Population Earth

Roadsign of the times:
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.............EARTH
.........City Limits
.......... pop. 2191
..........-..-.....2193
......-.......-... 2189
....-..........-...2185
..-.............-..2183
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Editor's Comments:
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This is the sign that greeted Rod Taylor (The Time Traveler) in the original take of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine when he stopped in the year 802,701 A.D. and found the entire human race represented by:

Eloi...
... the lovable good guys; lacking the brains that God gave a billy- goat, flaxen-haired spiritless weenies helpless as fish-out-of-water.

and...

Morlocks...
... the despicable bad guys; monsters all, who had a nasty habit of dining on grilled fillet of plump juicy Eloi every chance they got.
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The scene hit the cutting room floor when it was discovered that due to a recent holiday bash by the Morlocks, the count of Earth's inhabi- tants had been reduced by some 14 Eloi.
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As we all know, later in the movie Rod took care of all the Morlocks in short order and as a result, saved the Eloi from total extinction.
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Yaaaaay!! .Way to go ROD!!
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He did this brave deed not to be macho, not to be a hero, not even to nobly save mankind from extermination, but to give himself a chance at sweet-talking childlike, innocent and gullible Yvette Mimieaux...
Weena;the stunning Eloi equivalent of a dumber-than-dumb blond..
... into making a serious effort towards restoring the population count of Earth to a more respectable level.
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This is also why he left his 19th century friends, his home, his beloved laboratory and his 1st-Class-A-Number-1-Housekeeper Mrs. Watchett once and for all at the end of the show.
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They thought that he'd stumbled -in great disarray yet- allll the way back to 1899 from 802,701 just to eat a dinner of leg-of-lamb, boiled potatoes and peas with them; afterwards giving a ho-hum synopsis on the most recent developments of his farfetched experiments in time.

How naive; but in a word...

Not!!
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As a matter of .fact, although.he could deal with the boiled .potatoes and peas part quite well, he had always secretly detested leg-of-lamb.

However as a staunch true-blue and loyal Englishman, he could never quite bring himself to actually say so out-loud.
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Really all he wanted to do was grab a toothbrush, his straight-razor, pipe and slippers, a tin or so of Earl Grey, and a couple of changes of shorts before madly dashing away from London fog, his stodgy cigar-smoking friends and leg-of-lamb forever; far far away-back to the dis- tant future and into Yvette's eagerly waiting arms for all of eternity.
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And so he did! .How EXCITING!!

It didn't even matter that in his haste he had quite forgotten to bring along milk for his afternoon tea because...

HE HAD A TIME MACHINE!!
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What a happy ending!!

.I wonder if he could use some help ...