FREE WILLY
(ABC, Global TV, September 24, 1994-August 31, 1996)
Nelvana, Regency Enterprises, Le Studio Canal, Warner
Bros. Television
MAIN CAST:
Zachary Bennett – Jesse
Greenwood
Paul Haddad – Willy
Gary Krawford – Rockland
Stone/The Machine
Michael Fletcher – Randolph
Johnson
Rachael Crawford – Marlene
Alyson Court – Lucille
James Kidnie – Amphonids
Neil Crone – Mr. Naugle
Kevin Zegers – Einstein
Geordie Johnson – Ben Shore
(season 2)
Free
Willy was a film about a rebellious abandoned boy named Jesse (Jason James Richter) who was
caught vandalizing a water park and was put on probation cleaning it up. There,
he befriended an Orca named Willy (Keiko) and realized that
his family was beyond the park’s walls, calling to him. Jesse, along with
Willy’s keeper Randolph Johnson (August
Schellenberg) worked on a plan to free Willy and return him home before the
park’s unscrupulous owner, Dial (Michael
Ironside), has Willy killed in order to claim the insurance on him.
The film, written by Keith A. Walker and Corey Blechman, directed by Simon Wincer, and released by Warner Bros., ended up becoming a box
office success. It made $153.6 million after its July 16, 1993 opening. It also
generated an additional $20 million for the Save
the Whales Foundation via a phone number posted at the end of the movie
that audience members could call and donate. A campaign also began to get the
film’s aquatic star freed from captivity and back into the wild (which he
eventually was in 2002, shortly before dying
of pneumonia in 2003 at the age of 27).
 |
| Jesse with Naugle, Randolph and Marlene in the institute. |
In the wake of that much success and
media attention, Warner Bros. moved to turn Willy
into a franchise; that included three film sequels and an animated series.
Developed by Patrick Loubert,
Free Willy picked up from where the
film left off. Jesse (Zachary Bennett), his foster parents Glen (Ron Len) and Annie (Sheila McCarthy), Randolph
(Michael Fletcher) and Willy (Paul Haddad) moved from Seattle to the Pacific
coast; specifically, Misty Island. There, Jesse and Randolph worked for the
Misty Island Oceanic Reserve, a wildlife rescue and research institute run by
head biologist Mr. Naugle (Neil Crone) and his assistant, Marlene (Rachel
Crawford). Unlike the movie, Jesse discovered he had the ability to talk to
animals making him a Truth Talker in the language of Randolph’s people, the
Haida. This allowed him to communicate with Willy and the institute’s two
residents: a sealion named Lucille (Alyson Court) and a dolphin named Einstein
(Kevin Zegers), who were being taught behavioral communication with humans.
 |
| The Machine and his Amphonids. |
The primary foe of the series was
the eco-villain primarily known as The Machine (Gary Krawford). The Machine had
encountered Willy once before, and Willy had sent his submarine into the screws
of a ship causing him to lose an arm and part of his face. Those were replaced
with robotic parts. The Machine was also a master of disguise; able to wear the
face of anyone and disguise his voice so as to achieve his goals of revenge and
profit through trickery. One of his favorites was that of industrialist
Rockland Stone. The Machine’s minions were beings he created from toxic waste
called Amphonids (James Kidnie), who were the comic relief for the show as they
barely followed orders and would rather laze about.
 |
| Jesse and Willy underwater. |
Free
Willy began on ABC
in the United States and Global
TV
in Canada on September 24, 1994. It was developed by Patrick Loubert, and the
writing staff included Patsy
Cameron, Tedd Anasti, Doug Molitor, Evelyn Gabai, Don Gillies, Emily Dwass and Marion Wells. The series was
produced by Nelvana,
Regency Enterprises
and Le Studio Canal
for Warner
Bros. Television, with animation provided by the Hahn Shin Corporation.
The only person involved with the film to participate in the series’ production
was executive producer Lauren
Shuler Donner. Episodes primarily revolved around Misty
Island as Jesse and Willy foiled The Machine’s schemes, and were full of
educational information about marine life and the oceans.
 |
| Ben Shore in disguise to try and trap The Machine. |
For the reduced second season, the show
went through a soft reboot and introduced eco-activist Ben Shore (Geordie
Johnson). Shore was given the institute’s boat, renamed The Eco-Ranger II, and Jesse, Willy, Lucille, Randolph and Marlene
joined him on his travels around the world to fight against polluters and poachers.
The Machine continued to be the primary villain throughout, both in command of
and addition to the criminals the heroes encountered. Halfway through the
season, Shore sealed himself in a perfectly preserved world in an attempt to
save it, Jesse and Willy from The Machine. The crew continued on their travels
until finally returning home to Misty Island by the end of the series.
 |
| Willy and Einstein on the first VHS cover. |
Free Willy was
amongst the last non-Disney programs to be
shown on ABC’s Saturday morning schedule. When Disney purchased the network in
1995, they purged the schedule of any program they didn’t have some kind of
stake in. Several episodes were adapted into easy-reader
picture books by Scholastic, and Milton Bradley
produced a board
game based on the show. In 1996, Warner
Home Video released the episodes “Truth Talker”, “Cry of the Dolphin”, “Defenders
of the Deep” and “The Eel Beast” across two
VHS collections in the United Kingdom. Those sets were later combined into
a single release, The
Bumper Collection, in 1998. The entire first season was made available
for rental through Amazon
Video and iTunes
in 2011, and can also be purchased for viewing on YouTube.
While the cartoon was not a part of
the official Willy canon once the
sequels were made, the first sequel, Free
Willy 2: The Adventure Home, did share some similarities to the show.
Randolph had gone to work for an environmental institute on an island where
Jesse went to visit, and an unscrupulous businessman used his company’s oil
spill as a means to capture Willy and his siblings and sell them off to parks
to perform in shows. Further driving home this comparison was the fact that the
trading
cards for the movie by Skybox dedicated
12 cards of the 90-card set to the animated series; each card depicting a scene
from the show with a game on the back.
EPISODE GUIDE (dates are
estimates):
“Truth
Talker” (9/24/94) – An injured seal leads Jesse to discover he can communicate
with animals.
“Cry
of the Dolphin” (10/1/94) – Willy and Jesse rescue a smart baby dolphin from
one of The Machine’s illegal toxic waste dumps.
“Stone” (10/8/94) – The Machine uses a
whale-stunning sonar in order to harvest whales for their whales.
“Defenders
of the Deep” (10/15/94) – Annie invites Jesse on a cruise on Stone
Corporation’s whale watching ship, but they soon discover the captain works for
The Machine.
“The
Eel Beast” (10/22/94) – Marlene learns to trust Willy in order to help him
rescue Jesse from an underwater cavern.
“Cephalopod”
(10/29/94) – The Machine creates a giant squid to destroy Willy.
“Sealed
Fate” (11/5/94) – Lucille volunteers for a water circus in order to make more
human friends.
“Shark
Masters” (11/12/94) – The Machine seeks to ruin Misty Islands’ tourism by
bringing sharks to the waters.
“Hope”
(11/19/94) – Lucille brings a pelican to the institute whose eggs are breaking
too soon due to pesticides being used.
“Milestones”
(12/3/94) – Willy and Jesse save a salmon stream from loggers.
“The
Catch” (12/3/94) – The Institute turns to the law in order to battle illegal
fishing in international waters.
“The
Treasure of Misty Cove” (12/10/94) – Jesse gets gold fever when he finds a gold
doubloon and drags Willy on a treasure hunt.
“Ghost
Ship” (11/26/94) – Jesse and Willy find a ghost ship while searching for the
secret of The Machine’s identity.
Season 2:
“Voyage
of the Eco Ranger II” (9/9/95) – The Machine sets a ship to collide with the
Institute, which will then cause it to release its radioactive waste payload
into the bay.
“Tip
of the Iceberg” (9/16/95) – Enjoying some recreation time in the arctic ends up
getting Lucille captured by some seal hunters.
“The
Hunted” (9/23/95) – Ben poses as a whale hunter that promises The Machine to
find Willy and Jesse in order to lure him into a trap.
“Paradise
Found” (9/30/95) – While investigating strip miners, Jesse and Willy swim
through an underwater passage that takes them to a world protected from
ecological disasters.
“Pier
Pressure” (10/7/95) – When Lucille meets a group of sealions she finds she has
to decide between her old friends and her new ones, and that choice could cost
her her life.
“Live
and Let Dive” (10/14/95) – The Machine takes advantage of some researchers to
mine the mineral deposits that form around volcanic hot springs.
“Turmoil”
(10/21/95) – The Machine causes an oil spill in order to ransom a town for a
scientist’s oil solidification formula.
“Yule
Tide and Red Tide” (10/28/95) – The Machine sends Jesse a jet-ski for Christmas
full of red tide that infested the waters when Jesse used it.
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