Mister Peabody

Mr. Peabody is a fictional dog who appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s television animated series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show (collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle). Peabody appeared in the segments entitled Peabody's Improbable History created by Ted Key. All were Jay Ward productions.

Background

Peabody appeared in these segments alongside "his boy" Sherman (in a twist on the "boy and his dog" cliché). Peabody, who was a genius, decided to adopt Sherman so he'd have some company in his life. Sherman's personality was that of a naive but fairly bright, energetic young boy. They both wore black, over-sized horn-rimmed glasses. The voices of Peabody and Sherman were provided by Bill Scott and Walter Tetley, respectively.

In the series, Peabody constructed for his and Sherman's use the WABAC (pronounced "wayback") machine, its name also a play on early computers such as UNIVAC and ENIAC. The WABAC was a time machine which Peabody and Sherman would use to travel back in time to witness various historical events. However, on each visit, they would discover that things didn't happen the way they were supposed to (such as Paul Revere not being able to make his ride due to only having a statue of a horse instead of a real one), and would subsequently wind up working to fix whatever the problem was (using Peabody's great intellect to do so), so that history would be accurate. Mr. Peabody's technological genius also was able to tune any tongue to English. In addition to performing on-screen, Peabody would voice-over a narration of key events of each episode, as a way of moving the story along.

At the end of each episode, Peabody and Sherman would talk to each other about what had just transpired, with Peabody always offering a bad pun related to the events or people being discussed. This is similar in construction to the shaggy dog story or specifically a type of story called a feghoot. For example, when the Battle of Little Big Horn was completed, Peabody directed Sherman's attention to a hot dog vending booth and said that was the real "Custer's Last Stand".

Segments

1. Napoleon
2. Lord Nelson
3. Wyatt Earp
4. King Arthur
5. Franz Schubert
6. Lucretia Borgia
7. Sir Walter Raleigh
8. Robert Fulton
9. Annie Oakley
10. Jesse James
11. The Wright Brothers
12. George Armstrong Custer
13. Alfred Nobel
14. Marco Polo
15. Richard The Lionhearted
16. Don Juan
17. William Tecumseh Sherman
18. First Kentucky Derby
19. P. T. Barnum
20. Stanley and Livingstone
21. Louis Pasteur
22. Robin Hood
23. Robinson Crusoe
24. Juan Ponce De Leon
25. John L. Sullivan
26. Leonardo Da Vinci
27. Paul Revere
28. Confucius
29. Nero
30. Francis Scott Key
31. Captain Matthew Clift
32. Balboa
33. Peter Cooper
34. The Battle of Bunker Hill
35. The Pony Express
36. Stephen Decatur
37. Alexander Graham Bell
38. Robert Peary
39. Pancho Villa
40. Lord Francis Douglas
41. Sitting Bull
42. Christopher Columbus
43. The French Foreign Legion
44. Guglielmo Marconi
45. Scotland Yard
46. John Holland
47. Louis XVI
48. Francisco Pizzaro
49. Daniel Boone
50. William Shakespeare
51. Zebulon Pike
52. The first golf match
53. William Tell
54. James Whistler
55. Ferdinand Magellan
56. Sir Isaac Newton
57. Kit Carson
58. The first caveman
59. Johann Gutenberg
60. Buffalo Bill Cody
61. Hans Christian Oersted
62. Leif Ericcson
63. John Sutter
64. Ludwig van Beethoven
65. Calamity Jane
66. The surrender of Cornwallis
67. The first Indian nickel
68. Jules Verne
69. Casanova
70. Lawrence Of Arabia
71. Bonnie Prince Charlie
72. Geronimo
73. Paul Reuter
74. The Great Wall of China
75. The Marquis of Queensbury
76. Jim Bowie
77. Edgar Allan Poe
78. Charge of the Light Brigade
79. The Royal Mounted Police
80. The first bullfight
81. The building of the Great Pyramid
82. James John Audubon
83. Mata Hari
84. Galileo Galilei
85. Wellington at Waterloo
86. Florence Nightingale
87. Henry The Eighth
88. The first Indianapolis Auto Race
89. Captain Kidd
90. The Texas Rangers
91. Cleopatra

References

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entryid=362824 Dreamworks to bring Mr. Peabody & Sherman to the big screen.

External links

• Toonopedia entry on Peabody's Improbable History