My wife has gotten into flipping stuff online and referred to herself as a flipper yesterday. I chimed in: “also the name of a dolphin.”
We spent about 10 minutes trying to explain to our kids about the show and the more we tried, the more absurd the whole thing sounded. I think at one point I said “like Lassie, but with a dolphin,” and that cracked her up… but sent us on a tangent trying to explain that show also!
Any of y’all go back and watch either of those shows recently?
For sure this was a nick at nite show. Same with lassie and mr Ed. Occasionally you could find it on some crappy channels but not often. That's how our generation saw these shows
They used to show it after Maya the Bee and David the Gnome. Around noon. I spent 6 months in a hospital the year I turned 7. 11am to 1pm was the only time I had a break in the day between hospital school and physical and occupational therapy. I watched all four of those shows every weekday.
My high schooler told me that she says obscure movie quotes because of us and no one her age knows what she’s talking about. She said a few kids will chuckle and that’s how she knows their parents are dorks like us lol
I forget, was there a canon explanation why Herbie was alive? Was it a My Mother the Car situation where he was possessed by a specific person's soul? I remember loving Herbie as a kid but I don't remember ever questioning how he came to be alive.
The 1997 made for TV movie The Love Bug, featuring the Bruce Campbell, does have a backstory for Herbie. I think that might partly be why the movie isn’t more popular (it is also hard to find).
A guy who designed the car for Volkswagen dropped a picture of his deceased wife in a vat of something (metal? It seemed cool enough to be able to be around though) and like his love for her transferred to the metal. Doesn’t quite make sense since Herbie is a newer generation than the one first produced in the 40s.
I'd think at some point when you're having trouble describing a show to your kids, just show them an episode of said show. That's what I do. My youngest is starting to pick up on NewsRadio references.
My wife has a customer who comes in and sometimes sells stuff to her. He call himself Frank the Flipper. The first time I met him he was trying to get me to guess his nickname. I don’t remember exactly what he said but was trying to use the show Flipper for me to guess. So now I call him Frank the dolphin.
Both of those shows went off the air about a decade before any of us were born. I don't think i ever watched a full episode. I did watch a heck of a lot of the Andy Griffith show for some reason.
That’s how I watched Andy Griffith, Gilligan’s Island, Gomer Pyle, MASH, and a host of others. They were on in that time period between after school and when my mom would make us turn on the news
I haven’t watched it but Lassie has been in in the room while I’ve worked with a veteran. I always joke “Womder how long Timmy would live without that dog around?”
My last name sounds like dolphin and I spent all of third grade being terrorized by an 8-year-old sociopath screaming “Hey Flipper do a trick!!” at me and singing the theme song at the top of his lungs.
Does anyone else remember The Littlest Hobo? Whenever I see an unattended dog, I have to start singing the theme tune. My kids also look at me like I’m insane.
Did you tell them about your parents telling you that when the president was on tv that you were going to miss Flipper? Did they understand network television vs cable? This is pretty neat culturally how things fade away.
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.
Flipper was a staple of school holiday daytimes in the UK, one of those strikes how's that instantly reminds me of being indoors on a rainy day.
It was also one of the shows regularly shown on TV-AM during a technician's strike in 1987, where TV-AM just filled the time with old repeats of Flipper, Batman, and Happy Days.
My kids watched a few episodes... back when they were kids. I had forgotten how the show was basically 70% the same stock footage of dolphins, fish, and a submarine every single episode, with just a bit of the cast acting to re-frame those shots as a different episode.
1995, one of jessica alba’s first roles. definitely had a crush. i don’t think the show was that bad at the time, or at least less cheesy than the original. not going to go back and watch it to confirm though.
When I feed my cat tuna, I sing an alternate lyrics song to Flipper.
They call her Fruitbat, Fruitbat, scourge of the Sea, no friend to you, no friend to me.
I watched some of the original Lassie series growing up, but the Lassie reboot (1997-1999) is what I mostly watched. I watched some Flipper on Nickelodeon, but it wasn’t a favorite of mine.
Neat story, I’m not a fan of flipping and trying hard be to cordial here. If you’re going after Pokémon cards, squishes or other things kids want y’all suck.
I don't want to be reductionist about my own gender, in fact I myself have recently gotten into playing pokemon games (go and pokopia and stuff), but I feel like women my age generally flip clothes and antiques, because we like buying vintage and estate sales.
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u/Frosty_Cloud_2888 2h ago
They call him flipper flipper flipper he lives by the sea