By Scott Blakey

"Flubber," which means flying rubber, was invented in a 1961 Disney picture by Professor Phillip Brainard (played slightly dry and very droll by Fred MacMurray). The original "flubber," which was black and sticky, had plenty of bounce, but not much of what you could call a persona.

Leave it to the Disney studio not only to reinvent the stuff and make it a translucent green but give it an animated, cuddly, if temperamental, personality.

"Flubber" (Walt Disney Home Video, 1998, live action, color, 94 minutes, closed captioned, $22.99) is about as updated a version of an original as one can find. Professor Brainard, forgetful, driven, eccentric, slightly wacky and a genius, is played this time around by Robin Williams. Need one say more?

Brainard is a professor of chemistry at Medfield College, a small private school in hock up to its bell tower to Chester Hoenicker, a sinister financier who has bankrolled the school for his overly indulged and equally arrogant son.

The note is due at the end of the school term, but there is little money in the college's treasury. Brainard is working on a complex problem, which if solved and patented, will fix a lot of problems.

"If I could solve this metastable-compound business," he tells his live-in, flying robot Weebo, "I could save the college. A new energy source could be worth a fortune."

Weebo is an interesting character, a sort of 21st-century Tinkerbell to Brainard's Peter Pan. She is equipped with little TV screens and a voice and mind of her own. She keeps Brainard's schedule, provides visual counterpoints to his thoughts and is a foil to his unintended humor.

She is also in love with him, and jealous of Sara Jean Reynolds, Brainard's long-suffering fiancee whom Brainard twice left waiting at the altar when he became preoccupied with one of his experiments. They are due to be wed (again) in a matter of days. She's at the end of her patience rope.

"That's it, if he doesn't show up. ..." she tells a friend. And later, she tells Brainard she is not sure he loves her.

"That's ridiculous," he replies. "I love you with all my heart, with every cell, with every molecule, with every atom. I love you on a subatomic level."

She is concurrently being hustled by Wilson Croft, Brainard's rival from another, nearby college. He wants to marry Sara, if only to spite Brainard, whom he despises for his genius.

Of course Brainard never makes it to the church. In his wedding tux, he is making some adjustments in his home lab to the machinery processing the "metastable-compound business" when the gizmo blows up. And he winds up with a compound he instantly names flubber.

Flubber is actually a character with human tendencies -- the cutesy factor is to woo the nippers. It can metamorphose into any shape, divide into globules and be had either in rubbery, liquid or powder forms.

There follows the first of what will be several madcap sequences as flubber, coated on anything, shows off its bounceable tendencies and tremendous energy that allows it to float or move with the speed of an Atlas missile. Brainard instantly knows he's onto something.

If Brainard has saved his tenure, he has lost his woman. His no-show has infuriated Sara, and she breaks off the engagement. Only later, hounded by Croft, and finally forgiving, does she return.

The breakthrough comes when Brainard takes her for a ride in his '63 T-Bird -- well, more a flight, actually. He has sprayed the machine's undercarriage with flubber and equipped the engine with a gamma-ray thingamabob enabling the car to fly. These sequences are wonderful.

It is only a matter of time before Hoenicker discovers the existence of flubber and sends his two resident thugs to steal it, thus setting up the conflicts that surround the conclusion.

This updated version of "The Absent Minded Professor" re-creates the now-classic basketball sequence of the original, and it is just as hilarious in new rags. Brainard flubbers the bottoms of the inept Medfield Squirrels' sneakers, and they literally soar to victory over their hated rivals.

"Flubber" is rated PG-13 because of a scene of fanny humor; but it is a bright, refreshing comedy that will appeal to children 8 and older and their families. Much of this is due to Williams' inspired performance, which ranges from sheer craziness to moments of great tenderness.

In a moving scene, having lost Sara while saving the college, Brainard tells Weebo: "Wish I knew about human beings. Wish I understood women. Wish I knew about emotion, passion ... any of that. If I did, I wouldn't have spent my entire life in a lab trying to figure out how the world works. I would have been out in the world trying to figure out why it works."

The slightly less frantic version of this story is still available, and "The Absent Minded Professor" (Walt Disney Home Video, 1961, live action, black-and-white, 97 minutes, closed captioned, $14.99) remains one of the studio's most popular, live-action pictures.

Along with MacMurray, the cast includes some old pros, including Keenan Wynn, Nancy Olson, Tommy Kirk and Leon Ames. The comedy is broad and often dry, and the special effects, given the time it was made, are good.

(c) 1998, Scott Blakey; Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate