Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
When I was a kid in the 1960s, I remember watching “Mr. Peabody’s Improbable History,” a cartoon segment airing on the hit television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Peabody is a genius talking dog who cares for a human boy.
My childhood is back, thanks to a time-travel adventure to beat all adventures. From DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox, the animated feature Mr. Peabody & Sherman follows Peabody (voiced by Ty Burrell) and his adopted son, Sherman (Max Charles), as they travel through important moments in history to fix a time rift in the universe. Using Peabody’s greatest invention, the WABAC (pronounced “way back”) machine, the duo pays a visit to such greats as Leonardo da Vinci while he’s painting the Mona Lisa, as well as fighting in the Trojan War in ancient Greece.
Peabody is an inventor, gourmet chef, dancer, artist and business mogul. He’s accomplished at every musical instrument and an all-around genius. Peabody and Sherman blast back to the past, meeting and befriending some of the greatest men, women and kids of all time. But when Sherman takes the machine without permission, it causes a rift in space/time itself, possibly threatening the end of history.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman is a fantastic and family-friendly movie. I was laughing. My wife was laughing. The kids were laughing. Security guys who were supposed to be watching us during the screening were laughing. There are more cameos, both in character and in voice, than you can count. There are probably 100 clever puns that became masterful in their audacity of scope. And there isn’t a slow moment in the whole flick.
Content: Mr. Peabody & Sherman is rated PG for some mild action (sword fighting) and brief rude humor (an epic poop joke). Believe me, I was red-faced and teary-eyed from laughing right along with my wife, preteen and 6-year-old. It was a great family night out.
Alan Mowbray is a husband, father of two children and technical writer for an Orlando, Fla., area software company. Click here for his blog.
