The cool thing about portraying time travel, whether it be in books, movies, or television, is that no one has figured out how to do it in real life so you can pretty much just make it up as you go along. It's not as if there are people at home who have actually time traveled yelling at the screen: "Damn it! That's not how we did it when we went back in time and used Marie Antoinette's head as a soccer ball!" That is, however, a line from my new screenplay about time travelers who go back in time for the sole purpose of kicking around severed heads. It's called The People Who Go Back in Time and Kick Severed Heads Around.
Where was I? Oh yeah, there's a series I remember from my youth called Voyagers! about a man and a young boy who would jump to different periods in history to make sure history stayed on course. The man, Phineas Bogg, originally used a history book to help him along, but soon a young boy named Jeffrey, whose father was a history teacher, becomes his new guide. The team are guided by a small device called an Omni, which flashes red whenever history has gone wrong, and turns green when everything is okay again. Yellow means proceed with caution, and blue means there's a sale in linens. But I kid.
The episode that sticks with me the most, and keep in mind I was only six when it aired, is the one where they find baby Moses. I guess this means the time travelers were on biblical time, which means they had much less time traveling to do than if they followed an evolutionary timeline. Or maybe I'm overthinking things a bit. Either way, it was a fun show, at least to my much younger self, and it certainly had some educational value to it, such as teaching me that a show with this premise will only last one year.
A bit of trivia, thanks to Bob, the man who remembers everything about TV: Actor Jon-Erik Hexum, who played Phineas Bogg, died in 1984 after jokingly placing a prop gun to his head on the set of the CBS series Cover Up. The wadding from the gun struck his temple and killed him. Also, Meeno Peluce, who played Jeffrey, is the half-brother of Punky Brewster herself, Soleil Moon Frye.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-06-2006 @ 12:51PM
Mikki said...
how sad am I that i could identify the actors from the pictures! either I have a great memory or just watch WAY to much TV!
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10-06-2006 @ 9:33AM
Michael said...
I used to love this show when I was young. I recall there was a novelization of the first episode you could get through the Scholastic book club and I must have read it 50 times.
Looking back, I can see it wasn't that great a show...I bet if it reaired today, I'd find it totally cheesy.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:05AM
t2ed said...
Jon-Erik Hexum actually actually attended the same college and major as me. Whenever he came into our classes, the women all completely swooned. And a few of the men.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:00AM
dannyp64 said...
The only episode I can recall was when they traveled back to Sherwood Forest. Robin Hood got injured and Jeffrey was trying to explain to the Merry Men that they needed to protect him from germs. One of them exclaimed that if he saw a germ he'd shoot it through the heart with his arrow.
Yeah, kinda cheesy, but funny just the same.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:33AM
Carissa said...
I loved this show!! I remember there was a group who thought this was too violent and all that crap the parents of the television council usually say - I never understood how a show that dealt with history, ANYTHING to stimulate minds to look into it themselves, could get such a bad rap. And, Jon Erik was hot - how could they complain???
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10-06-2006 @ 10:39AM
adhonus said...
Voyagers was awesome, and totally captured my imagination as a 10 year old. It was so amazingly goofy, but I learned a lot about history. I could blame it for me getting a degree in history.
I loved the cheesy rectangles they would fly over while they were traveling through the time. And, I wanted my very own Omni.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:41AM
Radioscott said...
I loved this show so much (I think I was around 12) that I wrote a short story set in the Voyagers universe with my own original characters. And, yes, today I'm still a nerd.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:42AM
Jonathan Harford said...
I remember this show well, and have been thinking about it a lot, lately, for some odd reason.
Remember the episode where Thomas Edison (I think) disassembles the Omni? Or when the kid gets bit by a rabid dog and gets the world's first rabies vaccine from Louis Pasteur?
Good times.
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10-06-2006 @ 10:53AM
erroneous_nick said...
This was a fun show, cheesiness and all, but back then if it was scifi, the cheese was mandatory. I'm glad science fiction on television has matured as of late, but for these older shows the "cheese" gives them that so-ugly-its-cute feel...sometimes.
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10-06-2006 @ 6:23PM
Margaret said...
I loved, loved this show. At the time I couldn't believe that a show I loved actually had some things in it I could talk to my dad about - history.
And John Erik Hexum in a pirate shirt, what young girl would want to miss that?
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10-06-2006 @ 11:53AM
Veruka said...
This was one of my absolute favorite shows when I was a kid! The ep I recall the best was when they met Lawrence of Arabia. I seem to remember that his hotness gave Jon-Erik's a run for its money! I was also such a fangirl even at that age (12-13?) that I wrote to the network to ask for an autographed picture of Jon-Erik - which I got! After his untimely death, I treasured it even more.
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10-07-2006 @ 9:38AM
Ringmaster said...
I, too, was a fan of this show when I was 12. The Edison episode where the omni was disassembled was a favorite.
On my office wall at this very moment, I have a drawing featuring a technical schematic of the Omni! I am a system tech at a distance education department, it's up with all the equipment and facility schematics.
I too can't escape my nerdly past.
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10-06-2006 @ 3:32PM
girlfiend said...
This was my favorite show and practically no one else remembers it.
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10-06-2006 @ 4:02PM
Gilbar said...
Whenever friends and I would reminisce about tv shows, I would describe this show and no one would know what it was. I couldn't remember the name. Then I come here today and see this picture. A weight has been lifted.
Thank you TV Squad. I can move on now and tell others the story of Voyagers.
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10-06-2006 @ 7:04PM
Wil said...
I loved this show, and I auditioned for it a few times when it was first on the air.
I knew Soleil and Meeno, and boy was he a rockstar around all of us kids, because he was on this show.
Finally, the way you wrote this cracked me up several times, Adam. Thanks for that!
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10-09-2006 @ 9:47AM
Catherine said...
This was my favorite show at 11 years old. Jon-Erik Hexum was my greatest love and greatest heartbreak (at 13 when he died) over the next 2 years. I bought a couple of episodes from the fan club. I liked the Babe Ruth episode where Bogg played baseball and the Titanic one was a good one, too. Thanks for the article and memories!
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10-20-2006 @ 6:24PM
Ginger said...
I really love Voyagers! I was a baby when it first aired but my interest was really sparked when i was around 13 and it re-aired on the sci-fi channel. It was a fascinating show, and I loved the stars. Please visit my new site and sign the guestbook. It's an ultimate Voyagers site you'll love.
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11-15-2006 @ 10:27AM
Max said...
Hi from Argentina. Someone have any SUBTITLES for the episodes, in any languages?? thanks, gracias!!!!
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12-08-2006 @ 3:44PM
Kattia Mora said...
Hello from Costa Rica.
As a history buff you can imagine how much I loved the show , besides no 11 year old girl would miss that adorable hunk. My God! that man had a bright future just waiting for him. What a shame.
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