What's in a Name?

Long before I would have access to editing software like iMovie or Premiere Pro, I had to rely on the camcorder's built-in titles. And they were rubbish.

The name Time Unravellers has its origins in a dreadful home movie I made with a school friend back in April '97. He played a scientist named Peter Plank, while I played his hapless helper, Ted Tube. I haven't felt inclined to honour either of those names in the book, obviously. The film (which runs to a lofty 6 minutes) was a parody of 1960s sci-fi TV series, The Time Tunnel.

I'm pictured here holding the handheld device that controlled our tumbles through time.

It's not exactly clear what the film is about, but I watched it again this afternoon and it seems as though Plank invents a time machine, with a handheld device to "control our tumble through time". By tumbles through time, I'm referring to me and my friend going to an area of our town situated near the house of another one of our friends (who appeared as the evil Dr Frink in Time Unravellers, and reprised his role in the slightly longer sequel, Time Unravellers 2) and sort of standing around for a bit. Dr Frink had invented the Time Bag (which was basically the canvas bag I kept the video camera in), and apparently planned to use the bag to travel through time, win money through betting, and use his ill-gotten gains to buy a golden laser and melt the earth. He is quickly (and incomprehensibly) defeated 2 minutes later. The closing shot, a compelling black screen with a voice-over, features this well-rehearsed exchange between Plank and Tube:

Tube - And so concludes Ted and...Ted and...erm...

Plank - Pete.

Tube - Pete. Cheers. So concludes Ted and Pete's journey through time. Scaling un-for...un-pro...unscalable scales of time...

Plank - And space.

Tube - ...and space.

Two weeks later, we filmed the even less fathomable Time Unravellers 2. Everyone reprised their roles. I have even less of a clue what's going on in this one, except that it ends with a protracted and ludicrous chase scene set to a terrible orchestral version of the Chordettes song, Mr Sandman.

Anyway, that's where the name came from.