ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Enjoyable sequel to Disney's "The Absent Minded Professor", with the same cast and a nice variation of the first film's best gimick — a sports event that turns into a flying circus.

This time it's a football game, and the dynamic effects of flubbergas makes it possible for football players to toss other football players through the air. But "Son of Flubber" introduces some other new elements, too: a rain-making ray that also shatters glass and makes vegetables grow to enormous size!

Fred MacMurray repeats his role as the professor, Nancy Olson is his wife, Keenan Wynn ("The Great Race") is the nasty capitalistic villain.

Also starring Tommy Kirk ("Village of the Giants") and Ed Wynn. Great family viewing. Directed by Robert Stevenson, one of Disney's most prolific film makers.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Remember loving The Absent Mind Professorp/i] & [i]Son of Flubber as a kid.

They even had Flubber marketed as a kid's toy that you could buy. Yep, I had one.

[Bud Brewster]

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Enjoy this classic trailer from a science fiction comedy which succeeds as both sci-fi and rib-tinkling high-jinks!

I have the DVDs of both the original and the sequel, and they have the distinction of being successful in an era when sequels were usually very disappointing.
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__________________ Son of Flubber - trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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This incredible story is from the IMDB trivia items for this movie.
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In one of the most hapless marketing tie-in attempts in movie history, Hasbro Toys, in cooperation with Disney, issued a toy version of Flubber, marketed just before Christmas time in 1962.



Similar to Silly Putty, in that it could bounce like a ball and make comic imprints, the mixture was a combination of rubber, mineral oil, and green food coloring that had been lab-tested with no ill effects and was marketed as being made of "a new parent-approved material that is non-toxic and will not stain."

Within weeks, claims came pouring in to both Hasbro and Disney that the toy Flubber was causing full-body rashes and sore throats in many of the children who used it, resulting in several lawsuits by angry parents.

Eventually, after much experimentation, and an intensive investigation by the FDA, it was determined that there was a property in the mixture, of unknown origin, that caused an infection of the hair follicles in certain individuals.

The product was recalled, but disposing of it turned out to be an even dicier proposition.



Trying to incinerate the mixture only produced a heavy, dense black cloud around the Providence, Rhode Island, garbage dump where the attempt was made.

Working with the U.S. Coast Guard to sink the substance at sea turned out to be a fiasco as well, as the next day almost all of the dumped Flubber came floating back into Narragansett Bay.

Finally, it was decided to use the mixture as landfill, buried deep under the parking lot at Hasbro's new warehouse, just outside of Providence. Even then, the incredible but true story doesn't end there. A popular "urban legend" among Hasbro employees is that every year, during the hottest days of summer, you can still spot some of the mixture oozing through the cracks in the parking lot.


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However, I found an article and a video at an NBC news website which describes their attempts to verify the wild story. Unfortunately, the attempts failed, and they ended up basically proving that no one really knows what happened to the tons of recalled Flubber!

Here's the video. Pretty interesting folks. Give it a look.

_______________ What happened to Flubber?


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bogmeister]

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___________________Son of Flubber - Trailer


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This is the imaginative sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor (61).

Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) and Biff Hawk (Tommy Kirk) fly into Washington DC in Brainard's flying Model-T Ford, and the expectation is that they will receive funds for Brainard's Flubber formula to pay off Medfield College's debt.

But they're in for a rude awakening. DC bureaucracy delays the money indefinitely (epitomized by Edward Andrews' mouthy politician).

Back home, Brainard and his wife (Nancy Olson) are besieged by opportunists, the private sector which plans to market Flubber in every way possible. Brainard repels them with the news that the government has his formula locked up.

Then the IRS pays him a visit with a big bill for the projected huge profits he will enjoy. Brainard takes all these setbacks in stride. but the wife is getting fed up. It doesn't help that Brainard's rival for his wife's affections shows up again with a lady from Brainard's past.

_________Flubber Car Attack - Colorized Version


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As far as Brainard's invention, he decides to adjust its properties to create his own rain clouds — for whatever reason, his objective now is to control the weather.


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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After reading Andrew Bogdan's review above I got the distinct impression that he either got bored with this movie and didn't finish watching it, or he wrote the review a few decades after seeing it and didn't remember the rousing second half of the movie!

His concluding sentence —

As far as Brainard's invention, he decides to adjust its properties to create his own rain clouds — for whatever reason, his objective now is to control the weather.

— completely ignores the fact that Fred McMurray's new ray projector (a) created rain clouds in minutes flat, (b]) broke all the glass in town whenever he used it, and (c) caused vegetable crops located below the rain clouds to grow to enormous proportions, creating a miraculous method which could end world hunger!

Oh, wait! And then there's the hysterical high school football game which included players who used a kind of super-helium the professor's invention creates to inflate a rubber suit one of the boys wore under his football uniform, making him so light the quarterback could actually throw him AND the football in a pass which caused Medfield to win the Big Game!

Folks, this was the brilliant follow-up to the legendary basketball game featured in The Absent-Minded Professor — and creating something which matched that was pure genius!

In short, the sequel to the first movie was every bit as entertaining as the original — a feat seldom achieved by sequels back in those days!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

The amazing thing is that Fred McMurry is known mainly as the comic "great dad" role he played in the sitcom MY THREE SONS and various Disney films and TV shows.

He started out playing the heavy in various film noirs in the late 30's and 40's.

An aside...He was also the model for the original CAPTAIN MARVEL in the 40's!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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I have no idea why this clever commercial for "Flubberoleum" was made, but it's pretty wild.

Was is something that appeared in the The Absent Minded Professor and I don't remember it? Or was it made to promote the movie and shown on the Dinsey tv series?

Anybody know the backstory on this crazy commerical?

__________ Flubber Commercial - Flubberoleum


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Trivia for SOF from Wikipedia.

SOF was the only film that father & son, Ed Wynn & Keenan Wynn, ever appeared in together.

According to Walt Disney's daughter, her father (who abhorred sequels) made SOF only because there were unused gags from "The Absent-Minded Professor."

The football game was shot on a field that was constructed in a studio.

The fictional Medfield College used in both TA-MP & SOF, was later used again for the Dexter Riley trilogy: "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" (1969), "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" (1972), and "The Strongest Man in the World" (1975.)

SOF was both a critical and commercial success when first released in 1963 and was the 6th highest-grossing film that year.

From IMDB.

Fred MacMurry really was an accomplished saxophone player, so he's really playing the sax in the party scene.

Beverly Wills, who plays the mother in the television commercial in the movie, was the daughter of film and TV star comedian Joan Davis, best remembered from her 1952~1955 sitcom "I Married Joan."

Tragically, Wills would die in a housefire on October 24, 1963 in Yucca Place, Palm Springs, California along with her grandmother and two sons.

Sidebar: The story about Beverly Wills and her grandmother and two young sons is heartbreaking.

Her talented mother, Joan Davis, was a fine comedienne who has largely been forgotten. Part of that is due to her dying from a heart attack at the far too young age of 48.

Sidebar: I was unaware that Walt Disney loathed making sequels to any of his pictures. I can understand the reasoning he had, sequels, just like remakes, rarely live up to the quality of the original movie that they are based upon.

Sidebar: Still, SOF proved to be the exception to that rule. It is as funny, if not funnier, than TA-MP in my opinion.

"Savage Sam" from 1963 was a sequel to the classic "Old Yeller" from 1957. Sam wasn't as good as Yeller, but it was an entertaining movie. And don't we all wonder what happened to the characters of a beloved film and how they're doing and what they're up to? We want to see them once again and sequels can allow us to do just that. The trouble being that many a sequel is purely made to cash in on the wonderful first film. In the course of doing, so care and attention may not be given to the sequel. Most often there just isn't anymore story to tell without it being just a rehash of the first movie. So it's best to leave it alone unless an intriguing concept presents itself.

Sidebar: Looking through critic Leonard Maltin's wonderful book: The Disney Films, I really don't find many of that studios' marvelous films that I would have desired a sequel to. Perhaps "The Shaggy Dog" (1959) could have managed a follow-up film had the script been decent.

Sidebar: I've always loved Disney's "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" (1964) which originally appeared in the U.S. on his Sunday evening television anthology series in three-parts.

It was released theatrically in Europe as "Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow." So technically we can classify the production as both a film, as well as a made-for-TV movie miniseries.

In any event, I would have loved to see Disney produce the further adventures of the Scarecrow, be it for film or TV, provided they could come up with a great screenplay for it.

[Bud Brewster]

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I'm pretty sure I could write a slam-bang sequel to Swiss Family Robinson, one that would relate the adventures of the family when (as promised in the closing scene of the original film) more colonists arrive to join the Robinsons.

Some of these new folks would be admirable people, but others would have larceny in their hearts, thus providing interesting conflicts for the story!

Perhaps a band of pirates move in to make the colony something like the island of Tortuga was in the Carribean — a stronghold for the ruthless sea bandits. The colonist would fight to rid their island of these bad people so the colony could continue to grow into a healthy and prosperous community.

Ernst (Tommy Kirk) would return after completing several years of college in Europe, and we'd meet a few children who belong to Fritz and Roberta.

Young Francis would be a few years older and enjoy his role as a "big brother" to his nieces and nephews (getting them into and out of trouble on several occasions).

I think a story like this would be pretty good.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Today I discovered that my DVDs of The Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber have an important difference!

The Absent Minded Professor is in 16.9 (widescreen), while Son of Flubber is in 4:9 with those dreaded black bars on the sides, cutting off a significant portion of the image!

Fortunately I download a fine copy from Archive.org <— link, which is in 16:9. Click the Archive.org link and watch it or download it.

But an even easily way you can get it is from my WeTransfer account at the link below . . . for as long I keep the link active.

Don't wait. Do it now. It's easy. It's free. It's safe.

___________________ Son of Flubber (1963)




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As for the wonderful science fiction aspects of this hilarious movie, it's packed with more wacky, wonderful ideas than all the fleas on Disney's The Shaggy Dog!

Professor Ned Brainard uses radiation to excite "flubber gas" an create "flubber rays" which stimulate rain clouds. The rain from these clouds causes crops to grow like crazy and solve the problem of world hunger . . . at least for all the vegetarians on the planet.

I guess if there had been a second sequel, Professor Brainhard could have zapped a heard of cows and created giant steers which provided enough steaks to feed all the cowboys in Texas!
I like the mental image._
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)