Mr. Peabody

Peabody's Improbable History

Mr. Peabody is depicted as the smartest being in existence, having graduated from Harvard at age three ("Wagna cum laude") and achieving success as a business magnate, inventor, scientist, Nobel laureate, gourmand, and two-time Olympic medalist. In the first episode, he meets an orphan named Sherman, voiced by Walter Tetley, rescues him from bullies, and adopts him after a court appearance involving the President and the government. Peabody invents the Wayback Machine, which he upgrades, and he and Sherman travel through time to meet various historical figures and assist with their problems.

Each installment ends with Peabody delivering a pun related to the time-traveling trip, such as "Marie Antoinette could have avoided trouble by making an edict for the people to eat cake, but she could not have her cake and edict too." The 91 episodes aired in 1959 and 1960, covering figures like Napoleon, Lord Nelson, Wyatt Earp, King Arthur, Franz Schubert, Lucrezia Borgia, Sir Walter Raleigh, Robert Fulton, Annie Oakley, Jesse James, the Wright Brothers, George Armstrong Custer, Alfred Nobel, Marco Polo, Richard the Lionhearted, Don Juan, William Tecumseh Sherman, the First Kentucky Derby, P. T. Barnum, Stanley and Livingstone, Louis Pasteur, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, Ponce de León, Leonardo da Vinci, John L. Sullivan, Paul Revere, Confucius, Nero, Captain Matthew Clift, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Peter Cooper, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Pony Express, Stephen Decatur, Alexander Graham Bell, Commander Peary, Pancho Villa, Lord Francis Douglas, Sitting Bull, Christopher Columbus, the French Foreign Legion, Guglielmo Marconi, Scotland Yard, John Holland, Louis XVI, Francisco Pizarro, Daniel Boone, William Shakespeare, Zebulon Pike, the First Golf Match, William Tell, James McNeill Whistler, Ferdinand Magellan, Ludwig van Beethoven, Calamity Jane, Cornwallis' Surrender, the First Indian Nickel, Jules Verne, Casanova, Lawrence of Arabia, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Paul Reuter, Johannes Gutenberg, Buffalo Bill, Hans Christian Ørsted, Leif Ericson, John Sutter, Sir Isaac Newton, Kit Carson, and the First Caveman.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman (film)

An animated feature film based on the characters was in development at DreamWorks Animation from 2007, directed by Rob Minkoff, known for co-directing The Lion King. Initially announced for release on March 14, 2014, with Robert Downey Jr. as Mr. Peabody, the role was later given to Ty Burrell in March 2012. Max Charles, who played young Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, voiced Sherman. The release date was moved to November 8, 2013, then to November 1, 2013, before finally settling on March 7, 2014.

The film focused on Mr. Peabody and Sherman's personal lives, leading to time-traveling mishaps with the WABAC machine that threaten the space-time continuum. Unlike the original show, Mr. Peabody treats Sherman as a beloved son adopted as an infant, the machine has an autonomous aircraft function, and a third character, Penny, is introduced as Sherman's rival and later best friend and love interest.

The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show

In October 2015, Netflix launched an animated series where the genius dog Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman host a talk show for historical figures. The show blends the hand-drawn look and humor of the original 1960s shorts with ideas from the 2014 movie. Chris Parnell provides Mr. Peabody’s voice, while Max Charles returns as Sherman. Viewers learn more about Peabody’s background: his foster parents show up in season one’s ninth episode, and his distant Uncle Duke appears in a time-travel story during season four’s sixth episode.

Other appearances

In the "Time and Punishment" segment of The Simpsons' fifth Treehouse of Horror special, Homer Simpson uses a magic toaster to travel through time and declares himself the first non-Brazilian to do so. He then runs into Mr. Peabody, voiced by Dan Castellaneta, and Sherman, voiced by Nancy Cartwright. Peabody corrects Homer, saying he is actually the second, and when Sherman agrees, Peabody tells him to be quiet. Later, Kang and Kodos appear as Peabody and Sherman, though still in their helmets and with tentacles, because of Homer's interference with the timeline.

In Time Squad, Otto is based on Sherman and Larry partly on Peabody. The Family Guy episode "The Kiss Seen Around the World" has Peter and Brian Griffin traveling back to see Christopher Columbus, with Brian playing Mr. Peabody and Peter playing Sherman, parodying the show's format. A dog that looks like Mr. Peabody appears as a racer in the Wander Over Yonder episode "The Time Bomb." Peabody and Sherman make a brief cameo in the first chapter of Moosebumps! within The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The 1985 film Back to the Future includes a 1955 character named Otis Peabody with a son named Sherman, a nod to the duo, but they are hostile toward Marty McFly, mistaking him for an alien and his DeLorean for a spaceship. The Wayback Machine on archive.org takes its name from Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine. In Fred Perry's Gold Digger comic series, a recurring villain, Dr. Alfred Peachbody, and his trained attack-boy Benji try to alter history, first appearing to sabotage the inventor of the dog whistle; they also appear in a crossover with Ben Dunn's Ninja High School.