John Wesley Shipp on watching his original series after 34 years

Posted in: Comics | Tagged with: Arrowverse, Blu-ray, John Wesley Shipp, The Flash

The Flash star John Wesley Shipp shared what it was like watching his original 1990 series in one go for the first time in 34 years.

Before he could reprise the role for the Arrowverse crossovers “Elseworlds” and “Crisis on Infinite Earths”… before he joined the Arrowverse team, The Lightning like both Henry Allen and Jay Garrick … John Wesley Shipp was Barry Allen, also known as The Flash. Of course, we are talking about the short-lived but still popular CBS series from 1990, which ran for one season with 22 episodes and also featured Amanda pays (Christina R. “Tina” McGee) and Alex Desert (Julio Mendez). Today, Shipp took to Twitter/X to share his first thoughts on the show in nearly 35 years. “Man! I get to see so much more. It’s cool, like watching someone else and discovering things I didn’t know were there,” he wrote, asking others who have watched or are currently watching the show to share their thoughts on it after all these years (personally, we think it still looks great and clearly had a huge impact on the Arrowverse).

Here’s a look at Shipp’s tweet/x from today – followed by a look back at what Shipp had to say about the original The Lightning Series at check-in with podcast host and actor Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) during his visit to Rosenbaum In you Podcast (and don’t forget that The Flash: The Original Series is currently available on Blu-ray)

In the clip below, Shipp talks about how the emotional father-son prison scene with Gustin from the beginning of the long-running Arrowverse series went a long way in reconciling the past. There’s a really beautiful moment during the interview where Shipp explains that it was more than just a father-son scene; that in many ways it was also about one “Barry” passing the baton to another “Barry,” and that in some ways Shipp was doing the same with Gustin.

From there, Shipp reveals some of the reasons he believed his 1990s series had little chance of success. First, it’s the idea that pop culture didn’t take superhero movies and shows as seriously back then as it does today. Shipp readily admits that as an actor back then, he was hesitant to audition for the role (even though he was sold on the script) because actors didn’t see wearing spandex as a viable career move (wow, how times have changed). Plus, the show wasn’t cheap – in fact, it was the most expensive show WBTV had produced up to that point, so expectations were high. Add to that the stiff competition from other networks at the time, and it sounds like that was an insurmountable hurdle for the show. Here’s a look at the clip where Shipp goes into more detail – definitely worth a listen:

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