Back when Nick Fury appeared at the end of the original Iron Man and revealed the Avenger Initiative, something incredible was born. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe may not be at quite the heights that it was following Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, it’s still the biggest movie franchise of all time. It created the concept of a cinematic universe that numerous studios have attempted to recreate since, largely without the same success.
And yet, it turns out that decades earlier Disney had, perhaps inadvertently, created its own “cinematic universe” decades before by connecting three Disney franchises together through both locations and characters. I thought I knew Disney, but this story is news to me.
The Absent-Minded Professor Has A “Cinematic Universe”
I was recently sent a copy of the new book Disney In-Beween by Stephen Anderson. The book is a chronicle of the period between the death of Walt Disney and just before the era known as the Disney Renaissance began. It was a period of significant upheaval, and questionable movie quality, at the storied studio. While reading it, I learned more than a little about some Disney films I’ve never seen, and even more about some I haven’t watched in decades.
It all traces back to the 1961 movie The Absent-Minded Professor starring Fred MacMurray, which tells the story of a college professor who invents a flying rubber object that he calls Flubber. The movie was a solid hit in 1961, leading to a rare (at the time) Disney sequel, 1963’s Son of Flubber.
The first connection between Disney franchises would come six years after Son of Flubber. Disney would release The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. The movie starred a young Kurt Russell as a college student who suffers an electric shock while repairing a computer and gains a computer-like memory. Russell’s character, Dexter Riley, is a student at Medfield College, the same school where Fred MacMurray’s character is a teacher in The Absent Minded Professor.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes would get two sequels of its own, Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, in which Dexter Riley creates an invisibility formula, and The Strongest Man in the World, where Riley creates breakfast cereal that grants (temporary) superhuman strength. So we’re now up to five movies that take place within the same universe.
Herbie The Love Bug Is Also Part Of The Same Universe
The same year that The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was released in theaters, Disney also released an even bigger hit. The Love Bug, the first movie about the sentient Volkswagon named Herbie, was the second highest-grossing movie of the year. It would not have a direct connection to any other Disney films, but a connection would come later via the thing that defines a modern cinematic universe, the character crossover.
In 1974, Disney would release the sequel Herbie Rides Again. This movie contained a villain character named Alonzo Hawk, played by Keenan Wynn. The same actor, playing the same character, also appeared in the two Absent Minded Professor films.
Since even the 2005 movie Herbie: Fully Loaded starring Lindsay Lohan, and the often forgotten made-for-TV movie The Love Bug starring Bruce Campbell (yes, that was a real thing), are considered conical sequels to the Herbie franchise, this means all six Herbie films are part of the same universe, and the total number of films set in the AMPCU (Absent Minded Professor Cinematic Universe) comes to at least 11.
While I have seen most, if not all of these movies, it’s been decades since I saw them. I certainly never noticed the connection between them, but I kind of love that Disney, either through an intent to connect the movies or, more likely, the simplicity that came with reusing perfectly good names, technically created a cinematic universe.
If these movies were remade today, and let’s face it, they’re all due for Disney+ original movies right about now, such connections would have been absolutely intentional. Who knows, if those remakes do happen, maybe Disney will do something fun with the idea and actually have the projects crossover more directly. Thanks to the MCU, we know such an idea could work.
If you’d like to experience the AMPCU for yourself, you can, mostly. If you have a Disney+ subscription, Son of Flubber and Now You See Me, Now You Don’t are not currently available in the U.S., just two more pieces of older Disney content still missing from Disney+, but the rest of the movies I’ve mentioned can be watched. So enjoy!