Time Squad

Time Squad is an American animated television series created by Dave Wasson for Cartoon Network and the 10th of the network's Cartoon Cartoons. It follows the adventures of Otto Osworth, Buck Tuddrussel, and the robot Larry 3000, a trio of hapless "time cops" living in the far distant future who travel back in time attempting to correct the course of history.[1] During their adventures, they run into major historical figures such as Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, Sigmund Freud, Leonardo da Vinci, the Founding Fathers, and Moctezuma, who have taken a drastically different course of life than history dictates. The mission of the Time Squad is to guide these figures onto the correct path and ensure the integrity of the future.

The series premiered during Cartoon Network's marathon block "Cartoon Cartoon Summer" on June 8, 2001,[2] and ended after two seasons on November 26, 2003, airing 26 episodes in total. In the course of its run, the series received five Annie Award nominations. Creator Dave Wasson described the series as "a C-student's guide to history". It is also the final Cartoon Network original series to premiere during Betty Cohen's tenure, as she later resigned due to creative disagreements with Jamie Kellner, then-head of Turner Broadcasting System. Cohen was eventually replaced with Jim Samples ten days after Time Squad premiered.

The series also marked as the very first Cartoon Network original series entirely produced by Cartoon Network Studios, no longer a division of Hanna-Barbera following the death of William Hanna in 2001. The show also began airing on Canada's Teletoon Detour block in 2002.

Overview[edit]
The show is set in the year 100,000,000 AD, on a satellite orbiting Earth. This future Earth is never visited directly, though it is referred to in dialogue as a peaceful utopia where there are no longer any problems to solve. All nations of the world have merged into one, and according to Tuddrussel, there are "no wars, no pollution, and bacon is good for your heart".

Despite this cheerful vision of the future, the space station on which the characters live and from which they travel to the past is remarkably dystopic. It features a shooting range, a terrarium and a prison for repeat offenders, but it is dank, outdated (for the time) and unclean. Mostly this seems to be down to officer Buck Tuddrussel (Rob Paulsen), a scruffy and immature perennial bachelor, who nevertheless happens to be the station's most senior officer.

The only other official member of Buck's unit is Larry 3000 (Mark Hamill), a translator robot and former diplomat who was rendered more or less obsolete when all of the world's nations merged. Buck's mindless machismo clashes with Larry's effete sensibilities, and the two bicker terribly. Added to this the fact that neither of them has any great knowledge of history, they made a rather poor team together.

However, when they encounter Otto Osworth (Pamela Adlon), an 8-year-old boy who happens to be an orphan from the 21st century, he is quickly recruited and added to the team. Otto is shown to be the only one on the team with any enthusiasm or competence for the job. The problem is, neither of the other two are particularly willing to listen to his advice, and he must often resort to trickery to make sure the mission is completed.

The Time Squad organization is set up to ensure that history is maintained and the future protected. According to Larry 3000, "time is like a rope", and, as it is woven at one end, ages and gradually unravels and frays at the other. In the context of the show, this often means that historical figures have made different, sometimes anachronistic, choices in life, and as such will not be able to fulfill the role that history says they fulfilled. According to creator Dave Wasson, "We started by basically knowing what a guy did in history, then found the most outlandish way he could go wrong".

Main characters

 * Otto Osworth (voiced by Pamela Adlon) - An orphan illegally traveling along with Tuddrussel and Larry, taken on board due to their incompetence and his impressive historical knowledge (and for Otto to escape his brutal life at the orphanage). Despite being a bookworm, his demeanor is far from boring; he is just as childlike and jocular as any regular eight-year-old. Even though he is the youngest, he is also the most responsible out of the squad, being the only one pure enough to not let himself get swayed by temptations. Depending on who he's siding with, he can either become loud and destructive (when Tuddrussel has him company) or composed and calm (when it's Larry he agrees with). It's unknown what happened to Otto's parents.
 * Lawrence "Larry" 3000 (voiced by Mark Hamill) - A grumpy robot and the only one on board able to operate the computer. It's his job to make sure the squad ends up at the right time and place. Initially, he was programmed as a polyglotic robot for diplomatic purposes; when all of the nations rejoiced into one, huge country, his consular abilities were no longer needed. Larry is famous for his effeminate behaviour and interests, which are portrayed all but subtly. Unusually, he is extremely dramatic and open in showing his emotions whilst still being the snarkiest of the trio. He prides himself in having knowledge of proper etiquette and manners. For Otto, he has been repeatedly depicted as a maternal figure.
 * Beauregard "Buck" Tuddrussel (voiced by Rob Paulsen) - An immature time cop, who possesses all the physical requirements for his job and none the intellectual. Whenever there's someone who needs a beating up (and even when they do not), he's the best person to get assigned for such a task. Impulsiveness, aggressiveness and air-headedness are traits which define Tuddrussel quite nicely. Not much of his backstory is known, aside from his Southern heritage and a short-lived marriage to fellow time cop Sheila Sternwell.

Recurring

 * Sheila Sternwell Tuddrussel (voiced by Mari Weiss) - A lieutenant within Time Squad ranks, Sheila is a no-nonsense woman that takes her job seriously. The ex-wife of Tuddrussel, it is made clear that while she regrets making the mistake of marrying him in the first place, and can be slightly bitter towards him, she actually does not resent him and still does her job and helps out Tuddrussel and his unit when needed. She even seems to go far in not ratting out Tuddrussel and Larry over Otto, and other screw ups that she should be reporting.
 * XJ5 (voiced by Daran Norris) - An advanced robot that is more qualified for the job of a time cop than Larry, and he loves to rub it in. Working with Officer Sternwell, XJ5 provides actual help and guidance on missions.

Other characters

 * J.T. Laser (voiced by Jim Wise) - Professional and competent, J.T. is the best officer of what Time Squad has to offer; but he is also an arrogant jerk that gladly makes trouble for Tuddrussel and Larry. Despite this, Tuddrussel and Larry are big fans of him and Lance Nine Trillion and still gush over them even after JT and Lance beat them to a pulp.
 * Lance Nine Trillion (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) - A high-tech robot in Time Squad that provides with the most ranked officer. Lance is the perfect partner for J.T; like XJ5 he boasts about how advanced he is.
 * Sister Thornley (voiced by Dee Dee Rescher) - Otto's former caretaker and nasty nun of the show before getting "adopted" by Larry and Tuddrussel. Otto has good reason to fear her, as do the other kids that she keeps. Obviously not afraid of the police or anyone coming after her, Sister Thornley freely abuses kids that are put into her care, while at the orphanage and even more disturbingly in public. Her motives are despairingly questionable, such making the children work under horrific conditions in order to make a quick buck, or why she has a problem with Otto reading books (or any child reading, for that matter. She apparently has an entire policy against it). At the end, Larry and Tuddrussel officially takes Otto much to her dismay, but to her joy she finds another genius child she can abuse.

Main

 * Pamela Adlon – Otto Osworth
 * Mark Hamill – Larry 3000, Nicolaus Copernicus, Police Commish, Black Bart
 * Rob Paulsen – Buck Tuddrussel, Fat Kid, John Adams, French Captain

Additional voices

 * Joe Alaskey – Robin Hood, Wilbur Wright, Samuel Morse
 * Carlos Alazraqui – Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mahatma Gandhi
 * Dee Bradley Baker – Austrian General, Babies
 * Jeff Bennett – Townsperson Leader, Jeremiah Tuddrussel, Johannes Gutenberg
 * Gregg Berger - Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Genghis Khan
 * Earl Boen – William Howard Taft/Frankenstein
 * Rodger Bumpass – Socrates
 * Grey DeLisle – Marie Curie, Lizzie Borden, Joan of Arc
 * Patti Deutsch – Amelia Earhart
 * Marshall Efron – John Montagu / The Earl of Sandwich
 * Bernard Fox – Henry Morton Stanley
 * Pat Fraley – Kublai Khan, Thomas Paine
 * Nika Futterman – Betsy Ross
 * Michael J. Gough – David Livingstone, George Washington
 * Paul Greenberg – Edgar Allan Poe
 * Jennifer Hale – Josephine Bonaparte
 * Brian Hamilton – Nostradamus
 * Jess Harnell – Attila the Hun
 * Bob Joles – Ludwig van Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, Orville Wright
 * John Kassir – Thomas Jefferson, Randall McCoy, Alfred Nobel, Grigori Rasputin
 * Tom Kenny – Sigmund Freud, Eli Whitney, Abraham Lincoln, Montezuma
 * Joe Lala – Leonardo da Vinci
 * Maurice LaMarche – Julius Caesar
 * Danny Mann – Albert Einstein, Harry Houdini
 * Vanessa Marshall – Cleopatra
 * Jim Meskimen – George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush
 * Candi Milo – Dexter
 * Daran Norris – XJ5, Samuel Adams, Sinon, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Louis Pasteur, Davy Crockett, Master of ceremonies, Philander Knox/Vampire, Jack the Ripper, William Shakespeare
 * Patrick Pinney - Thomas Paine
 * Jon Polito – Al Capone
 * Carlos Ramos – Napoleon Bonaparte
 * Dee Dee Rescher – Sister Thornley
 * Kevin Michael Richardson – Lance Nine Trillion, Time Squad Officer, George Washington Carver, Todd Washington Carver, George Washington (in "Houdini Whodunit?!"), George S. Patton
 * Roger Rose – Edward Teach / Blackbeard, John Hancock
 * Glenn Shadix – King of Troy
 * James Sie – Confucius
 * Kath Soucie – Little Girl, Wife, Old Lady
 * Fred Tatasciore - Devil Anse Hatfield
 * Jim Ward – Paul Revere
 * Dave Wasson - Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
 * Mari Weiss – Sheila Sternwell
 * Frank Welker – James Sherman/Zombie, Horses, French Captain
 * Jim Wise – J.T. Laser

Timeline and world history

 * Dinosaur Era
 * Stone Age
 * 1200 BC, Troy, Asia Minor
 * 551 BC, China
 * 399 BC, Greece
 * 51 BC, Egypt
 * 46 BC, Rome
 * 438 AD, The Far East
 * 1156 AD, Sherwood Forest, England
 * 1210, Mongolia
 * 1323, Medieval England
 * 1430, France
 * 1450, Germany
 * 1500, Florence, Italy
 * 1502, Mexico-Tenochtitlan
 * C. 1520, Poland
 * 1537, Atlantic Ocean
 * 1547, Moscow, Russia
 * 1605, Stratford von-Avon, Warwickshire
 * 1717, Atlantic Ocean
 * 1719, The Caribbean
 * 1762, London, Great Britain
 * 1773, Boston, Massachusetts
 * 1775, Boston, Massachusetts
 * 1776, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 * 1778, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
 * 1783, Savannah, Georgia
 * 1797, Paris
 * 1803, Vienna, Austria
 * 1804, The Louisiana Purchase
 * 1836, San Antonio, Texas
 * 1836, Washington, D.C.
 * 1845, Baltimore, Maryland
 * 1863, Washington, D.C.
 * 1864, Stockholm, Sweden
 * 1866, Kansas City, Kansas
 * 1871, Africa
 * 1876, Great Plains
 * 1876, West Virginia
 * 1877, The Old West
 * 1888, Paris, France
 * 1895, New York City
 * 1899, Vienna, Austria
 * 1903, Dayton, Ohio
 * 1911, Washington, D.C.
 * 1915, Tuskegee, Alabama
 * 1925, Chicago, Illinois
 * 1930, Los Angeles, California
 * 1941, Great Britain
 * 1942, Washington, D.C.
 * 1945, Texas
 * 2001, Present day
 * 2002, Washington, D.C.
 * 3000 AD, Fly City
 * 100,000,000, Far Future