SON OF FLUBBER (1963)
Article 2268 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-6-2007
Posting Date: 10-28-2007
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Featuring Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn

When payment for his invention of flubber is held up by bureaucratic red tape, Professor Brainard finds himself once again trying to save Medfield college, inventing a machine that can create rainstorms anywhere, and using flubber to help the football team.

THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR is one of my favorite of the Disney shopping cart movies. I’m much less impressed with this, its sequel. I think part of the problem is that the screenwriters never came up with an effective story to follow in the steps of the original, and the movie caroms back and forth between recycling the original and working on new ideas that just aren’t near as effective. The plot is fairly muddled, and the middle portion of the story about an old flame of Professor Brainard’s is really forgettable. Still, there are some good things here; I like the satirical jabs at the government, which is slow to pay but quick to tax. I also love the commercial concocted by a business who wants to invest in flubber. The football game is a recycling of the basketball game of the original, but it’s still the funniest moment here, and it does feature some inspired casting of Paul Lynde as a sports commentator. Other than that, this sequel feels like a sequel.