The Wayback Machine or WABAC Machine is a fictional time machine from the segment "Peabody's Improbable History", a recurring feature of the 1960s cartoon series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show . [1] [2] The Wayback Machine is a plot device used to transport the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman back in time to visit important events in human history.
The Wayback machine was a central element of the "Peabody's Improbable History" cartoon segment. The machine was invented by Mr. Peabody, a genius, polymath, and bow tie-wearing beagle, as a birthday gift for his adopted pet boy, Sherman. By allowing them to visit famous historical people or events, the Wayback provided educational adventures for Sherman. [3] At the request of Mr. Peabody ("Sherman, set the Wayback machine to..."), Sherman would set the Wayback controls to a time and place of historical importance, and by walking through a door in the Wayback machine, they would be instantly transported there. Examples of places or people visited are the Marquess of Queensberry [4] and the rules of boxing, the imprisonment and memoirs of Casanova, [5] and Jim Bowie and the Bowie knife. [6] The machine apparently later returned Mr. Peabody and Sherman to the present, although the return trip was never shown. The segment traditionally ended with a pun.[ citation needed ]
The Wayback has two main quirks. Firstly, it automatically translates all languages into English for their convenience. Secondly (and more critically), the historical figures and situations that they encounter are distorted in some crucial way. The main focus of the shorts is thus the restoration of historical events to their proper course, albeit in a characteristically frivolous and anachronistic way.
Either of the names Wayback or WABAC are in common usage, with the term "WAYBACK" explicitly indicated during the segment in which Mr. Peabody and Sherman visit the "Charge of the Light Brigade". [7] The precise meaning of the acronym WABAC is unknown. According to Gerard Baldwin, one of the show's directors, the name "WABAC" is a reference to the UNIVAC I. [8] Mid-century, large-sized computers often had names that ended in "AC" (generally for "Automatic/Analogue Computer" or similar), such as ENIAC or UNIVAC. The term "Wayback" suggests the common expression "way back in [some former time]".[ citation needed ]
The movie studio DreamWorks Animation announced in 2006 [9] and again in 2012 [10] that they were creating an animated movie entitled Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which was released March 7, 2014. The WABAC machine is a central element to the plot. In the movie, the acronym is revealed to be Wavelength Acceleration Bidirectional Asynchronous Controller (WABAC).
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks.
Joseph Ward Cohen Jr., also known as Jay Ward, was an American creator and producer of animated TV cartoon shows. He produced animated series based on such characters as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken. His own company, Jay Ward Productions, designed the trademark characters for the Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, and Quake breakfast cereals and it made TV commercials for those products. Ward produced the non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963) that featured comedic redubbing of silent films.
Dudley Do-Right is a fictional character created by Alex Anderson, Chris Hayward, Allan Burns, Jay Ward, and Bill Scott, who appears as the main protagonist of "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties", a segment on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Walter Tetley was an American actor specializing in child impersonation during radio's classic era, with regular roles as Leroy Forrester on The Great Gildersleeve and Julius Abbruzzio on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, as well as continuing as a voice-over artist in animated cartoons, commercials, and spoken-word record albums. He is perhaps best known as the voice of Sherman in the Jay Ward-Bill Scott Mr. Peabody TV cartoons.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is a 2000 American live-action/animated adventure slapstick comedy film directed by Des McAnuff and produced by Universal Pictures, based on the television cartoon of the same name by Jay Ward. Animated characters Rocky and Bullwinkle share the screen with live actors portraying Fearless Leader, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale along with Randy Quaid, Piper Perabo, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. June Foray reprised her role as Rocky, while Keith Scott voiced Bullwinkle and the film's narrator. It also features cameo appearances by performers including James Rebhorn, Paget Brewster, Janeane Garofalo, John Goodman, David Alan Grier, Don Novello, Jon Polito, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Max Grodenchik, Norman Lloyd, Jonathan Winters and Billy Crystal. The film follows a young rookie FBI agent named Karen Sympathy enlisting the help of Rocky and Bullwinkle to stop Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader from taking over the United States.
Hector J. Peabody, simply referred to as Mr. Peabody, is an anthropomorphic cartoon dog who appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s television animated series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, produced by Jay Ward. Peabody appeared in the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments created by Ted Key, and was voiced by Bill Scott. In 2014, he was featured in a computer-animated film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman. From 2015 to 2017, he appeared in a television series based on the film.
William John Scott was an American voice actor, writer and producer for animated cartoons, primarily associated with Jay Ward and UPA, as well as one of the founding members of ASIFA-Hollywood. He is probably best known as the head writer, co-producer and the voice of several characters from the popular programs Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.
Boris Badenov is an antagonist character in the 1959–1964 animated series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, so often appearing with his devious accomplice, Natasha Fatale, that the two are usually grouped together, as Boris and Natasha. He was originally voiced by Paul Frees. The character was created by Bill Scott, who based his appearance on that of Gomez Addams.
Bullwinkle J. Moose is a fictional character and one of the two main protagonists of the 1959–1964 ABC network animated television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, often collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle, produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. When the show changed networks in 1961, the series moved to NBC and was retitled The Bullwinkle Show, where it stayed until 1964. It then returned to ABC, where it was in repeats for nine more years. It has been in syndication ever since.
Jay Ward Productions, Inc. is an American animation studio based in Costa Mesa, California. It was founded in 1948 by American animator Jay Ward. As of 2022, the studio was headed by Ward's daughter, Tiffany Ward, and granddaughter, vice president Amber Ward.
Wayback may refer to:
Mr. Peabody & Sherman is a 2014 American animated science fiction comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation, PDI/DreamWorks, and Bullwinkle Studios, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film is based on characters from the Peabody's Improbable History segments of the animated television series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. It was directed by Rob Minkoff and produced by Alex Schwartz and Denise Nolan Cascino, from a screenplay by Craig Wright. Tiffany Ward, daughter of series co-creator Jay Ward, served as executive producer. Mr. Peabody & Sherman features the voices of Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Ariel Winter, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, and Allison Janney. In the film, Mr. Peabody (Burrell) and his adoptive human son Sherman (Charles) use the WABAC to embark on time travel adventures. When Sherman accidentally rips a hole by taking the WABAC without permission to impress Penny Peterson (Winter), they must find themselves to repair history and save the future.
Alexander Hume Anderson Jr. was an American cartoonist who created the characters of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right, as well as Crusader Rabbit. He was not directly involved in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, however.
"Jet Fuel Formula" is the first and the longest Rocky and Bullwinkle story arc and is the pilot of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. It is also noteworthy in that it established most of the characters, themes, running gags, and other elements that would be employed in later stories and that would become so closely identified with the Rocky and Bullwinkle programs in the years since. The first few episodes contained a laugh track, which was removed when the episodes were released as part of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends Complete Season 1.
"Upsidaisium" is the first story arc from the second season of Rocky and His Friends. With 36 segments it was the second-longest of all Rocky and Bullwinkle story arcs, and concerns Rocky and Bullwinkle's efforts to reclaim Bullwinkle's Uncle's Upsidaisium mine. It was broadcast on ABC during the 1960–1961 television season on Sundays, concurrently with Metal-Munching Mice on Thursdays.
Joaquin Rudolfo Zamora was a Mexican-American animator and a prolific animation director. His credits include The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, The Biskitts, Peanuts, and many others.
The Bullwinkle and Rocky Role-Playing Party Game is a role-playing game published by TSR in 1988. It is based on characters and settings from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show is an American animated streaming television series produced by DreamWorks Animation and Bullwinkle Studios. The series is based on "Peabody's Improbable History", the 1960s segments that aired as part of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, and the 2014 film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which was also produced by DreamWorks Animation. The series premiered on October 9, 2015, on Netflix. The second season was released on March 18, 2016. The third season was released on October 21, 2016. The fourth season was released on April 21, 2017. The series was removed from Netflix on April 21, 2023.
Rocky and Bullwinkle is a 2014 American computer-animated direct-to-video short film based on the 1960s animated television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The short was directed by Gary Trousdale, while Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon were the writers. June Foray reprises her role as Rocky in her final voice role before her death on July 26, 2017, while Tom Kenny voices Bullwinkle. Originally planned as a theatrical short to accompany with Mr. Peabody & Sherman, it was released on October 14, 2014, on the Blu-ray 3D of the film.
On another note, we got a nice letter from the last living director of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Gerard Baldwin, because he read about the "fantastic project". Our Wayback Machine is a tribute to their more cleverly named "WABAC Machine" which in turn was a reference to the Univac. Sherman and Peabody live on.