Time Travel principles and paradoxes in cartoons

While killing time in Wikipedia, I ran across entries for the different types of paradoxes and principles applied to time travel, such as the predestination paradox/Novikov self-consistency principle (history is immutable and every case of time travel was already part of history; nothing can occur to change history), the grand-father paradox, alternate timelines (every possibility occurs in its own parallel universe, and time travelers travel not only through time, but through probabilities as well, preventing paradoxes), etc.

Gargoyles relies exclusively on the predestination paradox for its time travel rules (Vows, M.I.A.). The DCAU has both alternate timelines, and time as a breakable entity (The Once and Future Thing). The second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon has both one immutable ?main? time-line (Timing is Everything, The Return of Savanti Romero), as well as alternate timelines (Same as it Never Was). Teen Titans uses a version of the grandfather paradox in its time-travel episode.

So, which are your favorite portrayals of time travel in cartoons? Which is your favorite time-travel "rule"? Does the very idea of time-travel give you a headache? Talk here.

I kinda like the "Gargoyles" version.....Time can't be altered,anything that happens was always meant to happen....

.....though,implausible as it is,I also loved the use of time travel in Futurama's "Roswell That Ends Well",where Fry ends up becoming his own grandfather (the episode has one of my favorite Farnsworth lines... "Oooh....a lesson in NOT changing history from Mr. "I'm-my-own-grampa".....SCREW HISTORY!!!!")

Rule 0 of Temporal Mechanics: No one understands temporal mechanics.

I recall the Silver Age Superman comics, where they stated that Superman couldn't change history (following the predestination paradox rule) and that he'd turn invisible when arriving in a past or future era during which he was alive... modern Superman time-travel rules (and in the TV shows/movies/etc.) of course don't follow either rule, going with the "Back to the Future" approach of the past being alterable.

Speaking of which, there's also the two early 90's time-travel cartoons based on movies, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures" (two seasons, the first on CBS and done by Hanna-Barbera, the second on Fox and done by DIC) and "Back to the Future" (aired two seasons on CBS, done by some animation department of Universal Studios'). I enjoyed watching both, particularly BTTF---still waiting to see it come out on DVD (though guess I shouldn't hold my breath...).

Re: favorite time-travel rules: Guess the "Back to the Future" approach (past is alterable) is my favorite...

The Farnsworth Parabox episode of Futurama is the best (and funniest) dealing of alternate realities I've seen. "Now, now. Perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything."

My favorite time-travel stories were from X-Men TAS: Days of Future Past and One Man's Worth. In the latter story, I liked the fact that Wolverine and Storm had to wear special devices to protect them from changes they made to their own timeline. They could have done the whole "kill your own grandfather" paradox and still survived, at least until their batteries ran out.

So did they continue the predestined paradox routine as the movie or just alternate? I remember the cartoon, just the full specifics. Though I do remember when they considered recruiting the Giant from Jack And The Beanstalk to do with a bully, only for the other point out that he's a fictional character.

I suppose for myself, though, either are both equally entertaining.

There was also the final season of The Smurfs in 1989-1990 when many of the Smurfs had time travel adventures to eras past.

MIB had a few episodes involving time. There was a nifty device that opened up a portal to another point in time.

I think it showed up 2-3 times in the entire series.

It's even funnier when the main characters by end decides to completely disregard any time mishaps and go gung-ho on Area 51 to take back their spaceship. Best plot twist ever.

What about recursive time traveling paradoxes like in that one episode of Pinky and the Brain (When Mice Ruled the Earth) or the messed-up version in Sealab 2021 (Lost in Time)?

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Originally Posted by Zubby http://forums.rabroad.net/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
The Farnsworth Parabox episode of Futurama is the best (and funniest) dealing of alternate realities I've seen. "Now, now. Perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything."



That's a different episode. The ep where (or should that be when?) the gang traveled back in time to 1947 was "Roswell That Ends Well".

Even though I believe in the grandfather paradox, for the sake of storytelling, I like it when when the future can be changed by tampering with the past.

A Darkwing Duck episode or two dealt with Time Travel paradoxes.

One dealt with Darkwing not changing his past, and as a result going to a future in which it had changed drastically (Darkwing even meets an alternative version of himself). It's more or less the Back to the Future effect.

The other episode in which DW went into the Future, and Darkwing never finding her. This resulted in a rather drastic change in the hero, and a a darker future. However, when DW goes back in time, she effectively nullfies it.

What did I learn? Time travel episodes are largely a plot device to explore what makes a hero a hero. That, and Time Travel makes no sense.

The Gargoyles approach is the only one that works for me.

Though... which one was the Futurama one?

The Bill and Ted cartoon (in the first season on CBS) kept the predestination paradox angle of the movies up (they encouraged Henry Ford to get into building cars by bringing him back to the present to fix a classic car Ted's dad owned), though one episode had Rufus warn them against going back in time to the 50s to meet Bill's dad as a kid (lest they alter the past)---which they try to do anyway, only to find they were tailing the wrong kid. :-p

The second Fox season, on the other hand, put more emphasis on the booth's newly gained ability to enter fictional realms (TV shows, fairy tale books, etc.); one notable episode had them prevent Columbus from going to America, thus altering the present by preventing Europeans from going to the new world (San Dimas turned into a forest undeveloped by man, and Rufus became British...). Making it even odder was that they'd already met Columbus during his 1492 voyage on an episode from the CBS season...

The BTTF cartoon kept the usual past-is-mutable motif of the movies...

But what I liked to wrap my brain around, was how their visit to the past could have 'caused' the original Roswell visit of 1947.

Basically, if it werent for them going into the base, then the incident wouldnt have happened.

Xiaolin Showdown ended on a two-part time traveling story, where Omi ended up in a bad future where Jack Spicer ruled and all his friends were eventually killed. Then he went to the far past to try and make the present better, but he screwed things up even worse.

The final episode goes in a different direction. Basically Darkwing and crew go back in time to find out the origin of a museum amber in which the person trapped inside is DW. Needless to say the trip through time leads into him being trapped in the amber. Launchpad and Gosalyn arrive to the present to free him from it.



Thanks for the info.

Aside from Gargoyles since it's been brought up, has any other show stuck with their established time travel rule. Or do all of them just go back and forth?

Xiaolin Showdown did in Days Past/Citadel of Doom... but not in Sands of Time or the Time After Time two parts...and... I *THINK* Futurama did.

So I believe XS did change. Futurama nope, because of The Why Of Fry (Because in the first episode you only see Nibbler's shadow before Fry falls in the tube).

Pretty much what I meant was, is that Gargoyles chose and stuck with their rule of time travel. It was and always will be predestination paradoxes. Timedancer if greenlit will continue with the idea.

Well...a case can be made TMNT (2003) is also consistent, since it can be argued that the Earth in Same as it Never Was was never a possible future for the "main" timeline (or else stopped being so relatively early), making Donny's trip there a case of transdimesional travel instead of just time travel. Aside from that bit, all five instances of "pure" time travel in the series (Time Travails, Return of Savanti Romero, TMNT: Fast Forward, Timing is Everything) have followed the predestination method.

Danny Phantom's The Ultimate Enemy has one or two. I've ranted about the episode a bazillion times, so I'm going to keep it brief.

The entire drive of the episode is that the explosion = Phantom. Phantom said it to the point I wanted to punch him in the face, over and over ("You turn into me," "I'm the future," etc). That's not quite how it works. To be sure, the explosion DID start the chain reaction of events. But what really did it was Danny going to Vlad's castle.

Here's where the problem is: Danny now knows exactly what causes Phantom's "birth" thanks to talking to Vlad. All he has to do is not go to Wisconsin, and Phantom is never created. In fact, if Danny doesn't go, Phantom isn't around to ensure his existence by influencing the explosion (by fooling with the tank and cheating on the test), which means the explosion never happened and the whole episode's moot!

I know some people have said Phantom would still exist regardless of what Vlad told him. If that's true, and Danny still went and had the "operation," there is no finer textbook definition of "evil" and "selfish."

Well don't forget Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time (2003). In this rare instance the present time for Kim and Ron gets changed when Ron's Mom gets a Job in Norway (Thanks to a Miss Ogehs), and he is forced to move to Norway.

Because of this Team Possible is split up and when the villains (Consisting of Drakken, Shego, Duff Killigen and Monkey Fist) all accquire a mystical item known as "The Tempus Simia (Time Monkey)" The future gets altered and one of these villains takes over the world.

Now in this one episode alone, a couple of things do happen which explain some of the time inconsistencies and perhaps the best one is the "Grandfather Paradox" as well as the alternate paralell universes possibility one.

The Villains Can't change Kim and Ron's Past as pre-schoolers (For Example, The villains try to stop Kim and Ron from first meeting in preschool (and in this case actually force Kim and Ron together when Kim helps Ron with some bullies (who are really the villains in a younger pre-school form), then later the villains try to destroy Kim outright when she goes on her first mission.

Looking back in retrospect, one of the interesting things I do note now is that Monkey Fist by bringing into the Past time when Kim goes on her first Mission as a pre-teen is a Stone Guardian from 3rd Century Japan, Satsuma Prefect). This in its' own right might have set into motion Monkey Fist's own untime demise in Season 4's Oh No Yono! episode, when the Stone Guardian was destroyed during that mission, due to the grandfather paradox.

Also a double paradox occurs when Shego's future self tells Shego (who's in the past at the time) to steal said Time Monkey. With that Time Monkey Shego goes back into time alters her own past causes Kim and Ron to be split up, and of course Shego's future is secured as supreme ruler of the planet, yet in the future (Some 20 years from the present) Monkey Fist is alive and well. (So in some way if Monkey Fist's demise in Oh No Yono is true (and set in stone proverbially speaking, then Shego may have found a way to reverse this process, and brought Monkey Fist back from "The Path of the Yono".

But this even gets more complicated when in the future Kim's brothers, her tech guru Wade, and even 3000 hyper-evolved Rufus' stop Shego along with the Help of Kim's friend Monique.

Of course by destorying the future Shego, Kim and Ron in a way alter the time line yet a second time, thus preventing the villains from ever getting the Time Monkey (however since the Future Time monkey doesn't exist yet the one in the present (and the Past does exist) this again sets up another paradox (what is more like a triple paradox. The Time Monkey does exist in the present time, but the villains have never carried out the plan in the first place. Of course by not altering said time line the events that happen after that are totally different thus Kim and Ron Stoppable do Date, and are going to graduate, but then this brings up a fourth conundrum as at any time the villains (Shego Included could find the time monkey and thus yet again alter the past or the future of the world.

So in closing, this one has at least 2 grandfather paradoxes, 3 possible outcomes, of which only really 1 can occur and already has 3 if not 4 potential outcomes for the future, after high School.

Or to better put it simply, Ron Stoppable summed it up best.

Time Travel, It's a Cornucopia of disturbing concepts.

Edited Note: Some of the paradoxes that still exist some year or more after this event (A Sitch in Time), really upset the balance of Potential outcomes here, and while the future of Shego is doubtful if not highly unlikely now, that doesn't mean that the future of all the characters have been changed, and perhaps one event in the near future (Graduation) or an event that might occur in one of the closing episodes (Larry's Birthday (?)), might alter this time line yet again. So here we now have at least half a dozen potential outcomes, of which 3 outcomes are totally negative. As for Monkey Fist's Case, it might be a long time before he escapes his "Path of the Yono" event.

But then the events of Larry's Birthday and Graduation might give us a potential look at the outcome of where the series would have gone after Graduation. (but again from the 6 potential outcomes, only 1 of these can be the real one, the other 5 are potential, but unless events occur in these two episodes, only 3 events occur which are still negative.)

*Rubs temples* Yep Time Travel definitely gives this theoretical temporal mechanic one heck of a headache.


:coyote:

I don't know what you mean with Futurama...

But with XS they pretty much established two different kinds of time travel. One for Jack Spicer's Time Machine, the other for the Shen Gong Wu "Sands of Time". One allowed them to enter alternate dimensions (the Shen Gong Wu). The other was the Gargoyles-type of time travel.

Danny's not exactly a bright boy. I will admit an explantation is never thoroughly given on why Danny went to Vlad's castle (because let's face it, we're basically talking about a predestination paradox spread throughout TUE) and I would have killed for one, but in my theory, I'm still going by emotions driven through by grief.

If you think about it, Danny witnessing his entire future self and the revelation of his parents/friends death and STILL not being able to stop it (until Clockwork popped in) is so deeply anti-climatic and depressing not just as his status as hero, but the lost of his loved ones, it's any wonder Danny didn't think straight and just let his grief do all the work, truly clouding his mind on what is right and wrong with his primary focus obtaining as much comfort as possible. The point is, Phantom said it himself, "I'm still here, you still turn into me." The point it, it doesn't matter--until Clockwork intervened, Danny would have turned into Phantom, it was inevitable. Yes, I know this sounds cheaply fan theorizing, but I DO try to keep my theories as canon as possible and we've seen Danny's unstable trip through emotions before, making him create stupid mistakes (though he's done his share even without emotional backgrounds, but that's another story), this one is just him at his most drastic/desperate.

But I won't deny it, an explantation would have worked much better, like you said. After all, it's the key focal point on why Phantom is and acted the way he should be, thus as awesome as he is, he does come off one-dimensional (though not as much as most of the DP cast of Season Three).

I had a feeling you'd respond, Neo. ;)

Well, at least someone (sort of) agrees with me on some points. Like you specified, the idea of Danny going to his archenemy, the man who's tried to kill and his loved ones several times, is mind boggling to an amazing degree. I was definitely "...?" about it. He does have extended family, after all!

I still question if it all of would have happened the explosion as we saw it happened. If Danny didn't know EXACTLY why? Sure. But now that he did, unless like I said he's a selfish and cruel person (which certainly isn't the case), Danny would make sure it didn't happen, PERIOD. But, I -think- you're arguing Danny only happened to know because Clockwork fooled around, I suppose I should concede on at least THAT point.

(And, come to think of it, I know it's not the same as their being alive, but if he can talk to ghosts... why couldn't he talk to them.)

Actually, I find the fact it was a cheated SAT and exploding sauce that turned Danny (or at least his ghost half) into a global genocidal maniac EXTREMELY anti-climatic. I know people ooh and ahh about how dramatic and dark TUE is, but honestly...

Would The Raven be as powerful if Lenore's death was slipping over a melted ice cream cone?
Would The War of the Worlds have been as great a metaphor for imperialism if the Martians were looking for a rest stop cheeseburger?
Would Babylon 5 be as captivating if the Minbari atttacked over stale food?
Would The Day After or Threads be as shocking a warning against nuclear war if the cause was Reagan or Brezhnev putting their coffee down on the wrong button?

IOW, any drama is, at least for me, sucked out when something as silly as exploding sauce means that a sweet, well meaning teen because a maniacal tyrant that makes cardboard look thick. I'm guessing it's the "For want of a nail" scenario, but still, this smacks of ridiculousness for me.

As for Phantom... his non stop ranting about being the future, his terrible dialog ("No one goes anywhere until it's time to be blown everywhere!") and his "OMFG I'M EVIL TO BE EVIL ROFL *blows up New York City* LOL!!!1!" personality (speaking of personality, if Vlad's side overwhelmed Danny's, why's he look like Danny?!) makes him a lot more boring than compelling. I wanted to smack him. To go back to literature, Shakespeare's Iago in Othello is compelling because of his scheming, his personality, and his methodology, not because he's a jerk. I'd also like to know, if he's so powerful, it took him so long to learn the wail when Danny just... got it.

Now, instead of another "I'm the future!" snark and "Time's up!" as he was defeated, it'd have been awesome if it ended like this:

Phantom (as the timer runs out, sneering): What am I thinking, boy.
Danny: Your last thought. *sucks him into the Thermos*

*Pizza for the first person who gets that.

SD Gundam has a few time travel plots. One, from SDGF, really hurts my head.

We learn the reason the Dark Axis villains have superior technology is that their scientist/second in command is in fact from the future. Specifically, he's a 'new' Gundam who pioneered a new form of space travel which screwed up and got him lost back in time. Now, the question is now that the hero Captain specifically knows this what would he do. If he tells he changes history and said Gundam friend (Madnug) will never be there to tell him what happened. If he isn't there, Captain wouldn't know. But if he doesn't know the events will still go ahead and..... x_X