Introduced in the 1963 film Flipper, Sandy Ricks rescues and befriends an injured dolphin and names him Flipper. In the 1964 sequel Flipper's New Adventure, his father Porter is widowed and goes to park warden school. In the 1964 television series, Porter becomes chief warden of Coral Key Park in Florida, and Sandy gains a younger brother Bud.
As played by Luke Halpin, Sandy has a pretty, boyish face, tousled mop of blond hair in the first season, and a slender, athletic swimmer's build. He is often shirtless, dressed in nothing more than blue cutoff jeans and white sneakers.
In the 1964 series, Sandy's and Bud's job was to appear to translate for the dolphin and to get into trouble so that the animal star could rescue them. Sandy tends to be the more responsible brother. He often accompanies Bud in his misadventures or his father in his ranger duties.
In this episode, Sandy is introduced to Bonnie McCoy, who owns a travelling circus featuring a seal, which escapes. Sandy is recruited to help Bonnie find the seal and, in the process, are chased up a tree by an alligator.
Sandy has an underwater scene with Bonnie searching for the missing seal. He also has a brief moment above the water with a diving mask after the underwater scenes.
However, my favorite scenes are when Sandy is shirtless above water without a diving mask. There are three such scenes in this episode. In one, he is at his home, emerging early in the morning from the bathroom to prepare to help Bonnie search for the missing seal again, and unexpectedly encountering Bud, who is preparing to play with Flipper and the missing seal. In the second, he is in a boat picking up Bonnie. In the final one, he is on a beach with Bonnie, where they encounter an alligator and are chased up a tree, where they wait for the alligator to lose interest in them as a meal.
Favorite scenes:
This is one of my favorite episodes.
In the first shirtless scene at home, Sandy missed an opportunity to find the missing seal sooner, and avoiding all of the trouble, if he had interrogated Bud a little more forcefully about his planned early morning activity. However, such inquisitiveness would have deprived Sandy, as well as the audience, of some alone time with Bonnie.
The second shirtless scene on the boat was cute with Bonnie calling Sandy her knight in shining armor.
The third, lengthy shirtless scene involved Sandy and Bonnie being chased up a tree by an alligator. Bonnie uses the opportunity to belittle Sandy (a) by demanding that he chase the alligator away and (b) by berating his helplessness when his verbal commands to the beast are ignored. When Bonnie's cry for help are unheard by a passing motorboat, her disappointed look is all that Sandy needs to feel emasculated again.
However, despite behaving abominably to the helpful boy whom she had recently called her "knight in shining armor", Bonnie did have a point. Sandy could have acted as a distraction, jumping from the tree in the opposite direction, allowing Bonnie to make a break for the boat. When the alligator tires of the chase on land, Sandy could have maneuvered around the beast and returned to the boat.
However, he proves his heroism by swimming to save Bud, returning his younger brother to the surfboard while offering his vulnerable, dangling legs to the alligator instead. However, Sandy's actions are rather foolish, inasmuch as alligators are much faster swimmers and tire less easily.
For more appreciation of Luke Halpin's portrayal of Sandy RIcks, check out the Luke Halpin Gallery.
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