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The Wayback machine originally referred to a fictional machine from a segment of the cartoon The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show used to transport Mr. Peabody and Sherman back in time. The term "Wayback Machine" has been enthusiastically adopted by popular culture as mechanism to suggest transporting one's thoughts back to a historical time and place.
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The WABAC machine on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
| “ | Sherman, set the WABAC machine to ... | ” |
The WABAC (pronounced "wayback") machine was from the Peabody's Improbable History segment of the early '60's cartoon series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The machine was constructed by Mr. Peabody, a professorial, bow tie-wearing dog, to be able to visit famous historical events. At the request of Mr. Peabody, Sherman, Peabody's "pet boy" assistant, would set the WABAC machine to a time and place of historical importance, and the two would be instantly transported there. The machine was not exactly a time machine because it only transported backwards in time, hence the name "Wayback Machine." The machine apparently later returned Mr. Peabody and Sherman to the present, although the return trip was never shown in the cartoon segment. The machine was little more than a plot device to allow the characters to visit the past.
The name WABAC is a play on computer names such as UNIVAC and ENIAC that were contemporary to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and the WABAC machine was similar in size to those early computers.
The Wayback Machine will no doubt be a key component of a new computer animated feature film by DreamWorks Animation featuring Mr. Peabody and Sherman.[1]
The Wayback Machine in popular culture
The concept or term "Wayback Machine" has been extensively adopted in popular culture as a convenient way to introduce issues or events of the past and to suggest the audience follow the narrator back to the past. Frequently such visits to the past are trips of nostalgia, remembering times, places, or things of the not-so-distant past.[2] Similar to the original Wayback Machine experience, in such visits of nostalgia there is no need to describe the return trip to the present.
Examples
- In the TV show "NewsRadio" (Goofy Ball (1995)): Station owner Jimmy James (Stephen Root): Dave, don't mess with a man with a Wayback Machine. I can make it so you were never born.[1]
- In the movie Tron (1982): Fired programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges): Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for...oh, 1973.[2]
- In Law and Order: Criminal Intent (Legacy, first run Aug. 3, 2008): an extra playing a computer tech uses the "Wayback Machine," a reference to archive.org, to find an archive of a students Facebook style website.
- In the influential Asinine skit, "The Wayback Machine," a character requests that his friend be his 'time-buddy' should he ever travel from the future and need to convince someone of his circumstances. He subsequently tests his friend's resolve regarding this promise, with hilarious results.
Wayback Machine at Internet Archive
The Internet Archive (archive.org) has capitalized on the popular use of the term "Wayback Machine" and uses this term as the name for the snapshot archives of the World Wide Web.[3] This service allows users to see archived versions of web pages of the past—what the Archive calls a "three dimensional index". Not all webpages are available, however, because many website owners voluntarily exclude their sites. The use of the term "Wayback Machine" in the context of the Internet Archive has become so common that "Wayback Machine" and "Internet Archive" are almost synonymous.
See also
External links
- Toonopedia entry on Peabody's Improbable History
- Andy's Anachronisms: Time Travel Television Reviews: Peabody's Improbable History
- The Wayback Machine at archive.org
References
- ^ Briscoe, Tim (September 15, 2006). "Mr. Peabody and Sherman take the Wayback Machine to the big screen". Videoeta.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
"DreamWorks Animation and Director Rob Minkoff Team Up to Bring 'Mr. Peabody & Sherman' to the Big Screen". DreamWorks Animation (September 15, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-06-25. - ^ Miller, Ernest (24 September). "Sherman, Set the Wayback Machine for Scientology" (Blog). LawMeme. Yale Law School. Retrieved on 2007-06-27.
Robinson, Eugene (September 5, 2006). "Who Set the Wayback Machine for 1939?", Washington Post. Retrieved on 25 June 2007.
Britt, Robert Roy (July 25, 2005). "The Wayback Machine? Nearby Solar System Looks Like Home". Space.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
Mallozzi, Vincent M. (April 6, 2007). "A Jukebox Is a Way-Back Machine With Black Vinyl Wings", The New York Times. Retrieved on 25 June 2007.
Smith, Sam (April 26, 2007). "Condi’s way-back machine". Scholars and Rogues. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
Clark, Mike (April 12, 2004). "Wayback machine puts out plenty of time-travel movies", USA Today. Retrieved on 25 June 2007.
Bronson, Peter (June 21, 2007). "Who misses 'Miami Vice' '80s? College kids, of all people". The Enquirer. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
Gonos, David (November 9, 2006). "Pitching to be your keepers". CBS Sportsline. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
Morris, Chris (May 10, 2005). "Pac Man turns 25: A pizza dinner yields a cultural phenomenon - and millions of dollars in quarters.", CNN Money. Retrieved on 25 June 2007. - ^ Green, Heather (February 28, 2002). "A Library as Big as the World: Brewster Kahle has the technology to assemble the ultimate archive of human knowledge. What's stopping him? Restrictive copyright laws", Business Week Online. Retrieved on 25 June 2007.
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