Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
YouTube to the rescue; Whip It and Superfreak are particularly entertaining, and the YouTube channel has lots of extra songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ikC5ZdHfo&list=AL94UKMTqg-9ClzWvCQIoPTnOxHRgW_5U2
Thanks! But you know, I'm not sure that's true. The "ton of prep work," I mean, not the "great idea." The internet totally saves our butt when it comes to figuring these out.
Let's walk through it with a fast, half-assed example. I google "what happened in the 1920s?" and get lots of possibilities, including prohibition, the invention of antibiotics, and the aftermath of the great Spanish Flu influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that killed 40 million people. All of these are interesting, but let's go with prohibition.
So I type "what would have happened if there were no prohibition?" and get a message board thread at the Straight Dope. It's a little iffy, but has some ideas. One is that there'd have been no Kennedy family fortune if Joe hadn't been a bootlegger. Additional research shows that to be a little specious, but what the heck. Let's agree that it's plausible: no prohibition means that JFK wouldn't have become President. I google "what are JFK's biggest accomplishments?" Turns out, JFK's cautious and sensible approach to the standoff during the Cuban missile crisis helped avert nuclear war. So, just scribbling on the back of an envelope here, avoid prohibition and there's a chance we would have had a nuclear conflict with the Russians over Cuba.
The PCs travel to the year 2200. Ancient history records are a little iffy due to global warning and background radiation in what's left of the US, but it quickly becomes clear that something went horribly wrong at the Bay of Pigs. The PCs travel back to 1961, hoping to sort it out, but they soon realize that there are tight controls on bars, all of which close at 8pm (temperance didn't disappear, and managed to have alcohol establishments tightly restricted) and that someone more pugnacious is President. That leads them back to the 1920s, where they can confront the time traveler (whatever his or her motives) before he or she scuttles prohibition.
There you go, a slightly strained but probably fun adventure, and it took me maybe 10 minutes and a few Wikipedia searches. I'd identify a few fun people in each time zone for them to talk to, get some good personalities (such as prominent members of the temperance movement!), and let 'em loose.
