Welcome Back Kotter star John Travolta headlines the made-for-TV Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Douglas Day Stewart's fact-based teleplay casts Travolta as Tod Lubitsch, a teenager who was born without disease immunities. Tod is forced to live out his life in incubator conditions; whenever he vetnures into the outdoors, he must be encased in a huge plastic bubble. When he falls in love with Gina Biggs (Glynnis O'Connor), Tod must decide between staying safe and following his heart, which would mean facing near-certain death. Diana Hyland won an Emmy for her portrayal of Travolta's mother. Incidentally, Hyland and Travolta became real-life lovers, a relationship that was tragically terminated when the actress died of cancer. Boy in the Plastic Bubble was first telecast November 12, 1976.


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, Robert Reed, and P.J. Soles. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart, executive produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg (who, at the time, produced Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels), and directed by Randal Kleiser, who would work with Travolta again in Grease shortly after. The original music score was composed by Mark Snow. William Howard Taft High School in Woodland Hills was used for filming.[citation needed]
The movie first aired on November 1, 1976, on the ABC television network.


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.[2] 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 s[aw] one person who was not a friend or someone whose sole purpose it was to serve or protect him."[2] Noonan's use was a reference to The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.[2]
The film inspired the first song on the 1986 Paul Simon album Graceland.[3] 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.[3]
The film was mentioned several times on the series That '70s Show, in the "Thirst" episode of NCIS and in the film Superstar.
The film had a personal impact on Travolta and Hyland, who began a six-month romantic relationship until her death, after the film ended principal photography


Airdate: November 12, 1976 on ABC