Jared's Epic Party is only a month away and he already has a ton of attractions in store that could make the richest kid in Highland Park's birthday party look like a gathering at a Chuck E. Cheese.
Besides the promise of reuniting Vanilla Ice and his "Ninja Rap" with a striking replica of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he has landed a ton of other musical acts and celebrity appearances, a video game arcade, a record breaking Nerf gun battle and appearances of striking replicas of several classic movie cars.
The cars will come courtesy of Bob Moseley, owner and operator of the local movie replica building shop Bob's Prop Shop, who gave us a preview of a replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future Part II that he plans to fly, er, drive to Gilley's on February 22.
Moseley has been building time machines since 2003 out of 1981 DeLorean DMC-1s, the car on which the movie built its iconic time machine. It's become so synonymous with the movie that drivers who own one of the world's remaining models still hear an endless stream of BTTF references from pedestrians who see them. Moseley knows this because he used to use a DeLorean as his personal ride.
"They come up and say, 'Hey McFly! Where's your flux capacitor?" Moseley said. "So just as a joke, I built a flux capacitor and put it in the car."
He soon found a new, unique hobby and started sharing his builds online through Facebook pics and YouTube videos. As they became more and more popular, people starting asking for replicas and models of their own.
"It went from being a hobby to being my full-time gig," Moseley said.
His prop shop has not only created movie-grade replicas of the DeLorean but also other popular movie cars like the ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters, the A Team's red and black van, the Bluesmobile from The Blues Brothers and KITT from TV's Knight Rider. The DeLoreans are among the most popular built by his shop. He's built 15 DeLorean replicas for private buyers like the San Antonio Spurs' Tony Parker who got a DeLorean DMC-1 last year for his birthday and one for himself, his fabled 14th that took 10 years of scavenging and building to find perfect parts and designs for every light, wire and tube on the car to match the one in the movie.
He said he did an exhaustive review the original model from movie on display at Universal Studios Hollywood as part of its famed "Tram Tour" in which tourists could only get a 5-second eyeful of the car as they whizzed by it.
"I would take trips to Universal Studios and I would basically pay off a park worker and say, 'Hey, here's a $100 bill. Take me over to see the car on your lunch break,'" he said. "Then I befriended a guy who had back-lot access and we would go there after hours and drive right on the lot in my Dodge Magnum at 2 in the morning and drive right up to the car."
Moseley also got a chance to get a more authorized look at the car as part of the official "Time Machine Restoration" build team commissioned by Universal Studios to restore the original car in part through the efforts of BTTF screenwriter and co-producer Bob Gale.
It was probably inevitable that Moseley's and his rides would hook up with Jared's Epic Party. The two first met before Guynes' fundraising efforts started at a local comics convention and kept in contact ever since then. Moseley said his cars fit perfectly with Guynes' party idea to celebrate his generation's pop culture childhood with one massive public joygasm. The DeLorean even helped attract the attention of an additional celebrity appearance by Claudia Wells, the actress who played Marty's girlfriend Jennifer in the very first BTTF film.
"It really is going to be something special that hasn't been done before," he said. "It really covers the gamut of a particular generation."
Guynes said he knew Moseley's car would have to be part of his party and not just for marketing or sales purposes.
"I can't say if this definitively sells more tickets, but for me personally, it's my favorite movie car of all time," Guynes said. "If I had the money to buy one, I would."