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Time Travel Match's Ritalyn Reading Room™
PEABODY: Upon arriving in 1995, we discovered that there was
a certain amount of competition for the job of saving the Grudge
Match. Particularly troublesome was Doc Brown, who turned out to be
the same person as Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and
unsuccessfully attempted to "dip" us.
- Captain Corcoran - Walter Tetley, voice of Sherman, played two small parts on Stan Freberg's United States of America album. And you thought Python trivia was the geekiest info around... Sherman & Peabody win for three simple reasons:
Oh well anyway, I can't be sure, but some whacked out dude name Steve said he had this other guy Brian who helped him make this site. And then he said they were attacked by this dude with a tall, black, square turban and a red robe. He said the attacker was rattling on and on about some bald French captain, crimes of humanity, and being insulted by their pitting him against some crusty old wizard and a black helmeted guy with a scorching case of asthma, some rottweilers, and about a half dozen other weirdos. Anyway, I did the caring, compassionate thing.... gave this Steve dude some milk and cookies to calm his nerves. And while he was nervously munching them down (all the while constantly looking over his shoulder as if that red-robed dude was after him), I made a friendly phone call to the nice fellows with the white suits and respectfully requested that they come pick up their stray, post-haste..... He also kept calling me "Genius"... never could figure out why..... so I did feel a little badly for snitching on him.......
- The Genius Formerly (and Still) Known as Eddie This is a match with three very solid competitors on a noble mission - saving the Grudge Match that we all know and love. However, only one of these fine teams can win. In this case, that honor belongs to Team Gallifrey. Compare the contenders and you'll see why. Mr. Peabody and Sherman: While these characters were considered witty, satirical, cool, and a bit smart for their show, they are still cartoon characters. Therefore, they will have some difficulty dealing with the non-cartoon world, an area where such characters usually have trouble. Plus, this is 1995 Cornell University. A talking cartoon dog would merely be considered a hallucination (especially by the late Carl Sagan, who would have sworn off pot on the spot if he saw Mr. Peabody walking the halls.) Plus, you have Sherman, who is a very dumb assistant - not someone you want on an important mission. Marty McFly and Doc Brown: A very cool team indeed. Doc Brown was played by no less than the same Christopher Lloyd who played Rev. Jim Ignatowski (a Grudge Match veteran). Marty is a decent, likeable guy. And they also have a cool car/time machine. But, when it comes to actually saving the timelines, it is always a close-won, by-the- skin-of-the-teeth thing with this team (as anyone who has seen the "Back to the Future" movies knows) This is likely the result of their lack of experience in time travel (they only made three trips). Dr. Who and Romana: This is the team that will win! There are several reasons. First of all, they will have tons of allies, including the vast Internet Dr. Who fandom, past regenerations of the Doctor, and a platoon worth of assistants. No one else comes close in this regard. Then there is experience. In this area, the good Doctor is untouchable. The Dr. Who franchise lasted nearly 30 years on TV and would have made it and still remain on the air if it wasn't for the BBC screwing things up. Add to that the vast quantity of fan and professional written fiction concerning our man from Gallifrey, and it is apparent that the Doctor and Romana will win this without breaking a sweat. Finally, let me unveil a brand new factor that can be applied in this case - the Demented Astronomer Meeting factor. By this criterion, there is no doubt that Team Gallifrey will win. Since Mr. Peabody and Sherman are cartoons, there is no way I can meet them. I have never met Michael J. Fox or Christopher Lloyd. But I *have* met people involved in the Dr. Who franchise - a Doctor (#5 - Colin Baker), several assistants (Leela, Nyssa, Turlow, and Romana #2 who was played by Lalla Ward), and Jon Nathan Turner, who was the producer of the series at the time. And that is more than enough to earn points in my book. How it will all go down is that the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 will discover why the Grudge Match disappeared, who was responsible, foil their evil plan, and save the timeline while the other teams are still trying to get their acts together. - The Demented Astronomer Are you kidding me?! Nolo contendere! I'm surprised you invested the commentators' time and your web host's Kb in such an obviously one-sided tilt. Although I will admit you've thrown your constituency a rather tricky Uncle Charlie(tm) by providing three contestants capable of time travel rather than a more manageable two, it is still a walk-over for one of the participants. BTW, the cop-out "it never happened" voting option overlooks the fact that none of the contestants would EVER give up. If someone went back in time to erase the contest from existence, someone else would go further back and prevent the interference, etc. ad infinitum. Your minions are grappling with the mind-numbing plethora of time leaps forward, backwards, inside-out and up-side-down . . . I mean there could be innumerable permutations of events that happen, then never happened, are undone or God-knows-what-all! But most of the voters will overlook the obvious advantage McFly has by leveraging his clever assistant, Jim Ignatows . . . ummm, I mean Dr. Brown. My initial, gut reaction to this match was to crown The Dog and His Pet Kid the champs because, as Steve so observantly pointed out, Mr. Peabody has successfully practiced revisionist history in virtually every age. But, Mr. Peabody is limited by his equipment. His WayBack machine (the makers of which I believe WWWF owes some sort of naming-rights royalties to) is a static device. It never changes. Oh, it works just fine and dandy, but the technology never improves. Dr. Who suffers from this same indignity. Effective as this plucky Brit can be, his technology is stagnant. Doc Brown, OTOH, improvised technology during every adventure. From harnessing the energy of a bolt of lightening, to the disgustingly handy Mr. Fusion upgrade, to the supercharged locomotive, Iggy. . . errr, The Doc displayed an uncanny ability to adapt technology to any situation. Or as Mr. Peabody might put it, Technology on the McFly(tm). So McFly and his genius sidekick take a quick side trip to, oh 2010 and confiscate some hydrogen powered, time-continuum contraption and reenter the fray armed to the teeth with new technology. And Dr. Who, Mr. Peabody and even young Sherman all said, "I hate manure." - The Mile High Think Tank in Denver The answer to this match rests on who it is that has a reason to destroy the Grudge Match. This is obviously the group that has been repeatedly humiliated by Grudge Match, not only can they never win but their enemies seem to be unable to lose. I am of course refering to the one the only STAR TREK. Let's look at the history here. Khan vs. Luthor, Khan wins, this makes Kirk and Co think they have a chance to be a contender on this then upstart site. They brashly challenge the Death Star and are destroyed. Next we have the red-shirted ensigns vs storm troopers. The troopers that can't even hit the side of a barn from the inside somehow manage to finish the ensigns. Their lone non-red-shirted ensign Wesley can't even hold his own against a big purple dinosaur and is promptly killed, (ok maybe this isn't a bad thing) Worf gets crushed by Chewbacca, Deep Space 9 is eliminated by Babylon 5, Voyager loses to Battlestar Galactica 7 of 9 loses to Leia and Ivanova, and in the mean-time the Borg and Q are kicking respective butts. All this one-sided destruction on the part of Star Trek has been held in long enough. They feel that the only way to regain face is to stop grudge match from ever happening, maybe also setting up a pro- trekkie grudge match in it's place, we'll see. Anyway With that in mind it's time to look at the contestants this week. First off Doctor Who: This show could give Kirk et al a run for their money in the bad acting department. I admit to only seeing two shows of this so I'm nowhere close to an expert, but when they travel to another planet on the whim of a random guy who just appears in the middle of a battle field and tells them flat out that he's too scared to go after them himself, you have to wonder about their sanity. However this kind of stuff happen all the time on Star Trek. What this means is that the Enterprise crew will know what to expect from these guys and wipe them out before they can take three steps. Next we have Sherman and Peabody, OK a talking dog and annoying little boy might fit in on most campuses, but we're talking about Cornell. It's very grassy, and could be seen as a dog heaven. Have you ever seen Peabody out and frolicking in the grass in any of his shows. NO!!! I give him 5 minutes before all of his pent up needs burst loose and he slips down some ravine and is lost for all time. And remember this is the place with Slope Day if he manages to avoid the ravines he'll be trampled when everyone and their brother head out to the grass and run up and down the hill. This leaves us with our winners: Marty McFly and Doc. I almost made the fatal mistake of saying the the Delorean would be out of place in Cornell, and therefore easy for the Enterprise to pick out and destroy. But then I realized that we're talking about Cornell and not a real Ivy league school like Columbia or UPenn or even Brown. the school is in Ithaca of all places. They are so far behind the times that a Delorean would probably fit right in. With the perfect camouflage Doc can whip up some device in the labs and Marty can execute it without making a complete fool of himself. With the trekkies plot defeated they can wait until the summer (June 21-June 23) to get the heck out of Ithaca, like everyone else on summer break. In conclusion the back-to-the-future-kid wins in 10 minutes, but takes 100 days to get back to his time, but the Grudge Match is saved for all. Allowing people like me to find even better ways of spending their time than doing physics homework. - thebaumbomb NNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! The distant cry is hear 'round the world. Somewhere in the dank bowels of our nation's capital, a mousey young woman is hunkered over a keyboard in her Cubicle of Death(tm). She is panting, eyes popping out of her skull. Several cubicle neighbors are hiding beneath desks or passed out from the sheer menace of the warcry from the cubicle of "that weird girl who always wears black." Her face contorts. Teeth bared, she hisses at her screen... "Nobody messes with 'Da Grudge Match." A crackling energy begins to fill the cubicle. It's a good thing that most of her coworkers are unconscious, or they would see something more frightening than Godzilla, more horrible than It, more terrifying than Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare... they would see Melanie, in the grip of The Rage(tm). The energy reaches a blinding peak, and Melanie disappeares in a flash of radiation. 1995, Ithaca In a dark basement laundry room, a light wind begins to circulate. Crumpled dryer sheets and long lost single socks begin to blow around the room in a whirlwind. A crackling fills the room, and suddenly a bright flash of light illuminates the substandard dryers. A figure stands there, looking normal but for the massive nimbus of brown/blonde hair floating around her head like a live thing. She pauses for a moment, sniffing the air. With an inhuman growl, she moves to the exit. She has only one goal: protect Brian and Steve. "Are you kidding?? Webster would kick Gary Coleman's ass!" *clicking his mouse through the latest news on the release of 'Generations'* "Brian, you could not be more wrong. I bet my geekserve group would have no trouble proving my theory." "Yeah, well, my nerdnet group would thrash your geekserve group. Maybe we should post this on the Geek/Nerd BBS..." *glances at Brian* "That's not a bad idea. Hell, maybe we could even make a webpage. I've been learning HTML-" The think tank discussion is interrupted by a scream from the end of the hall. Steve and Brian exchange a concerned glance. The floor shakes as something approaches. The door suddenly bursts open and Melanie walks in, the ground shaking mightily in her wake. Energy crackles and burns around her as The Rage(tm) fuels her intent. She sees Steve and Brian and smiles. "Grudge Match must go on!" she cries, The Rage(tm) infusing her voice with the power to shake the room. With no further ado, Brian and Steve promptly collapse dead of heart attacks. The energy slowly fades from the room. Melanie seems to shrink and her hair droops back to its normal state. She blinks at the two dead grad students lying one the floor. "Shit." A commotion fills the hallway as two figures rush to the broken door. They pause, assessing the situation. The more diminutive of the two figures tackles Melanie to the ground, holding her down as the taller of the two pulls some strange wiring out of his white coverall. "Don't let her get away, Marty. She needs to be contained." Doc pokes on end of the wires directly into an open socket, then applies the other end to a pair of small clips. Squinching his eyes shut, he touches the clips to Steve's chest. A hum is heard, Steve jumps, and a moment later he is coughing and sputtering. Doc nods to Marti. "Go on, take her to the Delorian. We'll get her back to her time." Marty and Doc, ten minutes before they left 1995, Ithaca (two days later) "Man, she was scary. That was some rage she had going." "Steve, man, that wasn't just rage, that was The Rage(tm)." *pauses for dramatic effect* "You know, I bet if Gary Coleman had The Rage(tm), he could slaughter Webster." "Dream on, Steve..." 2002, DC A serene (if somewhat sheepish) Melanie clicks to the Grudge Match page to check out the latest fight. Cubicle neighbors look on in worry, breathing a sigh of relief as Melanie chuckles and mutters "Man, I love those Chihuahuas..." - love, Melanie Presented for your approval: The Low Down(tm). Points of analysis for Marty McFly: Mentos Level Coolness(tm), Parkinson's Disease, the ability to summon the powers of the Almighty Mayor of New York. 1. Marty's coolness will unfortunately be canceled out by the Mentos Level Coolness(tm) bestowed upon our perpetrator, Stone Cold Steve Austin. (It can only be him, for he is a regular character on that blasphemous MTV copy, and built the time machine that enabled the Mahatma Ghandi v. Genghis Khan match with his own two drunken hands.) 2. The Parkinson's Disease will be a major factor, considering he'll already be too nervous to operate the DeLorean properly. This will also decrease his fighting abilities. However, this is clearly made moot by... 3. THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK!!! (trumpeted fanfare) Nothing can stop one who has the power of this minor deity on his side. Especially considering Barry Boswick's Clark-like ageless state. The only problem is, the mayor isn't the only minor deity involved... Points of analysis for Dr. Who: status as a Time Lord, numbers, appearance on PBS. 1. I never got to watch this show, so I'm not sure, but if I'm not mistaken, his being a Time Lord makes him some sort of god. This is obviously a bonus. 2. Numbers. Lots of 'em. I never saw the show, but I did read a book about the companions, and there are loads. 3. Appearance on PBS. This, quite sadly, cancels everything else out. The only good thing about PBS is Monty Python, and even that isn't good enough to justify a win after being featured on the same channel as Barney, animals humping, and the Antiques Roadshow. (Which, by the way, is pretty good when you don't have cable and everything else is teenage pop culture crap. God, how I hate my own demographic.) Points of analysis for Sherman and Peabody: cartoon state, historical accuracy, that stupid kid. 1. Shane's arguments on this pair's two-dimensionality are moot, considering the Rocky & Bullwinkle movie in which this proved to be no issue through Disney/Pixar movie magic. (That WAS Pixar, wasn't it?) Their being cartoons is actually quite an advantage, as it entitles them to do hideously unrealistic things. (Other than, of course, travel through time and talk without the proper mouth or brain structures.) 2. The biggest problem they will encounter is the fact that they never dealt with actual history: it was always some ridiculously skewed version of it. (I don't care how inaccurate the other two were. Neither could be as bad as this.) As such, they will probably not even arrive in the correct timeline and will, because of this, save some extremely gay-ified version of the Grudge. This would be the final blow if not for... 3. That stupid kid. The cartoon was cool, but God, that kid was stupid. Considering all this, it would seem hopeless given the fact that despite Marty's slight advantage, they all seem to have failings that decide the match. But fear not! Four great heroes will step out of a telephone booth and save us all! Yes, I speak of Bill & Ted, the Excellent Adventurers, together with Rufus and Station! This team is unbeatable, period. Problem solved. After all this is done, Agent 5 from the Journeyman Project pops out of the Obscurity Dimension and arrests everyone involved, both heroes and villians, and the world may sleep soundly again. Of course, this is all useless conjecture considering the fact that the most up to date physical theories state that there are infinite universes at every point in time, and therefore Grudge Match can never be destroyed, since there will be infinite universes where they have it regardless of its status in this one, as well infinite ones where it was never there in the firstplace. (God help those poor sods.) What a complete waste of time, whatever THAT is. Here signed by the great, the incomparable, the sexy... - 007Bistromath Rufus: Bill, Ted, the world is in dire straits. Bill: Dude, I thought we were done with you, I mean we are famous rock stars now. Ted: Yea, what do you want? Rufus: There is a new deadly force. Something so powerful it threatens your existence as rock stars. Ted-Bill: What is it!!!!!!!!!! Rufus: This new force is grudge-match. I looked it up in the data bank and according to my calculations it will be much bigger and more famous then you two combined. Bill-Ted: NO WAY. Rufus: Yes way. Bill: Ok, we got it handled. Ted: Off to the phone booth. Bill and Ted set off to 1995 and stop grudge match just to have all the other would be heroes arrive as Bill and Ted attempt to stop grudge-match's existence.
Bill: Oh no dude, we are outnumbered. And so our young travelers put in a call to Rufus, have him travel and reprogram The Terminator to kill all time travelers that would interfere with Bill and Ted's destiny as rock stars. Unfortunately the Terminator kills off Bill and Ted as well since there destiny was to be dwarfed by grudge-match's awesome persona. The Terminator in desperation to complete his mission travels and kills all would be time travelers that could ever possibly effect time again. Then serves as personal servant and body guard to Dave, Steve, Shane, and all other grudge match commentators. The Terminator saves the day as the rest fail. - Heath Tindall A very interesting match. I think the best way to determine the winner would be to look at how their advantages stack up:
Problems faced Sherman & Mr. Peabody are a little better, but what was the most serious problem they ever faced? Most of the things they had to fix were problems with the famous people in question. They have never once had a case where someone was deliberately trying to destroy the future. Point Value: 1 because they didn't do more harm then good. Doctor Who, for anyone who has seen the show knows that he fixes problems like this every single day. He has the experience, the skill and coolness to take out any problem. Point value: 5
Villains Mr. Peabody did actually fight some nasty people, once in awhile. Normally he spent all his time fixing the problems of incredibly stupid historic figures who made his pet boy Sherman look like a genius. But none of these guys could travel time either. Point value: 3 Doctor Who has faced everything from petty local nobles, to gun happy soldiers, to evil geniuses, to ancient gods with bad attitudes. And he has always beaten them. Point value: 10 (it should be more but I'm trying to keep this fair)
The Setting
Allies
Movies and TV So far the totals are Marty:13 Mr. Peabody and Sherman: 3 points and Doctor Who: 29 With all this in the doctor favor I say that history will show that in two hours he had successfully diverted his incompetent competition to some distant planet where they were all killed. After that he easily defeats the villains and takes on Steve and Brian as his new sidekicks for a series of dangerous and exciting adventures that would warp both their minds to the point where Grudge Match is born. - Spamboy (I'm Pink therefore I'm Spam) Let's break this down, shall we? First off, Marty McFly. Sure, he has never failed to fix a timeline, and usually makes it better somehow. That's why he's here, right? He seems to have the advantage from the Mentos Level Cool Factor(tm), but that shall be his undoing. When the two time travelers arrive on the college campus, their first priority will be to park the Delorian. Unfortunately, since the doors open up, they will be trapped between the various cars of the students. One down, two to go. Peabody and his little friend will arrive unharmed, but ignorant of the current laws and customs. Peabody is not on a leash, and will therefore be sent to the pound. His companion/pet would try to intervene, I'm sure, but when the authorities talk to him, he will be immediately sent to a child psychologist. After all, he's an idiot kid who claims to be from an alternate time, and he is the pet of a dog. Wouldn't you lock him up? Last one. Dr. Who...is British. And we all know what happens to British people here, don't we? He'll be Force-choked by Darth Vader, and the sight of Darth Vader will bring in hordes of Warsies, who will trample what is left of the Doctor. That, or he will be forced to join the Soccer Hooligans, and will never be seen or heard from again. So Grudge Match dies? Not quite... Because of the simple fact that this match is being commented on, and that I'm writing this, means that Grudge Match is still here. Why? Because either the villains who tried to commit such an atrocity failed, or someone else stepped in. But who...? Do the words, "I'll be back" mean anything to you? You see, SKYNET found that the founders of Grudge Match were, in the future, the leaders of an organization (allied with Mr. Connor, of course) to overthrow SKYNET. The megalomaniac machine sent it's newest Terminator back in time to erase Grudge Match by any means necessary. In turn, John Connor and the Grudge Match League sent their own Terminator back in time...armed with Grudge Match Logic, meaning that the Terminator (played by Arnold, of course) has access to all of his other forms- the first and second incarnations of the Terminator, the Last Action Hero, The Running Man, the guy from Total Recall, both selves from The Sixth Day...the list goes on. So the real question is not which of the three will fix the timeline, the question is can one new-age model Terminator stand against an Army of Arnold? - ChaosWEAPON
Two hundred quatloos on Ah-nold's Ah-my! - Green Brain In every single one of their adventures, Sherman and Peabody propose to visit famous historical figures to learn a few things. But when they go there, the occurrences that they view are not what is "known history," so they "correct" history by leading the figures into doing "the right thing." It's obvious, then, that most of the events in our current history were not meant to happen, but merely happened because that's what Sherman and Peabody made them out to be. So now, Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering America instead of Leif Ericcson, John Wilkes Booth shot Abe Lincoln instead of Robert E. Lee, and Dwight Eisenhower was the 34th President instead of Mickey Rooney. If these fellas "save" Steve and Brian's hobby, then they would probably create Grudge Match, but it would be a midget- tossing Cirque du Soleil website. Marty and Doc Brown are none-too-successful, either - they merely go back in time for the hell of it, screw up something important, then go back and fix it, usually making it better than it was originally. If they save Grudge Match, it may grow so uncontrollably that it becomes a Skynet-from-Terminator type medium that turns against mankind and obliterates the Grudge Match Panel. And we wouldn't want that, would we? So this means Doctor Who would get it, except he dies nearly every chance he can get. In fact, the good doctor will probably eventually morph into his sixth incarnation and start acting all ineffectual and whiny, or his eighth incarnation, and start slapping around poor Romana, thus wasting time, and wrecking Who's chances of saving the Grudge. Because of the fact that Grudge Match must exist, and none of the travelers presented can win without messing up, only one time- traveler duo can save us now.
"Oh boy, oh boy... where am I, Al?" Suddenly, a voice rings in from elsewhere. "Brian! Brian! I want you to come look at these figures I made for the show. And I'm thinking that maybe we could get MTV to buy the rights for the whole thing! Cool, right?" Brian wanders toward his friend, although a bit more confused than usual. "I... uh... I'm not so sure about that, Steve..." So, Grudge Match is safely created on the newly-born Web, although perhaps a little more awkwardly and bumbling than before. - Charge Man The first thing that must be done when determining the winner of this match is to deduce who could possibly have been so demented as to destroy Grudge Match! What twisted mind could have plotted this???
WHAT DEMENTED BRAIN COULD HAVE DREAMED IT?!? Anyway, you get my point. Who could it be? Wanna-bees from Celebrity Death Match? Mothers who are tired of their teenage sons giggling incessantly over jokes about a Rottweiler's weight in Chiuahuahs instead of trying to get laid? Barney's corporate lawyers? Or something more sinister? That's right, a force has returned to the scene to avenge itself. Using slingshot-around-the-sun-time-travel and incredible luck, Star Trek has returned to the year 1995 and erased from existence the website that has humiliated it so many times. So, now it's up to the three diligent time travel geniuses to combat the Trek menace. This match has turned into a Back to the Future vs. Peabody vs. Who. (I dunno, versus who?) vs. Star Trek. Star Trek can't win, thus the match is reduced to a contest to see which contender can defeat Star Trek the quickest. Who is best suited for fighting off scientifically advanced opponents? (That's right.) No, I'm askin' you, WHO is best suited for fighting off scientifically advanced opponents? (Naturally!) I'M ASKIN' YOU, WHO IS... Dr. Who, with the TARDIS time travel device, restores Grudge Match to its proper place in the spacetime continuum and lays the multicolored- scarf smack down on Trek with his knowledge of how to deal with Daleks. - The Mad Josher Well, with time travel, there ALWAYS has to be a paradox. Therefore, the retro-active destruction of the Grudge Match will actually be caused by one of the contestants who are attempting to fix the problem. There's only one group that's clueless enough to do this. One group that's previously lost their time travel device to an enemy, interefered with western history, and almost wiped themselves out of history by getting their own MOM to have the hots for them. Doc and Marty. As they arrive in the future to stop history being tampered by an unknown enemy, they'll accidentally run over Steve and Brian, who are crossing the street arguing over the tactical superiority of a rottweiler vs. a rottweiler's weight in chuihuahuas. Sherman & Mr. Peabody would try to help, but Sherman gets accidently mauled to death by a large number of over-enthusiatic children who mistake him for Harry Potter, he dies screaming "MY NAME'S NOT HARRY!" Mr. Peabody gets picked up by the pound. Depending on your preference, he's either put to sleep or adopted and then "tutored" (in the Far Side (TM) sense of the word) by a family. With the future of humanity of at stake, there's only one man who can save us all. Only one man willing to go back to 1985, to prevent Doc and Marty from leaving for the future in the first place, causing the tragic deaths of Steve and Brian.
(Knock knock.) Sadly, Doctor Who, upon arrival, was killed and mugged by a newly arrived T-800 model Terminator. His mission was to preserve the timeline so as to ensure Skynet's existence. So, the Grudge Match survives, but 90% of humanity is slaughtered, killed and puree'ed by the machines. - Shadowknight We cannot determine who is most likely to save grudge match (and someone must have because--duh!--You're reading this), until we determine who is the vile perpetrator or perpetrators. So let's see: who has means, motive, opportunity? First, means. The villain must possess the ability to travel in time. This rules out any Rottweilers or English Soccer Hooligans, Vince McMahon, or Bill Gates (I think). Second, Motive. The criminal must hate Grudge Match enough to want to destroy it completely. That rules out such cosmically powerful forces as The Terminator, Mr. T or Calvin--Grudge Match has treated them too well. Finally, opportunity. Our suspect must be based in the future or present, rather than the past, or he would never even know of the existence of Grudge Match. This allows us to rule out Alexander Hartegan, from H.G. Wells "The Time Machine" and Austin Powers. Who do we know who is from the future, regularly travels in time, and has every reason to hate Grudge Match to its very core and wish to wipe out of its existence???? Who else but Star Trek????? Kirk's Enterprise, Picard's Enterprise, Janeway's Voyager, and Sisko's DS9 Space Station--all with the help of Q, still burning from his shameful loss to Emperor Palpatine--Have joined forces to destroy Grudge Match at its source! Now, How would Marty McFly and Doc Brown deal with this threat? They could not. Never mind that Marty will be too dazzled by Seven of Nine, Dax, Deanna Troi and Uhura to think straight, but he is hardly the equal of Riker, Kirk, or Odo. As for Doc Brown, well Doctor Bones, Doctor Bashir, or The Holographic Doctor wouldn't have much trouble with him. (I mean, for heaven's sake, Doc Brown lost to KRAMER as Jim Ignatowski!) Next we come to Peabody and Sherman. Peabody may be very smart, but frankly Data, Tuvok, and Spock could think circles around him. If Worf or Scotty don't simply eat him. Sherman doesn't bear consideration--I think Wesley could beat him up. Well, maybe not, but Neelix anyway. That leaves Doctor Who. Doctor Who, who has experience in fighting galaxy spanning imperialistic societies. Doctor Who, who has enough foxy women never to be distracted by breasts-in-spandex. Doctor Who, who is British, and hence able to beat the stuffings out of any Frenchman, even if he happens to command a galactic starship. There is only one real threat to Doctor Who--Q. But is he really a threat? Who was Q always afraid of on Picard's ship? Guinan! Why? Well, because she controls the Oscars, of course, guaranteeing that Star Trek will keep losing there as well. But also because she was a time traveling entity that went around meddling in other people's business, trying to fix the time line to the way she thought it would be. Ergo, the Q fear the Time Lords. Doctor Who restores the time line, in less time than it took to write this. - Elementary, Captain, Elementary We can take McFly and Dr. Brown out of the running right away. They spend most of their time running around cleaning up after McFly's own blunders or patching makeshift auto repairs; how will they be able to focus on any broader quest? Three movies (if the last one even counts) is really too small a sample-set anyway compared to Mr. Peabody's many adventures or especially the Doctor's 26-year track record. The 1995-era contest between the two remaining competitors reminds me a lot of the X-Files versus Scooby-Doo match, in that the wiser choice depends upon the true nature of the problem. If this is a matter of merely canceling a historical figure's poor decision (e.g., Sherman: "Gosh, Brian, joining the Amish sounds like a lot of fun, but wouldn't you have to give up violent fiction and computers?"), Mr. Peabody and his boy are the better candidates, as The Doctor inevitably winds up in the thick of any trouble in a 1200- mile radius, if he even arrives where and when he's supposed to be. While he and Romana waste days in the captivity of McVeigh and fellow militia members or the radical Quebec Empowerment Division (QED), the Wayback Machine crew will jump straight to the task. Further, this "WWWF now encompassing virtually every medium" smells a lot like product placement, a la "All restaurants are Taco Bell" in Demolition Man, and Dr. Who is a creature of non- commercial PBS broadcasts. On the other hand, if this is an epic confrontation against a force Ripping The Fabric Of Space-Time Itself, the situation really calls for a pair with Gallifreyan expertise and equipment. Also listed as assets are the TARDIS as an unassailable base-of-operations and the nine-lives factor of the regenerating Time Lords. So, due to incomplete information, this comes down to a draw. If forced to break the tie, I'd go with the Rocky and Bullwinkle refugees, just because their soundtrack would be vastly superior: Sherman inspired the name of "Herman and the Hermits" (band members joked their lead looked like Sherman, but got the name slightly wrong), and I'll take "I'm Henry the Eighth I Am" over cheesy bargain- basement BBC synthesizers any day. Let's go with the right British Invasion music, shall we? - Matt Bricker Sherman: Gosh, Mr. Peabody, what's Grudge Match? Mr. Peabody: Grudge Match, Sherman, was the dominant entertainment industry of the early 21st century. From humble Internet beginnings, it grew to encompass virtually every medium, making billionaires of its founders. And it all began on an ordinary college campus. Sherman: That'd be interesting to see, except every time we visit history, something's always going wrong. Mr. Peabody: And we always put it right, Sherman. I'll just set the Wayback Machine to 1995...
Mr. Peabody (Voiceover): And so we arrived in lovely Ithaca, where we
perchance to wander onto the Cornell campus. As we walked, I noticed
two distraught students...
Doc Brown: Great Scott! We're almost too late! Peabody Voiceover: Our compatriots from the DeLorean thus began a campus-wide search for clues as to the server's disappearance. As they walked off, Sherman and I decided to ask questions to the founders of Grudge Match.
Sherman: Golly gee, what kind of website was it gonna be, Mr. Levine?
Steve: What the?!?!
Boris: Hah! The funny haired one is not going to bother us now! Narrator: AS BORIS AND NATASHA PLOTTED THE DEMISE OF THE GRUDGE MATCH, MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN RACED TO HELP MARTY AND DOC BROWN? WILL THEY MAKE IT? TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR "GOODBYE, GOOD GRUDGE MATCH!" OR "YOU AND ME AND THE SERVER MAKES THREE!" (Insert Dudley Do-Right cartoon here)
Narrator: WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HEROES, MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN WERE
FRANTICALLY RACING FOR THE BACK TO THE FUTURE CREW!
Narrator: AND SO THE BOMB WENT ROCKETING BACK AT THE POTTSYLVANIAN
MENACES, WITH ONLY ONE SMALL PROBLEM...
Narrator: AND SO SHERMAN RAN OFF, CRYING LIKE THE WUSS HE IS! BY THIS
TIME, BRIAN AND STEVE(tm) HAD SUCCESSFULLY FOUND THE LOCATION OF THE
SERVER!
Peabody Voiceover: With Grudge Match saved, I returned to lab.
Unfortunately, so had Sherman. - Devin the Time-Travelling Mental Hospital Escapee
Return to the Time Travel Grudge Match
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