Hill Valley (Back to the Future)

Hill Valley
The set of the Hill Valley courthouse at the Universal Studios backlot (Courthouse Square)
Type	City
Notable characters	Marty McFly Emmett Brown Biff Tannen
First appearance	Back to the Future (1985)

Hill Valley is the fictional town in [California] as shown with the clock that serves as the setting of the Back to the Future trilogy and its animated spin-off series. In the trilogy, Hill Valley is seen in four different time periods (1885, 1955, 1985 and 2015) as well as in a dystopian alternate 1985. The films contain many sight gags, verbal innuendos and detailed set design elements, from which a detailed and consistent history of the area can be derived.

The name "Hill Valley" is a joke, being an oxymoron. However, an early script for Back to the Future Part II mentioned that Hill Valley was named after its founder, William "Bill" Hill.

The design of the courthouse facade and Clock Tower is based on the real-life Limestone County Courthouse in Athens, Alabama.

For Back to the Future, the producers considered filming the town square scenes in the real city of Petaluma, California, but soon realised it would be prohibitively expensive and impractical to alter a real place to suit the different eras. Instead they filmed it on the Universal Studios backlot, where they had more control. The main location, once called Mockingbird Square after the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird but now known as Courthouse Square, had been used for many films and television shows. One notable example is the very first episode of the sci-fi series The Twilight Zone, called "Where Is Everybody?" in 1959. The Hill Valley courthouse can also be found in the movies Bruce Almighty, Gremlins, Bye Bye Birdie, Sneakers, The Offspring's music video "Why Don't You Get a Job?", an episode of Major Dad entitled "Who's That Blonde" and even in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The clock tower itself was a removable addition, one of many ways in which the Courthouse building has been redressed over the years to suit the needs of a production.