40 years ago today, on 3/16/80, Walt Disney’s comedy classic “Son Of Flubber” came to network television for the first time on NBC’s “Disney’s Wonderful World”. It was the first sequel done at the Disney studio, the joys of the first film providing too many wonderful ideas for the filmmakers to resist.
This 1963 comedy continues the adventures of Professor Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) and his gravity defying discovery Flubber, which he develops into a gas, Flubbergas, which can make it rain at will, be a great fertilizer, and have some unfortunate side effects like breaking glass.
One of the greatest comic casts ever put together into one film, it stars Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, Elliott Reid, Joanna Moore, Ed Wynn, Charlie Ruggles, Ken Murray, Edward Andrews, Paul Lynde, Gregg Hoyt, William Demarest, Bob Sweeney, Leon Tyler, Stuart Erwin, Alan Carney, Gordon Jones, Alan Hewitt, Norman Grabowski, James Westerfield, Forrest Lewis, Jack Albertson, Harriett MacGibbon, Joe Flynn, Byron Foulger, Dallas McKennon, Wally Boag, Beverly Wills, Don Edmonds, Burt Mustin, J. Pat O’Malley, Hal Smith, the voice of Ginny Tyler, and Walt Disney’s grandson Wed Miller as the bouncing baby boy in the Flubberoleum commercial.
One of the greatest comedies of the studio, the 100 minute film was cut for television to 95 minutes, cutting out the Bob Sweeney scene where he tries to collect the taxes of the Brainards. It would be the only showing of the film on network television. In the late 90s a colorized version would appear on The Disney Channel, but the film is best in its original black and white, one of the last black and white films to premiere on network television.
“Son Of Flubber” is one of the best Disney comedies of all time, and a film with great heart (at its trial scene). It is one joyous film.
“I guess I’ll have to go along with that.”
Walt Disney’s Son of Flubber 40th Anniversary
