Gadget Travel

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Short Story

The Twonky

A man, dazed from running into a temporal snag, appears in a radio factory, whereupon (before returning to his own time) he makes a radio that’s actually a Twonky, which promptly gets shipped to a Mr. Kerry Westerfield, who is initially quite confounded and amazed at everything it does.

Because of the story’s opening, I’m convinced the Twonky is from the future. The “temporal snag” that brought it to 1942 feels like an unexpected time rift to me, although the route back to the future is an intentional journey via an unexplained method. —Michael Main
“Great Snell!” he gasped. “So that was it! I ran into a temporal snag!”
Thin arms emerge from a console radio to light a man
  • 1943 Retro Hugo
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Child’s Play

Sam Weber, an underemployed lawyer, receives a Bild-a-Man kit as a Christmas gift from 400 years in the future—and it’s a timely gift, too, seeing as how he could use a replacement girlfriend.
Bild-a-Man Set #3. This set is intended solely for the use of children, between the ages of eleven and thirteen. The equipment, much more advanced that Bild-a-Man Sets 1 and 2, will enable the child of this age-group to build and assemble complete adult humans in perfect working order.
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

The Little Black Bag

In a 25th century where the vast majority of people have stunted intelligence (or at least talk with poor grammar), a physicist accidentally sends a medical bag back through time to Dr. Bayard Full, a down-on-his-luck, generally drunk, always callously self-absorbed, dog-kicking shyster. Despite falling in with a guttersnipe of a girl, Annie Aquella, he tries to make good use of the gift.
Switch is right. It was about time travel. What we call travel through time. So I took the tube numbers he gave me and I put them into the circuit-builder; I set it for ‘series’ and there it is-my time-traveling machine. It travels things through time real good.
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  • 1950 Retro Hugo
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Twonky

  • written and directed by Arch Oboler
  • (at movie theaters, USA, 10 June 1953)
Unlike in the original short story of “The Twonky,” the movie’s mad machine is a TV rather than a radio. Also, we never explicitly see the machine’s construction by a time traveler, but the professor’s discussions with the coach make it clear that they  believe the machine is from the future, and that’s good enough for us.

And finally, when you watch the wacky film, you’ll see that Arch Oboler devised a different fate for the Twonky than that in Kuttner and Moore’s original story. —Michael Main
Kerry: Then it is from another world?

Coach Trout: No, from our world, centuries in the future.
A red ball shoots out of the sky as four startled people cower below.
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #14

The Man Who Owned a World

Evil stepfather George intercepts a build-a-world kit from the future. —Michael Main
Somewhere in the future, a postal error had been made and a package destined for a yet as unborn grandson had been lost in time and delivered to this house!
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  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel