Son of Flubber is the 1963 sequel to the Disneyscience fiction comedy film The Absent-Minded Professor. Both films star Fred MacMurray as a scientist who has perfected a high-bouncing substance, Flubber that can levitate an automobile and cause athletes to bounce into the sky. The film co-stars Nancy Olson and Keenan Wynn, and was directed by Robert Stevenson. Many of the cast members from The Absent-Minded Professor also appear in the film, including Elliott Reid and Tommy Kirk. The film was shot in black and white, but a colorized version was released on VHS in 1997.
Plot
Professor Ned Brainard's discovery of Flubber has not quite brought him or his college the riches he thought. The Pentagon has declared his discovery "top secret" and the IRS has slapped him with a huge tax bill, even though he has yet to receive any money from his invention. Ned thinks he may have found the solution in the form of "Flubbergas", which can actually change the weather. His wife Betsy becomes fed up with all the stress and files for divorce, and the professor's old rival starts trying to woo her again. Brainard's experiments with a ray projector device are making it rain inside people's houses all over town. When Brainard feels threatened by Professor Shelby's attentions towards his wife, Brainaid uses it to make it rain insides Shelby's car to frighten the man. The Flubbergas also helps Medfield College's football team win an important game, but it has one unfortunate side effect: It shatters the glass all over town. This places Brainard on the lam from Alonzo P. Hawk, who is planning to close Medfield College, whose insurance company must pay the claims for the broken glass. Mr. Hawk traces the damage to Ned and threatens legal action after Ned rejects his offer to become partners in a glass company scam. At home, Ned's wife Betsy is jealous of the attentions lavished on him by an old high school girlfriend Shelby brings around to help him win Betsy's affections, but she dumps him after Ned is arrested. On trial, Ned's future seems hopeless as he is faced with the various property damage lawsuit. A prosecutor urges Ned to return to his classroom and give up his science experiments. However, the county agricultural extension agent shows the court that crops all around the town have experienced accelerated growth because of Ned's experiments, because of what the agent names "Dry Rain". The professor is acquitted and he and Betsy are reunited. Driving home in their flying car, Betsy tells Ned she is now crazy about his science experiments, and soon they share a kiss. In the last scene, the football-filled with Flubber gas flies into outer space.
Cast
Production notes
Plans to make a sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor were announced in November 1961. According to Walt Disney's daughter, her father made the film only because there were unused gags from The Absent-Minded Professor. The football game was filmed on a field constructed in a studio, with players suspended by wires. Medfield College, which was also the setting for the earlier film The Absent-Minded Professor, was later used for a trilogy of Disney's "Dexter Riley" films: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him, Now You Don't, and The Strongest Man in the World, each starring Kurt Russell and Cesar Romero.
Reception
Son of Flubber was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $22,129,412 at the box office, earning $7.1 million in theatrical rentals, making it the 6th highest-grossing film of 1963. The film holds an 86% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. It was not as well received critically as the original. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "It is crazy, of course, in the spirit of old-fashioned sight-gag slapstick farce, but it is fun—and, indeed, a bit of a satire on the weird inventions of the new atomic age." Variety opined that the film "doesn't fill its father's footprints" and "lacks the ingenuity, clarity and neatness of its memorable progenitor. Fortunately, though, individual scenes within the less effective whole have the same uproarious, bellylaugh quality that characterized the original." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Since I had no laugh-o-meter handy I was unable to clock the yocks but I am sure 'Son of Flubber' will hold its own against 'The Absent-Minded Professor' and 'Bon Voyage.'" The Monthly Film Bulletin thought that the film "strains too hard to repeat the success of its predecessor, The Absent-Minded Professor, and is further weighed down by some unnecessary complications presented with little wit or sparkle. But the slapstick is generally as inventive as before, taking in a delightful spoof commercial for flubber and some excellent special effects when Professor Brainard launches his home-made clouds and his flubberised football player."
