MovieChat Forums > Flipper (1964) Discussion > Was Porter Ricks really Sandy + Bud's d...

Was Porter Ricks really Sandy + Bud's dad?

posted 15 years ago by fugazzi49
21 replies | jump to latest

Brian Kelly played Porter Ricks perfectly, with just the right mix of fatherly sterness and warmth. On top of that who wouldn't want a dad who could jump fully clothed into the ocean and beat up and capture the bad guys? Could Ward Cleaver do that? Hardly! But I don't think they could have found a man who looked less like his kids on the show. He's so black-haired, dark and swarthy, and his kids are light blond Sandy and redhead, freckled Bud. I love the show and feel that Kelly really was great in this part, but the lack of physical similarity was noticed by me even as a mid teen watching the original shows. Did anybody else feel this way?

[–] spike71 15 years ago

I agree with you, they share no same features. I have no idea what the mom supposedly looked like but I hope she was fair with freckles!

[–] hunterofserenity-2 15 years ago

The mother would need to be a strawberry blonde.

What I find amusing is Bud's very strong New York accent.

[–] kohntarkosz 15 years ago

<<
What I find amusing is Bud's very strong New York accent. >>

The funny thing is Luke Halpin (who played Sandy) is also from NYC, but he somehow managed to excise his accent when playing Sandy. It might have made more sense for him to just use the accent, and have the explanation that the family was really from NYC or something.

As for Brian Kelly, I think I heard a radio interview with Luke Halpin once where he mentioned the point that neither he nor Tommy Norden looked anything like Brian Kelly.

Now, I think it might have been a it easier to buy Chuck Conners (who played Porter in the first Flipper movie) as Sandy and Bud's father, because he sort of had light brown hair.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] alanr4447a 13 years ago

I noticed that no one in the Ricks family sounded southern (even though they were supposedly life-long Floridians), but I'm not in a position to find it "unpleasant".

[–] silovik812 10 years ago

To my Northeastern ear, Sandy still sounds like a New Yorker, just not as much as Bud does. A friend of mine once said, if these two kids grew up in Florida, why do they sound like they're from Brooklyn? Brian Kelly is from Michigan, and has a Midwestern accent, and then add Ulla Strömstedt and Andy Devine to the mix.

As to the looks: maybe there are previous marriages and/or adoptions in the backstory somewhere. Ricks often reminds the boys that if they get him in trouble, he might get transferred, so maybe he was recently transferred to this job, and the two boys actually did grow up in or near NYC.

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"Oh, well" said Zanoni, "to pour pure water in the muddy well does but disturb the mud !"

[–] Investor22 14 years ago

I agree, he did not look at all like he could be Sandy and Bud's father.

I started watching the series on Hulu from the start and Brian Kelly came on strong like a pit bull -I thought they had miscast him but he turned out to be a great actor and very charismatic.

There was one show where they had him smoking a pipe and wearing a sweater LOL -they tried to tone him down and make him look like Ward Cleaver LOL But it was only one show -they saw how ridiculous that was and dropped the idea. Anyone remember which episode that was?

Here's a site I came across with some early pics of Brian. There are 2 small pics of him at the bottom, showing him when he was older.

http://kellyfamilynetwork.com/BrianKellyHome.htm

[–] scamper67 14 years ago

While I agree that the boys shared no similarity in looks with the dad, that is not so unusual. My nephew's first son looks just like his mother and nothing like his dad, although their second son looks like him, he could have just as easily taken after his mother or even an aunt or uncle or any other member of the family, and it is also not unusual for siblings that have the same mother and father to look totally different. I think there was good chemistry between father and sons and to that is what is most important.

[–] Itsamoomoo 13 years ago

It's called television. No one looks related because nobody is related.

[–] magolding 12 years ago

for the kids to be light haired they should have inherited light hair genes from both of their parents.

If their father is dark haired he could have two genes for dark hair, which would make it impssible for the boys to get a needed gene for light hair for him and he could not be their biological father. Or he could look dark haired because he has one, dominant, gene for darks hair form one of his parents and one gene for light hair from the other of his parents, a light haird gene which he might pass on to some or all of his children due to chance genetic selection.

The odds that two of his children would both inherit aa light haired gen from a dark haired manwould be 0.25. The odds that they both would also inherit a light haired gene from their mother depend on her genes.

This is a somewhat simplified analysis, but shows it is possible for a dark hair man to to have two light haired children.

[–] korth-2 12 years ago

My father was Portuguese, my mother Swedish. He had black hair, she had blond hair and I have red hair. With my siblings included, we had EVERY color of hair and eyes in our family.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] katesgram2000 10 years ago

My dad had dark brown almost black hair and and blue eyes -I have a brother who has hair blonder than either of those two boys he is also blue eyed like dad. My mom had dark red hair and brown eyes-there were five of us ad we all had a different color combination. Sister one-light red hair light green eyes,sister 2 dark brown hair brown eyes,blond haired blue eyed brother,me brown hair hazel eyes and anther brother with dark blond/light brown hair dark blue eyes. Some of us were very fair skinned that never tanned and some of us had medium skin and tanned easily. Genetics are interesting.

[–] pagne3 10 years ago

Take a look at the Partridge Family, only one of the group had ant resemblance to Shirley Jones.

[–] snsurone 10 years ago

Couldn't be David Cassidy; he's not her biological son.

[–] cluvonj 10 years ago

I am thinking the poster probably was referring to the 2nd kid that played Chris. He was blonde and looked similar to her.