I really don't think it's specified how the time travel is being achieved. It certainly has something to do with what's in the professor's pipe. That's the fun of this sort of story, I suppose.

And sure, Texas, I understood Dann's point. My only argument is that the character gives up on his alternate future awfully quick. To me it might have been more interesting to have him spend an entire act in that time--to get a real sense of what it would be like to live there/then, as the rich guy he might have been. In other words, to allow the character to make an informed choice about which life he wanted, as opposed to a minute or two of panic in which he decides to immediately head back to the familiar pie-heavy world that he knows. It's pretty easy to equate money with shallowness and superficiality, as this episode does. I have noticed that Hollywood movies often do this too--the same movies that are generally made by some of the most affluent people in the country!