the unit that was in Marty and Jennifer's home.

A business called Hydrators Unlimited was located in Hill Valley's Courthouse Mall, where no doubt the new six-second hydrator models that Marty wished they could afford were sold.

According to a news story on the front page of the October 22, 2015 issue of USA Today, re-hydrating food could cause "an abnormal buildup of water pressure" within the hydrator, and if the unit was "clogged or improperly vented", an explosion could occur. Placing the hydrator in an inappropriate position and apparently forcing the door shut to override the safety mechanism was what caused the Hyperion Hydrators unit owned by Ruby Lee Dontanovich of South Hill Valley to explode, injuring her and two of her four children, as she attempted to re-hydrate two pizza slices from the night before, trying to double the portions for the children's breakfast. This incident was investigated by Hill Valley Police Detective Dana Mitchell.

Actuality

• There is still no known technology that could make a hydrator feasible. At the moment, dehydrated foods are still hydrated the old-fashioned way, i.e. with the use of boiling water.
• The current Black & Decker logo was not introduced until 2014. As this naturally did not exist at the time Back to the Future Part II was made, the current 1980s logo was used instead.

Appearances

• Paradox script
• Back to the Future Part II (First appearance)
• Back to the Future Part II novelization
• Back to the Future: The Card Game
• Doc Brown Saves the World

External links

• Special "front page wrap" for real life October 22, 2015 issue of USA Today