Flubber (film)

Flubber
File:Flubber cover.jpg Flubber DVD Cover
Directed by	Les Mayfield
Written by	John Hughes, Bill Walsh
Produced by	David Nicksay, William Ryan
Starring	Robin Williams Marcia Gay Harden Dick Van Dyke Jodi Benson
Distributed by	Buena Vista
Release date	November 26 1997
Running time	93 min.
Language	English

For the Marvel Comics character, see Flubber (comics).

Flubber is a 1997 film produced by Disney starring Robin Williams and Marcia Gay Harden. It is a remake of the 1961 Disney film, The Absent-Minded Professor.

Robin Williams plays an absent-minded professor named Philip Brainard who develops a green rubber-like substance as a new form of energy which he calls Flubber. It is highly unstable in bright light, but under all conditions is ductile, elastic, anthropomorphic, intelligent, impressionable, nearly indestructible, and capable of retaining kinetic energy indefinitely, so that if given the impetus it will rebound repeatedly, increasing the velocity and force with each collision. It is eventually used to help the University basketball team win. The film is rated PG for slapstick action and mild language.

Plot

The film's plot is similar to that of The Absent-Minded Professor, albeit with the addition of an anthropomorphic, aerial robot called Weebo. Weebo is the Professor's constant companion. She resembles a combination of flying saucer, television monitor, camera, and computer; but behaves like a human, displaying the emotions of affection, jealousy, joy, and sadness as well as loyalty, self-sacrifice, and courage. She is intimate with the Professor, fond of illustrating her emotions by showing relevant images on her monitor, prone to curiosity, and very much attached to the Professor and his happiness. It is she, in fact, who allowed the Professor to forget his wedding to Sara Jean Reynolds, so that she (Weebo) would have all the Professor's unreliable attention to herself. Later, she came to regret this, because it had caused his sorrow. Ultimately, Weebo is irreparably broken when two thieves, sent by the father of a disgruntled student, enter the Professor's laboratory; when Weebo intervenes, one of the thieves strikes her with a baseball bat.

Mourning her death (for as such it is depicted), the Professor and a reconciled Sara scan Weebo's memory, finding there a message that Weebo left for him. In this message, Weebo explains that she, in preparation for her death, created plans by which a second robot like herself may be built, since the professor had forgotten how he created Weebo (his other tries to duplicate her failed). Weebo tells the professor that she changed the program (thus preventing him from cloning her) by inserting some of the professor's own traits into the new robot, which she considers to be their daughter. They then go to avenge Weebo, beating up all their foes in silly ways. One way involves a man eating the flubber which results in it bouncing aroung his body, eventually coming out the other end.

This robot, called Weebette, is later seen assuring that the wedding of Sara to the Professor will take place. When the newlyweds leave for a wedding trip, Weebette is heard by the viewer addressing Sara as "Mom", and whines about having to share a room with the Flubber.

Box office

Flubber performed well at the box office. It made $92,977,226 in the United States and a total of 85 million in other countries for a grand total of $177,977,226 internationally.

Trivia

• Phillip will eventually win the Inventor of the Year award at the Imagination Institute for flubber.
• Chicago Cubs radio broadcaster Pat Hughes is heard as the voice of the announcer at the Medfield College basketball game.
• There is actually no Medfield College, as there is only one town named Medfield in the United States. It is rumored that Walt Disney used to vacation in Medfield, Massachusetts, and used this name in the original film on which Flubber is based, The Absent-Minded Professor.
• Robin Williams showed up on the set with matching shaved eyebrows.
• In the video, the building that was shot as Ford's headquarters is actually Adobe Systems' headquarters in San Jose, California.
• Special effects were done mainly by two studios: Industrial Light and Magic and Hammerhead Studios.
• We can see a scene from a Simpsons episode in this film.
• In The Simpsons episode Children of a Lesser Clod, Flubber is directly referenced by Professor Frink. Also in the episode Please Homer, Don't Hammer 'Em..., Homer Simpson says to Professor Frink "No problem, but why don't you go inside and stir your Flubber while I get to work."
• The film was filmed inside the San Jose university campus, California.
• The two thugs that work for the villain Hoenicker are Smith and Wesson, a nod to the Massachusetts-based handgun manufacturer of the same name.
• In the movie Superstar, Flubber is referenced in the video rental store scene when the cheerleader informs her boyfriend that she's renting Flubber again.
• In the middle of the movie (when Robin Williams flies his 1950s car), he mentions Sir Isaac Newton and then when he sees Christopher McDonald sitting with his girlfriend Sara. When he leaves, Robin (as the Professor) then says to an apple "Sir Isaac" and throws it directly to his rival's head.
• Nancy Olsen, who played the part of Professor Brainard's love interest Betsy in The Absent Minded Professor, makes a brief, uncredited cameo appearance in this film.
• Flubber was a real animal species, found only in Fiji, until it was made extinct during the production of this movie.

External links

• Flubber at IMDb
• Boxoffice information
• Walt Disney's Flubber
• How to make Flubber recipe