- Janitor Woodrow Mulligan gets a trip from 1890 to 1962 courtesy of his employer's time-machine helmet.
- In 1890, janitor Woodrow Mulligan uses his employers' invention to transport himself to the future. He imagines an Eden but finds a polluted, busy world that he doesn't find at all attractive. He meets Rollo who is also disgusted with the world he lives imagining life in the 1890s as idyllic. When Woodrow goes back to his own time Rollo goes with him but he is soon bored without any of the conveniences of modern life.—garykmcd
- In 1890, in Harmony, the janitor Woodrow Mulligan is a grumpy man, complaining about everything. When his boss, Prof. Gilbert, invents a time helmet, he decides to use the device to go to the future that he believed would be a better and less expensive world. He arrives in 1962 and has a huge disappointment with Harmony, now a big city. When a boy steals his helmet, he follows him but recovers the equipment damaged. Now the scientist Rollo believes in his words and decides to help Woodrow to repair the equipment since the man adores 1890. But will he really help Woodrow?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Woodrow Mulligan (Buster Keaton) is a grumpy man in 1890, dissatisfied with what his world has come to: the nation's budget surplus is only 85 million dollars, prices are shockingly high to him, and his once-quiet town of Harmony, New York is bustling with livestock roaming the streets, which are full of horse-drawn carriages and penny-farthing bicycles moving at the speed limit of 8 mph. A collision with a bicyclist dumps him in a water trough, forcing him to take off his pants to dry them when he gets to his place of work.
He works as janitor for Professor Gilbert (Milton Parsons), who has just invented a "time helmet," which can transport the wearer to another decade for 30 minutes. Mulligan tries it on and it sends him to 1961; Harmony is now a busy city with streets full of cars, all sorts of urban noise, and astonishingly high prices. In the chaos he loses the helmet, which is picked up by a boy on roller skates, requiring Mulligan to give chase on a contemporary bicycle. He recovers the damaged helmet as he runs into Rollo (Stanley Adams), a scientist. They take the helmet to a "fix it" shop, where Rollo and the proprietor (Jesse White) argue over repairs, while Mulligan wanders off and to acquire a pair of pants.
Rollo regards the 1890s as an idyllic period, and wants to go back there in Mulligan's place. He runs off with the helmet, but Mulligan catches him at the last instant and they both go back. Mulligan is relieved to be home, and Rollo finds it charming. A week later, Mulligan has found a new appreciation for life in 1890, but Rollo is dismayed at the lack of technology and modern comforts. Annoyed by Rollo's griping, Mulligan sets the helmet for 1961, puts it on Rollo's head, and sends him back to his own time, leaving Mulligan in peace.
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