This blog is devoted to the classic 1960s TV series Flipper. This show was one of the many wonderful entertainment offerings of my childhood. But its spell went beyond any other, and there is good reason for this. The show depicts a rich fantasy that appeals to many children: to live with the ocean as your backyard playground, with the wonders of the sea available to you. Beyond that it showed people and dolphins caring for one another. Sadly, the innocent message of the show has probably inspired the capture of many dolphins for corporate exploitation, but if you experienced the show as an open-minded child it wasn't at all about watching a dolphin in a tank jump through a hoop. It was about the connection people and dolphins actually experience. Perhaps someday we will come around to experience the sort of respect for these creatures that they deserve.
Another wonderful thing about Flipper is that it was the sort of level-headed entertainment that neither insulted its audience intelligence nor cheated it by coming up short in terms of production values. The sort of subtle characterizations in the show rarely occur in today's overwrought TV fare. And the rich photography and how fully the natural surroundings were employed are striking even moreso today.
So join me as I examine the many wonders that were the life and times of TV's Flipper.
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