Flipper
by Tyler Woods on Nov. 05, 2011, under Life
mortystv.com
Monsoons are over and the cooler weather is coming. Last
nights strong wind and rain reminded me of the very last monsoon storm out here on the ranch. Sadly, it blew out my 4 year old flat screen TV. They just don’t make electronics the way they used to. I had no TV for a few and it was okay because thank goodness for computers and Hulu. What I love about Hulu is they air all the old TV series and it got me thinking…
I work hard by day, and am on call pretty much 24/7 so before hunkering down for the night, I am a woman who can appreciate a little
light hearted TV. When I discovered my TV was not working, my spouse and I went into the office, turned on the computer and turned on Hulu. I have to say I really enjoyed seeing all the old shows on Hulu. The choice was difficult whatever should I watch?
Flipper won that night. It sure was not like I recalled as a younger child watching it, then again, it never is. What I recall about Flipper is it was sort of like Lassie only instead of a collie, it was a dolphin that always saved the day. I liked flipper as a kid. It was somewhat hip because it was about the ocean and a really far-out dolphin. The gist of the series was a widowed park ranger of sorts named Porter Ricks had two sons Sandy and Bud and it was about their adventures with the dolphin.
I had the theme song memorized as a kid, and when I heardthe beginning of the show, it all came back to me…
“They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!
The show ran from 1964-1967, it was a total of 88 episodes, which surprised me because it seemed like it ran a lot longer than that when I
was a kid. Probably what I am recalling is all the reruns. What really happened in all reality is apparently the two boys grew up and they had to move on therefore NBC canceled the show.
What was so fun and predictable about the show was there was always so much adventure. It seemed each week Flipper had to rescue someone, and many times, it was the two boys. In researching for this article, I read that Flipper was a female and had two trainers. The network wanted you to believe Flipper was a male, but in reality, male dolphins are more aggressive than females but true to the 60s, females took a back seat, even dolphins.
There was filming done under water, which by 1964 standards was amazing. Therefore, when I looked at it and watched some episodes, I had to appreciate how far we have come with filming and technology. I love Hulu and now have it on my Roku box so I can have all the old shows readily available. I think that on most days I would choose one of the old shows over some of the stuff on TV. In fact, I think I will feature an old TV shows every occasionally in Retroflections, so what was one of your favorites?
