Thomas Francis Wilson Jr. is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, writer, artist, musician and podcaster. He is best known for portraying Biff Tannen, Griff Tannen and Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen in the Back to the Future trilogy, and as Coach Ben Fredricks in the TV SeriesFreaks and Geeks, and various characters on Spongebob SquarePants.
In the early 1980s, Wilson moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career. He shared an apartment with fellow aspiring comedians Andrew Dice Clay and Yakov Smirnoff, and later joked that he "taught them both about America." Wilson had a small role in the second season of NBC's Knight Rider in an episode titled "A Knight In Shining Armor". His breakthrough role was the bully Biff Tannen in the 1985 film Back to the Future. He returned in the sequels Back to the Future Part II and Part III to not only reprise his role as Biff, but to also play Biff's grandson Griff Tannen and great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. In every Back to the Future film, his character ends up in a pile of manure after trying to kill or hurt Michael J. Fox's character Marty McFly. He reprised his role as Biff and voiced various Tannen relatives in the animated series. Wilson did not reprise his role as Biff in the initial versions of Telltale's ' released in 2011, being replaced by Kid Beyond. When the game was ported to the PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One in 2015 in commemoration of the original film's 30th anniversary, Wilson returned to provide Biff's voice in these newer versions. In 1992, he voiced gangster Tony Zucco in ' and police detective Matt Bluestone in the animated seriesGargoyles. He later went to co-star with Mark Hamill in ', a video game. It was the third chapter in the Wing Commander series, but the first to feature live action and was extremely popular at the time. The character played by Wilson was Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, a fellow starfighter pilot of Hamill's character. Wilson also starred in the sequels ' and ' and contributed his voice to the animated series Wing Commander Academy in the same role. He also guest starred in an episode of ' in 1997. Wilson played McKinley High School's Coach Ben Fredricks in the 1999–2000 NBCcomedy-dramaFreaks and Geeks. Coach Fredricks dated Bill Haverchuck's mother. Wilson was briefly reunited with his Back to the Future co-star Christopher Lloyd in the 1994 film Camp Nowhere. Wilson has done voice-over work for the Nickelodeon TV showSpongeBob SquarePants. He has voiced many villainous characters that are physically strong and menacing, such as Flats the Flounder in the third season episode The Bully, and The Tattletale Strangler in SpongeBob Meets the Strangler, and the non-villainous character Reg the Club Bouncer in No Weenies Allowed. In 2005 he played Coach Phelps in the TV seriesZoey 101. He has hosted a podcast, Big Pop Fun, on the Nerdist Network starting in November 2011. The podcast features Tom sharing stories of his career, as well as informal chats with show business friends including Samm Levine, Blake Clark, Steve Oedekerk, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and more. Wilson currently maintains a YouTube channel, where he regularly vlogs. As of April 2020, his channel has over 23,000 subscribers.
Personal life
Wilson has been married to his wife Caroline Thomas since July 6, 1985. Together they have four children. Wilson is also a painter. Many of his paintings focus on classic children's toys. In 2006, he was selected to join the California Featured Artist Series at Disneyland. Wilson is a devout Catholic, and released a Contemporary Christian album in 2000 called In the Name of the Father. With the rise in popularity of the Back to the Future series, many people began to ask him questions about his experiences making the films. Wilson found the repetitive nature of the questions to be both hilarious and frustrating, so he wrote a song about them titled "Biff's Question Song" which he includes in his stand-up routine.
