Pat Hazell has his own WABAC machine — and he’s not afraid to use it.

If you remember Mr. Peabody, the bow-tied dog with a pet boy named Sherman on “The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show,” you’ll get the WABAC reference — and you are right in Pat Hazell’s target audience for “The Wonder Bread Years,” on stage at Penguin Rep in Stony Point through July 19.

If you don’t get the reference — or weren’t in your formative years in the ’60s and ’70s — you might feel a bit lost at times during Hazell’s one-man show.

But there’s still plenty to like about the charming bit of escape he offers.

The WABAC (pronounced wayback) machine took Mr. Peabody and Sherman back in time to a key moment of history. Once there, they’d help historical figures overcome obstacles to their date with destiny.

Hazell’s wayback destination is less historical, but just as important.

When he sets the dial — by sharing his personal memories and showing slides from his Nebraska childhood — we’re transported to a simpler time, before 200-channel, flat-screen, high-definition TV.

He’s after that room-filling, low-definition, three-channeled, black-and-white model in a wood-grained cabinet.

This isn’t a traditional theater piece, more a mix of theater, stand-up comedy and multimedia.

David Raphel’s set is a stoop, a clothesline strung with a sheet and some baby clothes, a rocking chair and a suspended window — fragments of architecture on an otherwise bare stage.

Hazell — who used to write for “Seinfeld” — starts each act with video montages projected onto the clotheslined sheet, a simple but effective mixing of new and old.

And there they are again: Big Wheels, Mikey from Life cereal, Mystery Date, Silly Putty, Hula-Hoops, SPAM and Slinky.

That’s all it takes and Hazell has us back where we came from, when, as he says, all we had to do was “wake up, play, eat and go to bed.”

His style is low-key, so much so that, at a preview, he was hard to hear at times despite a microphone clipped to his work shirt.

He speaks directly to the audience, asking about memorable show-and-tell items from their childhood.

The Penguin Rep audience, traditionally an engaged and chatty group to begin with, is eager to take part, telling Hazell at one performance about a profane parrot, a boa constrictor and a chemistry experiment gone awry.

That aspect of the show gives the evening a different feel, like we’re in a 108-seat comedy club.

But the memories are thick, from bad masks at Halloween (and the “gyp house”) to riding in the hermetically sealed back of the wood-paneled Country Squire station wagon looking directly into the headlights of an oncoming tractor-trailer.

When Ed McMahon died last week, it sent me to YouTube to watch clips from “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Hazell was a guest on the show. When Jay Leno took over, Hazell was on “Tonight” nine times.

Now there’s Conan O’Brien, whose show is rated TV-14, not for kids, even those who might be able to stay up to 11:30 — or those who can work a DVR.

Which way to the WABAC?

You’ll find one on Crickettown Road, through July 19.

‘The Wonder Bread Years’
Where: Penguin Rep, 7 Crickettown Road, Stony Point
When: Through July 19. 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
Tickets: $32 with discounts for those 30 and younger and groups of 10 or more
Information: 845-786-2873, penguinrep.org
Post-show discussion: There’s a talk-back after  Friday night’s performance.
Pre-show tastings: On July 4, enjoy complimentary hot dogs before the 4 p.m. matinee and 8 p.m. evening performances.