Splash

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This page is about the movie. For sudden disturbances on the surface of water see splash (fluid mechanics); for other uses see splash (disambiguation).

Splash is a 1984 fantasy film and romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard and written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. It was the first movie released by Touchstone Pictures, which was established by The Walt Disney Company to release films designed for older audiences.

Tagline: Two days ago, this girl showed up naked at the Statue of Liberty. For Allen Bauer, it was love at first sight. Now, everyone is chasing her... trying to prove she's a mermaid. From the first laugh you'll be hooked.

1 Main cast
2 Plot summary
3 Cameos
4 Spinoffs
5 Impact on popular culture
6 Songs in movie
7 See also
8 External links

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Main cast

Tom Hanks - Allen Bauer
Daryl Hannah - Madison
Eugene Levy - Dr. Walter Kornbluth
John Candy - Freddie Bauer

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Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

New Yorker Allen Bauer is rescued from drowning as a young boy off Cape Cod by a young mermaid (but he apparently doesn't know that). Years later, now co-owner of a fruit wholesale business with his brother, he returns to the same location and once again manages to fall into the sea, only to wake up on a beach and find a gorgeous naked woman in front of him (although he doesn't realize she's the same mermaid he met some twenty years earlier). As it turns out, the mermaid's tail metamorphosizes into legs when it dries.

When she follows him to New York and shows up naked at Liberty Island, she is arrested for indecent exposure but is released to Allen's care. He falls in love with her and names her Madison. While Madison requites his love, Allen finds it hard to understand her unusual behavior (for example, eating a lobster, shell and all). To compound her problems, she is pursued by Dr. Walter Kornbluth, an earnest and somewhat eccentric scientist intent on proving that mermaids exist. When he finally proves that Madison is a mermaid, she is kidnapped by other scientists and taken to a secret location for examination. Sorry for what he's done, Kornbluth helps Allen and Freddie to rescue her. After a pursuit through the streets of the city, she jumps back into the ocean. Allen jumps in after her and they both continue their lives in what appears to be an underwater kingdom.

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Cameos

Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell both make cameo appearances in the film. Ganz plays "Stan the tour guide" in the scene set at the Statue of Liberty. Mandell plays the man in charge of ice skate rentals who tackles Hanks' character when he tries to run out with his skates still on.

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Spinoffs

A sequel, Splash, Too (directed by Greg Antonacci), appeared in 1988 as TV movie. Only one member of the original cast reprises their role.
A novelization of the film, written by Ian Marter (under the pen name Ian Don) was published by Target Books in the United Kingdom.

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Impact on popular culture

The film is credited with popularizing the name "Madison" for girls. In the film, Daryl Hannah's character takes her name from Madison Avenue after walking past a road sign. Hanks' character comments that it is not a real name as, at the time, it was a rather unusual name for a woman. However, in the years since the film was released in theatres and re-released on VHS and then DVD, the name's popularity has skyrocketed.

According to the Social Security Administration, the name "Madison" was the 216th most popular name in the United States for girls in 1990, the 29th most popular name for girls in 1995, and the 3rd most popular name for girls in 2000 [1]. In 2005, the name finally cracked the top 50 most popular girls' names in the United Kingdom, and articles in British newspapers credit the film for the popularization.

Butch Hartman once credited the Eugene Levy character as the inspiration for his character of Denzel Crocker on The Fairly Oddparents. Both characters are obsessed with a certain mythical creature and spend their free time trying to prove that such creatures exist. As a result in both cases, the characters have practically no social life and various enemies.

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