Free Willy - References in Other Media

References in Other Media

• The aquatic star of this film was an orca named Keiko. The huge national and international success of this film inspired a letter writing campaign to get Keiko released from his captivity as an attraction in the amusement park Reino Aventura in Mexico City; this movement was called "Free Keiko". Keiko was famously moved to a bigger pool in Oregon by flying in a specially modified United States Air Force C-17 freight aircraft. In Oregon it was discovered that the combination of the chlorination and the excessively warm temperature of the water was causing skin lesions. Then Keiko was moved to Iceland to learn to be wild and after that to Norway where there were other orcas. Keiko eventually died of pneumonia in a Norwegian bay on December 12, 2003.
• Free Willy has been spoofed in episodes of the animated series The Simpsons. The episode "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" includes the character Homer Simpson watching a director's cut of the film, in which Willy cannot make it over the rocks and crushes Jesse. In The Simpsons Halloween special "Treehouse of Horror XI", Lisa Simpson frees a dolphin from the Springfield aquarium and it jumps over a rock barrier in a similar fashion to Willy, except its tail hits Lisa in the face.
• The animated series South Park spoofed this film in the episode "Free Willzyx".
• The beginning of the song Jesse plays for Willy on his harmonica was referenced by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the title line of the title aria in Love Never Dies, his 2010 sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. Incidentally, this musical is set at a seaside theme park owned by the Phantom, albeit on the Atlantic coast rather than the Pacific, and without whales.
• At the end of Cats Don't Dance, the animals appear in a number of amusing parody movie posters of classic films, one of which reads "Free Tilly".
• In the film Tommy Boy when Chris Farley's character is in a small sailboat with his girlfriend, three boys on the shore yell "Free Willy", in reference to Farley's weight.
• In the episode of The Suite Life on Deck called "I Brake For Whales", a parody of Free Willy is mentioned by Bailey. The parody is called "Free Billy."
• The Spanish novel Aydin by Jordi Sierra i Fabra is known to be one of the origins of the story of Free Willy.
• John Pinette, a famous comedian, did a routine in his album Show Me The Buffet, which talks about the Free Willy movies and notes that the phrase "Free Willy" would be unpronounceable by the Japanese.