Mister Peabody

Mister Peabody
Rocky and His Friends character
Created by	Jay Ward
Portrayed by	Bill Scott
Information
Species	Dog
Gender	Male
Nationality	American

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 produced by Jay Ward, collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle. Peabody appeared in the Peabody's Improbable History segments created by Ted Key, and was voiced by Bill Scott.

Background

Sherman and Mr. Peabody enter the WABAC machine

Mister Peabody always appears in these segments accompanied by "his boy" Sherman (in a twist on the hackneyed concept of "a boy and his dog"). Hector Peabody is a genius who adopted Sherman for company. Sherman is a naive but fairly bright, inquisitive, earnest and energetic lad who's always one step behind getting his friend's dreadful puns. In appearance, Peabody is a small white dog with floppy ears who wears a bow tie. Sherman is always in need of having his hair combed. He wears a white tee-shirt and dark shorts. Each character wears a pair of oversized horn-rimmed glasses.

The voices of Peabody and Sherman were provided by Bill Scott and Walter Tetley, respectively.

Bill Scott's vocal inspiration was the carefully modulated, precisely clipped speaking pattern of Clifton Webb, especially in his Mr. Belvedere characterization. This is further indicated by Mr. Peabody's bowtie, an article of clothing always worn by Belvedere in the three films Webb starred in.

Each episode of "Peabody's Improbable History" begins with the dog's greeting, "Peabody here." The premise each week was to introduce Sherman to real history. For that purpose, Peabody has constructed the WABAC (pronounced "wayback") machine. The WABAC is a take-off on early computer acronyms such as UNIVAC and ENIAC. The WABAC is a time machine used by Peabody and Sherman to travel back in time and witness various historical events.

Peabody always narrates key background events as he and Sherman whiz back in time. This not only moved the story along, it saved a great deal of work for the animator and a lot of money for the sponsor. Upon arrival at any place on the globe, Peabody's technological genius is able to tune in on any language and convert it to English, thus saving the expense and distraction of inserting subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

The episode "Show Opening" outlines Peabody's life including his adoption of Sherman. Peabody realizes that boys need running room and so invents the WABAC as a birthday gift for Sherman. He and Sherman then go back in time to see a Roman speaking in Latin; Peabody then adds a translator circuit to the machine so that everyone seems to speak English and see the Roman again finding out he is a used chariot salesman. Their next trip is to see Ben Franklin flying his kite but find out they cannot interact with the past so Peabody makes some more adjustments turning the WABAC from time machine into a "should have been machine".

This results in the past they visit being totally cockeyed. For example, Paul Revere is unable to make his famous ride through Boston because his horse is actually a statue. In another trip Robin Hood has suffered a head injury causing him to behave the opposite of normal—shooting bows (rather than arrows) at peasants and wanting to steal from the poor so as to give to the rich. Anachronisms also abound such as in a visit with Nero where he plays on a violin (unknown in the West until the 9th century) and Vasco Núñez de Balboa knowing about Lake Erie. Also, many times historical figures are portrayed as not being too bright such as the case with Peter Cooper and the Tom Thumb race where in addition to having to deal with another train (the 502 from Denver) coming the other way they have to overcome the obstacles of the 50% tunnel (so named because it's only half finished) and 50% bridge (so named because the plans are only half finished). Employing various strategies, Peabody, assisted by Sherman, always finds a way to fix the problems though not always in a manner true to the historical record. In the "Galileo" episode, Sherman travels alone, due to Mr. Peabody being sick.

At the end of each episode, Peabody and Sherman discuss the event they just witnessed, with Peabody always offering a bad pun related to the occurrence or the people just encountered. The construction of the short but convoluted episodes leading to a terrible pun have been compared to that of a shaggy dog story or specifically a type of story called a feghoot.

The tortured construction of a particularly bad pun was Mr Peabody's signature ending. For example, when the Battle of Little Big Horn is completed, Peabody directs Sherman's attention to a hot dog vendor and his pushcart at Little Big Horn, taking care to mention that this was really "Custer's Last Stand". At the end of an episode about the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Peabody asks Sherman if he was familiar with the heroic rooster who foiled the plans of and apprehended British loyalists. When Sherman replies that he's never heard of such a thing, Peabody casually answers, "What, Sherman? You've never heard of chicken cacciatore?" – enunciated as "Chicken, catch a Tory". Sherman's inevitable response at such puns is rolling his eyes in disgust, often accompanied by the catchphrase: "Oh, Mister Peabody!!"

Segments

1. Napoleon
2. Lord Nelson
3. Wyatt Earp
4. King Arthur
5. Franz Schubert
6. Lucrezia 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 León
25. John L. Sullivan
26. Leonardo da Vinci
27. Paul Revere
28. Confucius
29. Nero
30. Francis Scott Key
31. Captain Matthew Webb
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 Pizarro
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. Johannes Gutenberg
60. Buffalo Bill Cody
61. Hans Christian Oersted
62. Leif Ericson
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 Marquess 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. John James 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

Adaptations

Films

Main article: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

An animated feature film based on the characters of Mister Peabody and Sherman has been in development at DreamWorks Animation at least since 2007. The feature is being directed by Rob Minkoff, who is famous for co-directing The Lion King for Disney. In January 2011, it was announced that a 3-D computer animated film titled Mr. Peabody & Sherman will be released on March 14, 2014. Robert Downey, Jr. was announced to voice Mr. Peabody, but in March 2012, he was replaced by Ty Burrell. Max Charles, the actor who plays young Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man will voice Sherman. In June 2012, it was reported that Mr. Peabody & Sherman's release date has been moved up to November 8, 2013. Stephen Colbert will voice Paul Peterson, Mr. Peabody's nemesis; Ellie Kemper will voice Peterson's wife, Paula, and Ariel Winter their daughter Penny. Also joining the cast are Allison Janney and Stephen Tobolowsky. In September 2012, the release date has been moved up for a week to November 1, 2013. In February 2013, the release date was delayed again to March 7, 2014. The film is being produced by Alex Schwarz and Denise Cascino, while it is being written by Craig Wright.

The film will feature Mr. Peabody, a talking dog who is the smartest being in the world, and his "pet" boy Sherman. When Sherman's use of their time traveling WABAC machine results in disastrous and comical results, it is up to them to put things on track before the space-time continuum is irreparably destroyed.

Appearances

Television shows

• In The Simpsons, fifth Halloween Special (Treehouse of Horror V), in the Time and Punishment episode, Homer finds himself able to travel through time by means of a magic toaster and comes across Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The characters Kang and Kodos later take on Peabody's and Sherman's appearances due to Homer's meddling with the timestream.

• In Time Squad, the character Otto is modeled off of Sherman.

• In Family Guy, episode The Kiss Seen Around the World, Peter and Brian travel back in time to see Christopher Columbus. The two don similar looks to Sherman and Mister Peabody; the flashback also parodies the format of the show, with the two going back in time and Brian (the dog) teaching Peter (the human).

Tribute

• The 1985 film Back to the Future had a character named Otis Peabody and a son named Sherman, which was tribute to the animated characters. Unlike the famed duo, this Sherman and Mr. Peabody are hostile towards Marty and his time travel.

External links

• Peabody's Improbable History on Toonopedia
• Mister Peabody at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Peabody's Improbable History at the Big Cartoon DataBase