The Wayback Machine or WABAC Machine is a fictional time machine and plot device from an American cartoon television series in the 1960s called the The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. Each episode of the cartoon series included a short segment "Peabody's Improbable History" in which the Wayback Machine was used by the segment's main characters, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, to travel back in time to visit important events in human history. The term has acquired popular or idiomatic usage as a way to introduce events or things from the past.
The Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive was named after the Wayback machine from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon.