Today's time-travel moment happens when Ray Bradbury meets Groucho Marx in 1955.

Watch Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, take a quiz. Watch Groucho raise his eyebrows, and listen to him crack wise.

Listen to Bradbury read his poem, 'If Only We Had Taller Been', on the occasion of the 1971 Mariner 9 probe launch. The poem is moving, but the comments Bradbury makes first will give you a good laugh. He admits that, like many science fiction writers, he gets 'caught out by nine-year-old boys'. This was before all those people got going on Star Trek.

Bradbury was a fierce autodidact who learned much from libraries. He even wrote Fahrenheit 451 in a library, using a coin-operated typewriter. When you're bragging about how up-to-date and futuristic it all is, remember: the guys who thought this up were living in the past – along with that great visionary, Groucho Marx.