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Marty uses the payphone at Lou's Cafe.

"The prices [behind the counter in Lou's Cafe] fascinated Marty so completely that he must have stared at them long enough to convince the counterman that he was undesirable. / "Whatever you're selling, kid, we don't want any," he said abruptly. / "I'm not selling anything," Marty replied. "I just want to use the telephone." "
—From Back to the Future by George Gipe (quote, page 86)

A payphone was a coin-operated public telephone.

History[]

A payphone was situated in a booth in Lou's Cafe in 1955, with local calls costing 5¢ (better known as a nickel). Marty McFly made use of the phone on November 5 while he was making a call to Dr. Emmett Brown, after having looked up his number in the telephone directory. However, on calling Doc's number, Marty received no answer.

A video payphone bearing the AT&T logo was present in Courthouse Square in 2015, where Marty McFly, Jr. was spotted at one point through a binocular card used by Doc.

Behind the scenes[]

Back-to-the-future-deleted-scenes-phone-booth-62

George McFly is trapped in a payphone booth at Hill Valley High School in a deleted scene from Back to the Future.

Actuality (2015)[]

  • Most outside payphones had been removed because of the prevalence of cellphones — something that Back to the Future Part II obviously didn't foresee, although bulky cellular telephones were in use in 1989.

Appearances[]

See also[]

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