Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 20, 2025 | 7 comments

An ANNIVERSARY BASH!

By PETER BOSCH

A figure in red racing through the night, considered a savior by some, a red demon by others. Was he real or a fiction meant to scare criminals? Either way, somehow the city’s worst criminals were getting caught and jailed. One moment they had guns in their hands and in the next… they were without.

The Flash of the 1990 TV series was basically Central City’s version of Batman in the movie franchise, a masked avenger in a city of unstoppable criminals. This was not the lighthearted Barry Allen of the DC Comics that started the Silver Age. If you turned off the TV sound of The Flash, it would be hard to distinguish the city at night from that of Gotham City. Turn on the sound again and there was a Danny Elfman theme, further muddying the difference between the two urban crime centers.

It was 35 years ago, on September 20, 1990, that The Flash had its CBS premiere. The original pitch to the network by executive producers Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo was Unlimited Powers, about a team of DC heroes in a Dark Knight-type story, but the network did not want the expense of special effects, costumes, and other details for several heroes. However, they did like the character of the Flash.

So, The Flash it was. And the Scarlet Speedster’s costume got a makeover by Dave Stevens! (The costume was molded from John Wesley Shipp’s body, which was very muscular, and the suit showed that. However, the costume had to have tubes inserted in order to cool it down for Shipp, who would be perspiring heavily inside it.)

And, so, excuse the pun, the series was off and running.

Trailer with highlights from the pilot episode.

Was it the right decision to make The Flash so similar in tone to the 1989 Batman movie? Well, it did provide Batman movie fans a gritty fix until its sequel, Batman Returns (which would not be until 1992). And it was entertaining. However, it got bounced around the schedules, trying to find a good spot.

During that time, the series did provide a number of exceptional moments. Here are 13 of them:

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1. The opening credits worked in a number of action clips:

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2. Barry Allen was back and Silver Age fans were glad of it! TV continuity was clearly separate from that of the comic book world where Barry had died in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, five years earlier!

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3. Though Shipp was nothing like the image of the slender Barry Allen with the crewcut that we grew up with in the comics, he was very good in the role. He carried off the intelligent police scientist well, and showed proper frustration when his retired-cop father (played by M. Emmet Walsh) would denigrate Barry’s forensic position as not being as important like Barry’s detective brother, Jay (a nod to Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash). Upon departure from a meal, his mother warned him to be careful, to which his father quickly replied, “What’s he going to do? Stub his toe on a footprint?”

4. Like the comics, since Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct., 1956), Barry was working in the police lab when lightning smashed through the window and struck him along with the lab’s numerous chemicals. From The Flash pilot:

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5. Amanda Pays, playing Tina McGee of STAR Labs, received second billing, and it was easy to see she was hired due to her scientific role in the TV series Max Headroom.

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6. Danny Elfman’s theme for The Flash truly worked for accompanying the Scarlet Speedster through the opening credits. In the series itself, Shirley Walker composed the excellent music for the episodes. She would go on to compose and conduct other DC scores, including Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, and Batman Beyond.

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7. Comic book professionals Howard Chaykin and John Francis Moore were frequent writers on the show, with eight of the 22 shows bearing their names. One of these was the excellent “The Ghost in the Machine” episode. The pre-opening credit sequence was in black and white, set in 1955, and featured a masked hero called Nightshade defeating a mad villain, yhe Ghost. Nightshade’s outfit was very clearly a tribute to the original Sandman’s earliest incarnation, wearing a suit and gas mask.

If Nightshade’s car emerging from his secret hideout by way of a moving billboard looks familiar, it was right out of TV’s The Green Hornet. (The Sandman was a copycat of radio’s Green Hornet.)

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8. Another Chaykin and Moore script brought over one of the greatest members of the Flash’s comic-book Rogues Gallery — the Trickster. When you watch this compilation of scenes of Mark Hamill playing the Trickster, realize that the craziness and the laugh he displayed were almost two years BEFORE he would voice the Joker for the first time on Batman: The Animated Series.

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9. The identity and costume of Prank in “The Trickster” was forcibly thrust upon private investigator Megan Lockhart, Barry’s girlfriend. The villain claimed she was the only love of his life — except he had killed the dozen other “only love of his life” ladies who came before her. She escaped the “honor.”

10. A few episodes later, in “Trial of the Trickster,” Zoey Clark, wealthy daughter of a toy seller, worshipped the Trickster and broke him out of court and named herself the new Prank. (Zoey, a complete loony, was played by the delightful Corinne Bohrer.)

However, after brainwashing the Flash, the Trickster and the Speedster were best buds in crime, and Prank was shut out.

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11. Following the first appearance of the Trickster, Captain Cold was not far behind:

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12. Another Rogue — in name only — appeared next: the Mirror Master, with teen idol David Cassidy taking on the role.

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13. The Flash TV Special #1 (1991) from DC Comics is a must have. Included are tales of the TV characters, along with a very in-depth look at the creation of the TV series and an episode guide to all 22 shows.

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The network was apparently ready to offer The Flash a second season, with one proviso. The two-hour pilot had cost approximately $6 million and the subsequent episodes were averaging $1.6 million each. In order for the network to greenlight a second season, the producers were going to have to cut the show’s budget, something they  refused to accept. And so it ended.

Decades after the show concluded, Shipp returned to the world of Central City in the CW’s Arrowverse series The Flash, playing in turn Barry’s father, Jay Garrick, and Barry Allen again.

It’s fitting that Shipp has been so much a part of the Flash’s live-action universe, since it all began with him 35 years ago.

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MORE

— Dig DAVE STEVENS’ 1990 TV FLASH Costume Design. Click here.

— THE FLASH Goes Wonderfully Wacky With TO CATCH A BLUE BOLT. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is out now. (Buy it here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.