7 Surprising Facts About the Hit 1964 Show ‘Flipper’

The heartfelt, hopeful, and all-around fun 1964 TV show Flipper is officially turning 60 this year (which seems to defy possibility — can it really be that old?), so it seems as good a time as any to get out our fins and snorkels and dive into a look back at the show.

The television series, which aired from 1964 to 1967 on NBC, was actually preceded by a pair of feature films: Flipper (1963), starring Chuck Connors and Luke Halpin, and the following year’s Flipper’s New Adventure, which brought aboard the cast that would be featured in the TV show. Both films were extremely popular with filmgoers.

The show follows two brothers — Sandy (the returning Luke Halpin) and Bud Ricks (Tommy Norden) — and their pet dolphin named Flipper as they get into some pretty wild adventures on the Coral Key Park, Florida coast. There were 88 episodes of the Flipper TV show in total.

Despite having the same name and look throughout the show’s run, Flipper was actually played by five different dolphins. Susie and Kathy were the most used, while the team also had Patty, Scotty, and Squirt around for backup. Additionally, production used a male dolphin named Clown for the tail-walk shots.

All of these dolphins were trained by Richard O’Barry, the founder of the Dolphin Project, a nonprofit organization centered around getting dolphins out of captivity, which was founded after the dolphin Kathy died in his arms in 1970.

Another thing O’Barry did while working on the Flipper TV show? He allowed the dolphins to see their own work! Quite a few times the trainer-turned-philanthropist plugged in a TV right in front of their tank in the Miami Seaquarium so the animals could see themselves on screen. He claimed they were very self-aware and knew exactly what was going on.

Luke Halpin — who played Sandy Ricks in the Flipper TV show – did all of his own stunts while working on the series, including the “Shark Hunt” episode in season 2. The only times Haplin didn’t work as a stuntman was in the season 1 episode “300 Feet Below” and the season 3 episode “Firing Line 2.”

Despite being the show’s resident animal trainer, O’Barry can actually be spotted in season 3, episode 24, “Firing Line 2.” The philanthropist was cast as Luke Halpin’s stunt double and tasked with jumping out of a helicopter and into the ocean 20 feet below, while simultaneously dodging the explosives fired at Haplin’s character.

Flipper might have only run for three seasons, but during that time it had some pretty notable guest stars, including Martin Sheen, Bo Svenson, Burt Reynolds, Jessica Walter, Robin Mattson, Lynda Day George, and David Soul.

In fact, Flipper was the first thing Bo Svenson worked on. He guest-starred in season 2, episode 5, “Coral Fever” in 1965. He was 25 at the time.

One of the show’s transition shots featured a peninsula — which is actually entitled the Village of Key Biscayne — with boats moving around in the background. Well, if you look closely, you will be able to spot that it’s the same boats moving in the same direction every single time. This is actually pretty common in TV shows, though, as stock footage saves money and gives the audience a sense of where the next scene is going to take place.

In 1995, a TV show entitled Flipper (or Flipper: The New Adventures) aired. It followed a team of scientists studying dolphins in Florida. The show stars Whip Hubley, Anja Coleby, Gus Mercurio, and Jessica Alba and ran for 98 episodes.

The following year, a movie with the same name was released, following a very similar plot of a boy named Sandy Ricks who befriends a dolphin named Flipper and goes on a life-changing adventure with him. Paul Hogan, Elijah Wood, Jonathan Banks, and Robert Deacon appear.

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