The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1996



   The Busy World of Richard Scarry
created by Richard Scarry
First time travel: 1996



In one Busytown episode, two of Richard Scarry’s cheerful characters, Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm, are accidentally taken back to Colonial Busytown by Mr. Fix-It’s Tardis-like time machine. Fortunately, Mr. Fix-It’s ancestor helps them fix the broken lever in the time machine (even before today’s Mr. Fix-It can rescue them in another familiar looking time machine).

 This isn’t any old elevator, boys. It’s a time machine! This is for traveling through time. 




   Dinosaur Valley Girls
by Donald F. Glut (Glut, director)
First release: circa 1996

Afterction-movie hero Tony Markham is tossed by a magic talisman into a time of dinosaurs, cavemen, and sex-starved cavewomen who shave their legs with clam shells (including one named Buf-Fee). Someday I must decide whether movies with simultaneous dinosaurs and cavemen can be classified as time travel or must always be relegated to mere fantasy.

 That skull you saw, those slabs and more, are all carbon-dated at less than a million years old. My only explanation is that there once existed a place I call Dinosaur Valley, where unknown forces somehow brought together creatures from different times and places. 




   “A Note from the Future”
by Cathy Camper
First publication: Wired, Jan 1996

Wired prints a handwritten note from the future.

 HA HA Wish they cold truly see how futur isrelly. 




   12 Monkeys
by David Peoples and Janet Peoples (Terry Gilliam, director)
First release: 5 Jan 1996

In the year 2035 with the world devastated by an artificially engineered plague, convict James Cole is sent back in time to gather information about the plague’s origin so the scientists can figure out how to fight it.

 And what we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. Right, Owen? I mean, psychiatry: it’s the latest religion. We decide what’s right and wrong. We decide who’s crazy or not. I’m in trouble here. I’m losing my faith. 




   Pastwatch: The Redemption of
Christopher Columbus
by Orson Scott Card
First publication: 1996

Diko, a second-generation researcher in a project that observes the past, discovers that it’s actually possible to send objects to the past and that a previous timeline did just this to alter Christopher Columbus’s fate; now, Diko and two others propose a further alteration that involves three travelers going to the 15th century.

 All of history was available, it seemed, and yet Pastwatch had barely scratched the surface of the past, and most watchers looked forward to a limitless future of rummaging through time. 


   Johnny and the Bomb
by Terry Pratchett
First publication: Apr 1996

In this third book of the series, teenaged Johnny Maxwell and his yahoo friends uses Mrs. Tachyon’s shopping trolley to travel through time to World War II.

  . . . if you go mad, do you know you’ve gone mad? If you don’t, how do you know you’re not mad? 




   Duckman
created by Everett Peck
First time travel: 20 Apr 1996

Seinfeld’s pal, George Costanza, lends his voice to private detective, lousy family man, and general lech Eric Tiberius Duckman, who in one amusing episode was visited by multiple future selfs warning him of multiple future mistakes.

 Actually, it seems that while trying to set the alarm on my clock radio, I may have ripped a hole in the time-space continuum. 

—Ajax in “The Once and Future Duck”




   Dexter’s Laboratory
created by Genndy Tartakovsky
First time travel: 28 Apr 1996

Boy Genius Dexter makes amazing invention after amazing invention including a time machine that his annoying sister Dee Dee first used in the first episode, “DeeDeemensional.” I enjoyed the way it ended.
  1. Deedeemensional (28 Apr 1996)    Dee Dee goes back an hour
  2. Ego Trip (10 Dec 1999) destroys terminator robots and visits future

 If there were a message that was so important it required time travel, I certainly would not send my idiot sister. 

—Dexter to Dee Dee in “Deedeemensional”


   “Time Travelers Never Die”
by Jack McDevitt
First publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, May 1996

Dave Dryden and his pal Shel have a great life traveling through time, visiting with Napolean and DaVinci, until Shel dies. Or does he?

I was lucky enough to meet Jack McDevitt at Jim Gunn’s workshop in Lawrence. He was always encouraging, kind, insightful and upbeat—for me, the best of the resident writers at the workshop.

 Time travel should not be possible in a rational universe. 




   Early Edition
created by Bob Brush
First episode: 28 Sep 1996

A calico cat brings Gary tomorrow’s newspaper every morning—and at least two episodes in the four seasons sent softspoken Gary back in time (to the Chicago Fire in “Hot Time in the Old Time” and to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in “Everybody Goes to Rick’s). Go Gary!

One of the reasons this show appealed to me is the occurrence of a strong, introverted lead character, which is a rarity in all fiction.

 What if, by some magic, you found the power to really change things? People, events, maybe even your life. Would you even know where to start? Maybe you can’t know. Until it happens. 




   Richie Rich Cartoon
by Gary Conrad, Robert Schecter and Alicia Marie Schudt
First time travel: 5 Oct 1996

In the 1962 Richie Rich comic book, the poor little rich kid had an actual time machine, but in the 1996 cartoon (“Back in the Saddle”), he and Gloria just find themselves back in the old west with no machinations needed, where they meet Reggie the Kid.

 Richie, look at the date! June 1896! 




   Star Trek: First Contact
by Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, et. al. (Jonathan Frakes, director)
First release: 22 Nov 1996

Picard and the Enterprise travel back to 2063 to stop the Borg from preventing Zefram Cochrane’s invention of the warp drive.

 Assimilate this! 


   “Crossing into the Empire”
by Robert Silverberg
First publication: David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination, Dec 1996

Mulreany is a trader who travels back to 14th century Byzantium with Coca-Cola and other treats.

 One glance and Mulreany has no doubt that the version of the capital that has arrived on this trip is the twelfth-century one. 




   Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders
by Kenneth J. Berton (Berton, director)
First release: a forgetable day in 1996

A grandfather tells his grandson two stories about Merlin coming to the present day to set up the eponymous mystical shop. Other than that, though, no time traveling.

 Grandpa: You know, actually, that toy monkey reminds me of a story I once wrote for television. Let’s see, what was it? Of course: Merlin!
Grandkid: Merlin?
Grandpa: Merlin the sorcerer. Only it didn’t take place in the time with King Arthur. You see, Merlin used his powers to come to our time, to set up a shop of mystical wonders for all to see. 



Romance Time Travel of 1996
Bodice rips are a more workaday mode of time travel than time ships.
  Time Travelers 2: Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney

  Legend by Jude Deveraux

  Outlander 4: Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

  When There Is Hope by Jane Goodger

  Creole 1: Frankly, My Dear by Sandra Hill

  A Dance through Time by Lynn Kurland

  Lennox 1: Breath of Magic by Theresa Medeiros

  Phantom in Time by Eugenia Riley




No Time Travel. Move along.
  Timelock by Joseph John Barmettler and J. Reifel [long sleep ]

  “Note from the Future” by Ray Vukcevich, Wired, Jan 1996 [no definite time travel ]

  Hellraiser IV: Bloodline by Peter Atkins (Kevin Yagher, director), 8 Mar 1996 [long life ]

  Dragonriders of Pern #13: Red Star Rising by Anne McCaffrey, Aug 1996 [no time travel ]
  aka Dragonseye

 

26 items are in the time-travel list for these search settings.
Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)