The Absent-Minded Professor was one of the first Disney films to be colorized (for the 1986 video release), and, along with 1959's "The Shaggy Dog" and 1963's "Son of Flubber", it is one of Disney's few black-and-white films to be produced after 1941. Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) (pronounced BRAY-nard) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Brainard names his discovery "Flubber", which is a
George Wilson McPhail times due to health problems. He started in Prince George County, Virginia before moving to Buckingham, Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia, and finally the Brainard church in Easton, Pennsylvania. While at the Brainard church, in 1857, he was elected as president of nearby Lafayette College where he served until 1863. While at Lafayette, McPhail worked with Francis March, who was previously appointed as an instructor to the school under the tutelage of former president Daniel V. McLean, on recommendation from McPhail. March, a revolutionary academic, was the first individual to teach English in a college setting, and McPhail was instrumental in creating