Last night, Nike unveiled the Air McFly’s—officially known as the 2011 Nike MAG—an exact replica of the shoes Michael J. Fox wore in 1989’s Back to the Future II (minus the cool power lacing feature) with an event at Hollywood's Ricardo Montablan Theater and an appearance by Fox on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Nike is producing just 1500 pairs of the mythical sneakers as part of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research’s Back For the Future fundraising campaign. The sneakers will be auctioned on eBay at the rate of 150 pairs a day for the next ten days with all the money going to Fox’s foundation. Last night the first pair—in a special package that included a replica plutonium case from the film, t-shirt, ceramic model, and a promise that Michael J. Fox would write a personal note on the case--fetched $37,500 from 22-year-old British rapper Tinie Tempah. Halfway through the first day, bids on eBay ranged between $3,850 and $8,100 for the first batch of 150 sneakers, significantly more than the Fox Foundation’s initial estimate of about $2,000 a pair.
The unveiling was like a hip-hop Comic Con as geeky fanboys and hip-hop hipsters all drooled over the famous gray high tops and jockeyed to have their picture taken posing with one of the actual DeLorean cars from the movie.
Here’s five things seen and heard at last night’s event:
1. Host Joel McHale (Community) introduced himself with, "Hi, I'm Matthew Lillard.” Yea, he probably uses that line all the time but it still killed.
2. McHale recently said he is forbidden from making Kardashian jokes on The Soup because of complaints from the family, but that didn’t stop him from cracking one last night, which went about like this: "Nike is introducing Air Kardashians tonight. They smell like hummus all the time.” Half the audience laughed, half hissed.
3. The biggest ovation of the night didn’t go to Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown) or director Bob Zemeckis but to Nike design head Tinker Hatfield, who is also responsible for the Air Jordans. When he walked out on stage someone in the crowd yelled, “Yo Tinker Hatfield—greatest shoe designer ever!”
4. The Air McFly’s would be cool to own but in person they are ugly. The combination of oversize hightops + flashy lights + washed gray color look like a bad 80s throwback, which, of course, is exactly what they are.
5. Still no hoverboard announcement.
The newlyweds were the guests of honor at a party thrown to celebrate her move to New York.