The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble is a 1976 made-for-TV movie inspired by the lives of David Vetter and Ted DeVita, who lacked effective immune systems. It stars John Travolta, Glynnis O'Connor, Diana Hyland, and Robert Reed. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart, produced by Aaron Spelling, and directed by Randal Kleiser, who would direct Travolta in an even bigger movie 2 years later. The original music score was composed by Mark Snow. William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills was used for filming.

The film centers on the life of Tod Lubich, who was born with an improperly functioning immune system. This means that contact with unfiltered air may kill him, so he must live out his life in incubator-like conditions. He lives with his parents, since they decided to move him from Texas Children's Hospital where he was being kept as a boy. He is constricted to staying in his room all his life, where he eats, learns, reads and exercises, while being protected from the outside world by various coverings.

As Tod grows up, he wishes to see more of the outside world and meet regular people his age. He is enrolled at the local school after being equipped with suitable protective clothing, similar in style to a space suit. He falls in love with his next door neighbor, Gina Briggs, and he must decide between following his heart and facing near-certain death, or remaining in his protective bubble forever. In the end, after having a discussion with his doctor who tells him he has built up some immunities which may possibly be enough to survive the real world, he steps outside his house, unprotected, and Gina and he ride off on her horse.


Social Impact and Influence of the Film;

Days after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as U.S. President, William Safire reported on the phrase "in the bubble" as used in reference to living in the White House.Safire traced that usage in U.S. presidential politics to a passage in the 1990 political memoir What I Saw at the Revolution by Peggy Noonan, where she used it to characterize Ronald Reagan's "wistfulness about connection"; Richard Ben Cramer used the phrase two years later in What It Takes: The Way to the White House with reference to George H. W. Bush and how he had been "cosseted and cocooned in comfort by 400 people devoted to his security" and "never saw one person who was not a friend or someone whose sole purpose it was to serve or protect him." Noonan's use was a reference to The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.

The film inspired the first song on the 1986 Paul Simon album Graceland. In 1992, the film's premise was satirized in the seventh episode of the fourth season of Seinfeld. It was also the subject of the 2001 comedic remake Bubble Boy and the 2007 musical In the Bubble produced by American Music Theatre Project and featuring a book by Rinne Groff, music by Michael Friedman and Joe Popp and lyrics by Friedman, Groff and Popp.

The film had a personal impact on Travolta and Hyland, who began a six-month romantic relationship after the film ended principal photograph

Alternative Viewing Option







Download from The Movie - The Boy in the Plastic Bubble;

Div X File (700Mb)
OGG Videofile (374 Mb)
Mpeg4 (374MB)