Garden Center fruit dispenser

The Garden Center fruit dispenser was a device that would hold and preserve fruit. The technology, available in 2015, was designed not only to promote good nutrition, but good manners as well. The McFly family had such a dispenser in their home in Hilldale.

The dispenser, located out of reach in the McFly kitchen, could only be used by voice command, and was programmed to respond only to authorized persons, and only then if the voice command was made correctly. Marty McFly Jr. was unable to get a snack from the dispenser merely by saying "Fruit!" or "Hey, fruit!", and had to add the universal "magic word" to his request. When he said, "Fruit, please," no matter how insincerely, the unit would lower from the ceiling of the kitchen. Marty Jr. then had to add "Thank you!" in order for the dispenser to open (or at least for it not to retract). Evidently, the programming was done in an effort to try to teach 17 year old Marty Jr. how to be polite; his sister, Marlene McFly, was able to use the dispenser without any special protocol.

A mockup "Home of the Future" at the Hill Valley Science Expo in 1931 had a similar basket of fruit, although it was predicted that such baskets would be refilled by helicopter.