Mister Peabody - Background

Background

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. 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!!"