Enter Professor Ned Brainard. While MacMurray would later become known as the stern father figure in My Three Sons , his turn as the chaotic, recursive Professor Brainard was a masterclass in physical comedy. The plot was simple: Brainard is so distracted by his experiments that he misses his own wedding—three times. However, his distraction leads to a serendipitous accident. While attempting to create a new type of synthetic rubber, a baseball hits his experiment, and (Flying Rubber) is born.
But Flubber is more than just "flying rubber." It is a story of innovation, both on-screen and off. From its inception as a educational parable about the space race to its evolution into a CGI spectacle, the history of Flubber is a fascinating look at how Hollywood imagines science. Flubber
The word "Flubber" is a portmanteau of a fictional substance first introduced in the 1961 film The Absent-Minded Professor . However, it reached peak cultural saturation in the 1997 remake starring Robin Williams as Professor Philip Brainard. Enter Professor Ned Brainard
Creating a substance that could "act" on screen was no small feat in 1961. This was decades before computer-generated imagery (CGI). The Flubber had to be a physical prop, and making a rubber ball appear to defy gravity required clever camera tricks and practical effects. However, his distraction leads to a serendipitous accident