The Flash (1990) was the first appearance of Barry Allen on TV. The costumed superhero later was brought again to TV with a new show airing on the CW!
This series was later added to the Arrowverse and we need to dive into some trivia and facts about it!
- The Flash is a 1990 American television series
- It was developed by the writing team of Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo
- It aired on CBS
- It is based on the DC Comics character Barry Allen / Flash
- A costumed superhero crime-fighter with the power to move at superhuman speeds
- The Flash starred John Wesley Shipp as Allen
- Along with Amanda Pays, and Alex Désert
- Barry Allen, a forensic scientist working for the Central City police, is struck by lightning and doused in chemicals in his lab
- He develops superspeed and creates a superhero identity for himself to fight crime: The Flash
- Research scientist Dr. Tina McGee works at S.T.A.R. Labs and helps Barry fight crime while trying to understand how his powers are developing
- As well as his superheroics, Barry tries to maintain a private life
- And tries to keep his superhero identity from his colleagues, his boss Lt. Garfield, and his best friend, Julio Mendez
- Development for the series began in 1988
- Then Warner Bros. Television tried to develop television films based on some DC Comics characters for CBS
- Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo conceived one that featured several superheroes, including the Flash
- Though their project was not made
- In January 1990, new CBS Entertainment president Jeff Sagansky expressed interest in creating a series featuring the Flash
- And The Flash was announced a few months after
- Bilson and De Meo were tapped to write the pilot episode
- Which they completed in January 1990
- Filming for the episode took six weeks, from May through June 1990
- The final effects for the pilot were completed a week before airing in September 1990
- The 2-hour pilot cost $6 million
- And each subsequent episode of The Flash cost around $1.6 million to produce
- The four Flash suits made for the series for John Wesley Shipp cost a total of $100,000
- The Flash’s costume was designed and created by Robert Short
- And built by Stan Winston Studios
- Short said the latex suits were specially treated to disguise their rubber surface so they would look like basic stretch unitards
- And Shipp wore a water-cooled undergarment to combat the heat of the suits
- Danny Elfman composed the series’ title theme
- Aand Shirley Walker composed each episode score for a full orchestra
- In 2010, a limited-edition two-disc soundtrack was released by La-La Land Records
- Featuring Elfman’s theme and the scores by Walker for the pilot and the episodes “Captain Cold”, “The Trickster”, “Watching the Detectives”, “Ghost in the Machine”, “Done With Mirrors”, “Fast Forward” and “Trial of the Trickster”
- The Flash was originally scheduled to debut on CBS in the 8 pm (EST) slot on Thursday, to go against The Cosby Show on NBC
- In an attempt to attract younger viewers
- This was before Fox moved The Simpsons from Sunday to the Thursday 8 pm slot for the same reason
- After debuting on September 20, 1990, at 8 pm, CBS moved the series to 8:30 pm with its second episode
- In an attempt to broadcast opposite less formidable competition in Fox’s Babes, NBC’s A Different World and the second half-hour of ABC’s Father Dowling Mysteries
- Eventually, CBS moved the series off Thursdays entirely
- Moving the show to Saturday nights
- Had the show continued, it was revealed the second season would have opened with the Flash’s rogues teaming up to take down the hero
- The 2014 television series, The Flash, features several references to the 1990 series
- John Wesley Shipp plays the recurring role of Barry Allen’s father, Henry Allen
- And Amanda Pays once again portrays a character named Dr. Tina McGee
- Shipp eventually portrays the Earth-3 version of Henry Allen, Jay Garrick / Flash
- Regarding the difference in his portrayal of Garrick over Allen, Shipp “figured Jay is my version of Barry” from the 1990 series
- Adding, “I went back and I watched a couple of episodes of the 1990/91 version to kind of remind myself what I did. [Jay] is much more reminiscent of my Barry Allen from 25 years ago than my Henry Allen. I went back and I was amazed how much attitude my Barry Allen had in some situations. I went back and I picked up that thread and I brought it forward 25 years, and tried to weave it in”
- In “Welcome to Earth-2”, as Barry, Cisco and Wells are traveling to Earth-2, glimpses of the multiverse are seen
- Including an image of Shipp as the Flash from the 1990 series
- Implying that the series was retroactively being added to the Arrowverse-multiverse
- In the episode “Tricksters”, Mark Hamill returns as James Jesse / Trickster and Vito D’Ambrosio plays Mayor Anthony Bellows
- A character he played in 1991, but as a police officer
- A later episode revealed he was formerly a cop, with images of Hamill as Trickster from the 1990 TV series being used in a police report
- 2014 series composer Blake Neely incorporated Walker’s theme for the Trickster into the episode
- Alex Désert portrays Julio Mendez again in the series’ season three episode, “Flashpoint”, where he is the captain of the Central City Police Department in the Flashpoint timeline
- Corinne Bohrer reprises her role as Zoey Clark / Prank in “The Elongated Knight Rises” which also featured stills from the 1990 show in her police file
- Shipp reprises his role as Barry Allen from this series in the 2018 Arrowverse crossover, “Elseworlds”
- The crossover also links the 1990 series to the Arrowverse
- Designating its world as Earth-90
- Danny Elfman’s theme accompanied the Earth-90 Flash’s appearance into the episodes
- The Flash is shown as a survivor of the Monitor’s test on Earth-90
- He later appears on Earth-1 to warn Barry Allen (of Earth-1), Oliver Queen, and Kara Danvers about the Monitor
- When Flash of Earth-90 tries to stop Monitor before he can repeat what he did to Earth-90, Monitor breeches him away to an unknown dimension
