Scott Delahunt" />
Psycho Drive-In logo
Search
  • PDI Press
    Featured
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      Scott Delahunt
      January 17, 2022
      Fiction, PDI Press, PDI Press Writers
    Recent
    • BETTY WHITE VS THE STUPID WORLD: The Movie

      John E. Meredith
      January 17, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Seven)

      John E. Meredith
      January 16, 2022
    • Betty White Vs the Stupid World (Chapter Six)

      John E. Meredith
      January 15, 2022
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    Featured
    • X (2022)

      Scott Delahunt
      April 22, 2022
      Movies, Reviews
    Recent
    • X (2022)

      Nate Zoebl
      April 22, 2022
    • Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

      Nate Zoebl
      April 15, 2022
    • The Adam Project (2022)

      Nate Zoebl
      March 16, 2022
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
    Featured
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      Scott Delahunt
      July 13, 2018
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview with Indie Horror Master, Chris Bickel

      The Final Girl
      July 13, 2018
    • David Black: Carnies, Carnage, and the Creative Chaos of Darkness Visible

      Dan Lee
      March 7, 2017
    • Jaiden Kaine joins the Marvel Universe as new Luke Cage baddie, Zip

      Andre Lamar
      September 29, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Batman: The Killing Joke

      Jason Sacks
      July 28, 2016
    • SDCC 2016 Interviews: The Cast and Creators of Syfy’s Van Helsing

      Dave Hearn, Paul Brian McCoy
      July 27, 2016
    • Wondercon Interview: The Cast of Damien

      Gary Richardson, Laura Akers
      April 16, 2016
  • News
    Featured
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      Scott Delahunt
      July 30, 2019
      DVD/Blu-ray, News
    Recent
    • John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum arrives on Digital 8/23 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand 9/10

      psychodr
      July 30, 2019
    • X-Men: Dark Phoenix arrives on Digital 9/3 and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD 9/17

      Paul Brian McCoy
      July 16, 2019
    • Avengers: Endgame arrives on Digital 7/30 and Blu-ray 8/13

      psychodr
      July 16, 2019
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Breaking
  • X (2022)
  • Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
  • The Adam Project (2022)
  • The Batman (2022)
  • Entropy (2022)
  • Killer Sofa (2019)
  • RSS
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Who We Be
  • Contact
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
Home
Columns
Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation 92: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Scott Delahunt
April 4, 2014
Lost in Translation, Reviews

The review is about another movie still in theatres, so I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible.

The idea of a heart-warming story about a boy and his dog is practically cliché.  From Rin Tin Tin to Lassie to Boxey and Muffet on the original Battlestar Galactica, people have sat and watched stories where boy and dog save the day.  However, only Ted Key flipped the relationship around.

MPS_Original

Peabody’s Improbable History started in 1959 as a series of short cartoons as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show*.  In each cartoon, Mr. Peabody, a brilliant dog capable of building a time machine, took his pet boy Sherman to a historical event using the WABAC Machine.  The event would never be going as the history books said, though.  There was always some problem that needed correcting, and Mr. Peabody was just the dog to help.  Each short would end after the problem was solved and after Mr. Peabody quipped a pun related to what happened.

In 2002, Rob Minkoff decided to bring back Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman.  After twelve years of development, caused in part by a similiarity to the first Despicable Me movie, Mr. Peabody and Sherman was released.  The movie took the core concept of the original shorts, the trips taken by the main characters in the WABAC Machine, and expanded it, adding details to not just the world around Mr. Peabody and Sherman but the relations between the two.  The movie starts with a nod to the original Peabody’s Improbable History with a trip to pre-Reign of Terror** France to visit Marie Antoinette.  After a misunderstanding that escalates to revolution, Mr. Peabody extricates both Sherman and himself to return home after quipping a pun.  All in all, a bang up job where nobody lost their head.

MPS_Logo

The movie continues, showing Sherman’s first day at school and dealing with one of the more dreaded beings ever to set foot on Earth, a girl named Penny.  Things don’t go well, leading to Sherman biting Penny, setting off a chain of events that brings in Mrs. Grunion, a Dolores Umbridge-style antagonist.  Grunion wants to separate dog and boy.  In an effort to work things out with Penny’s family, Mr. Peabody invites them over for dinner to discuss the events.  While Peabody charms Paul and Patty Peterson, Sherman gets to show Penny around, with strict orders to not show her the WABAC Machine.  Naturally, Sherman shows Penny the WABAC Machine, starting the romp through history, meeting luminaries such as Tutankhamen, Agamemnon, and Leonardo da Vinci.

Between 1959 and 2014, a lot has changed in the world of animation.  Computers, which were room-sized, tape-driven monstrosities with minimal graphics capability in 1959, are integral to animation today.  Audiences expect more in the relationships between characters.  Smoking is forbidden; the pipe-smoking Mr. Peabody of 1959 just wouldn’t be shown.  Casual cruelty, especially towards children, is also frowned upon.  The acceptable quality of animation has also changed; for a feature film, backgrounds can no longer be sketched in or repeated on a loop.

MPS_Egypt

The other huge jump from Peabody’s Improbable History to Mr. Peabody and Sherman is running time. Peabody’s Improbable History was part of a 22 minute episode of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, so it never took more than four to five minutes.  Mr. Peabody and Sherman runs 92 minutes; the movie just can’t rely on the old formula to work.

The scriptwriters were up for the task.  They took the core of Peabody’s Improbable History and used it as the foundation for the movie.  It didn’t matter if part of the audience was too young to have ever seen the shorts; the movie starts off with an extended version that would fit well in the original’s run.  The movie then expands, discovering and developing the relationship between dog and boy, and between Mr. Peabody and Sherman with the rest of the world around them, all without sacrificing the humour Peabody’s Improbable History was known for.  Sure, there may be a fart joke or two, but anyone who knows of history, of drama, and even of psychology will get the humour.  You have to admire a movie that works in a subtle Oedipus complex gag into a scene inside the Trojan Horse.

MPS_LookUp

Does Mr. Peabody and Sherman work as an adaptation?  Yes.  The script built on top of the original cartoon and expanded without sacrificing what made Peabody’s Improbable History memorable.

Next week, The Mechanic.

* Also known as Rocky and His Friends among others, depending on the syndicator.

** Five minutes before to the Reign of Terror.

 

For more of Scott’s Lost in Translation columns, check him out at Musehack.com!

(Visited 275 times, 1 visits today)

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Lost in TranslationMister Peabody and ShermanMuse HackScott Delahunt

Hannibal 2.05 “Mukozuke”
Cheap Thrills (2013)

About The Author

monsterid
Scott Delahunt
Lost in Translation

By day, Scott Delahunt is an IT analyst, fixing problems and explaining operating systems for end users. By night, he takes his degree in Computer Science, his love of movies, his vast knowledge of tabletop gaming, his curiosity into how things work and becomes a geek!  Although he has nothing published professionally, Scott has written fanfiction, scripted an anime music video, play tested role-playing games, and applied his love of bad movies to Lost In Translation.  He has also helped put on an anime convention and organize bus trips to Anime North. In his spare time, he raises two cats to become Internet icons and maintains a personal blog, The Chaos Beast.

RSSTwitterFacebookinstagramtumblr

Archives

Large_rectangle_336X280
All work on this site is Copyright © each individual writer.
  • PDI Press
    • PDI Press Catalog
    • PDI Press Writers
      • Fiction
  • Columns A-D
    • A Fistful of Dollar Comics
    • ABCs of Horror
    • All Binge… No Purge
    • Anything Joes
    • Beautiful Creatures
    • Big Eyes Smart Mouth
    • Big Sleeps and Long Goodbyes
    • Cahiers du Horror
    • Dispatches From the Field
    • Drive-In Saturday
    • Dungeons & D-Listers
  • Columns F-P
    • The Final Girl
    • First Looks… Second Thoughts
    • The Flesh is Weak
    • Innocence and Experience
    • Lost in Translation
    • Page to Screen
    • Popcorn Cinema
    • Psycho Essentials: The ’80s!
  • Columns S-Z
    • Schlock & Awe
    • Shakespeare on Film
    • Shot for Shot
    • Sick Flix
    • Unnatural Selections
    • Versus
    • Video Word Made Flesh
    • We Got Lists
    • Women in Horror
    • The Xeno File
    • Zombies 101
  • Reviews
    • Books
    • Comics
    • DVD/Blu-ray
    • Movies
    • TV
    • Series
  • Interviews
  • News
    • Trailers
  • Psychos
  • Merchandise
%d bloggers like this: