Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman, debuted in the 1950s’ The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and now, their own feature-length cartoon is sweetly geeky, full of charm and authentic humor. Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) is a genius inventor, scientist, musician, athlete, gourmand and mixologist. Oh, and he’s a dog. When 7-year-old Sherman (Max Charles) and his schoolmate Penny (Ariel Winter) take Peabody’s WABAC—pronounced “way back”—machine out for an unauthorized jaunt to the distant past, it’s up to Peabody to repair the time-stream damage they do. Ancient Egypt and Renaissance Italy are but two of the places we are whisked away to, with much good-natured silliness and tons of glorious bad puns along the way. These are the sorts of goofy yet intriguing adventures that could well inspire kiddie curiosity in history, art and science. By MaryAnn Johanson