MovieChat Forums > Rocky and His Friends (1959) Discussion > Did WABAC machine alter history?

Did WABAC machine alter history?

posted 14 years ago by fubleduck
3 replies | jump to latest

Think about it. Peabody & Sherman use the WABAC to visit a moment in history(invention/discovery/ect) that's pressumed to be a historical done deal. No sooner do they get there/then, circumstances are such that said history can only come to pass via intervention from Peabody & Sherman. This side of the "4th Wall", it's easy to see why-there would be no show. But every time travel story has it's anomalies, & it's always fun to ponder back stories to 2 dimentional shows. In Emmetbrowneze, does the arrival from the WABAC cause a rift in the Space/Time continuum that must be rectified? Would the egotistical Peabody "own up", or would he spin to save face?

A possible time-travel parallel could be some of the Star Treck movies, In the latest, an old Spock from the future told a young Scotty from the past that he invented trans-warp beaming. Of coarse, this was an already altered history after/before the supernova. The other possible analogy could be STIV The Voyage Home, when Bones & Scotty gave the polymer company CEO the formula for transparent aluminum. He was the one who invented the thing to begin with. Could be something like an ontological paradox.

At any rate, PIH seems to have its own unique "rules" as a time travel show

Kyle: It's bigger than Cartman's @$$!
Eric: No it isn't you guys

[–] strntz 11 years ago

Yeah, that's something that occurred to me as a young'n in the 60s, but this became ever so more apparent later as time travel shows (particularly Back To The Future movies) would point out that anything done in the past would alter the future, but the WABAC machine took that one step farther in screwing up the past in some way as Sherman and Peabody simply arrived.

[–] dnmotley-635-631172 9 years ago

In the very first Peabody, season 1, episode 1, after the duo's first, "real" visit to Benjamin Franklin is unsatisfactory, Peabody takes a wrench to the WABAC and says, "A few more adjustments and, behold, not a time machine but a should-have-been machine." Their second visit is then much more enjoyable.

Though this should-have-been nature of their time travel would resolve the issues of it altering reality, I don't think it is ever mentioned again in the series, and perhaps awareness of it would tend to take the edge off the joke that the great figures of history needed Peabody and Sherman's help for their great moments to come out right.

[–] R_Kane (15828) 4 months ago

This topic is 1 of the very few good things that I have seen on the internet. Bravo.