If you remember the story of The Flash, or never knew it before, Barry Allen was a police forensics chemist who gained super-speed after a set of chemicals was accidentally struck by lightening. The first television version of The Flash starred John Wesley Shipp in 1990, starred John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen / The Flash (Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert), and co-starred actress Amanda Pays.
The CBS TV series of that time was developed from the DC Comics characters created by the writing team of Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, and produced by their company, Pet Fly Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Composer Danny Elfman (who was the hot music guy at the time) wrote the show’s awesome title theme, and the legendary Stan Winston Studios (which made the robot for Comic Con 2013 / YouTube Geek Week) built the costume.
Here’s the intro followed by a 47-minute clip of the show:
Now, 23 years later and with an audience seemingly more hungry than ever for tv and movie products around comic book characters, not to mention a large cosplay industry, the CW, producers of The Arrow, based on another DC Comics character The Green Arrow, created a plan to, as they put it, ‘ease’ The Flash back into the entertainment world.
That is done via a role for Barry Allen / Grant Gustin in The Arrow, and the episode he will appear in is marked by this scene in this video:
Afterward, the CW plans a Flash pilot, but has not told the public when that will happen in 2014.
Regardless, the question is will it work?
The reason the 1990 version of The Flash didn’t last is because there’s, frankly, not much very compelling about a person who runs real fast. For The Flash to work, there has to be a compelling story; the 1990 Flash didn’t deliver the goods in that area.
Will this version do it? That remains to be seen.
Stay tuned.
Zennie Abraham | Zennie Abraham or “Zennie62” is the founder of Zennie62Media which consists of zennie62blog.com and a multimedia blog news aggregator and video network, and 78-blog network, with social media and content development services and consulting. Zennie is a pioneer video blogger, YouTube Partner, social media practitioner, game developer, and pundit. Note: news aggregator content does not reflect the personal views of Mr. Abraham.