Free Willy is a 1994 animated TV series that premiered on American Broadcasting Company in September 1994 and aired a total of 21 episodes, premiering the last one on December 1995.
It serves as a follow-up to the 1993 film of the same name, while also foreshadowing many plot elements of the then-upcoming Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home. It takes place two years after the events of the first film, and follows the life of Jesse after he was adopted by his foster parents (the Greenwoods) and moved to the Pacific Coast. He's entrusted a job in the Misty Island Oceaning Reserve, and discovers that he has the ability to understand animal speech, which means he can converse with the eponymous whale as well as with other animals like Einstein (a dolphin) and Lucille (a seal), who serve as supporting characters.
The Big Bad is a humanoid cyborg known as "the Machine", who blames Willy for the loss of an arm and part of his face. With the help of his minions (the Amphonids), he plans to get rid of Willy and consumate his revenge against the whale. However, Jesse and his friends will do everything to foil those plans.
The show provides examples of:
- Always Late: Jesse frequently comes late to his job at the Misty Island Oceanic Reserve due to playing with Willy for too long during the mornings.
- Animated Adaptation: One which takes some unusual liberties in comparison to the 1993 live-action movie. Jesse turns out to be a "Truth-Talker", there's a Lost World-style island where (supposedly) recently extinct Arctic animals (ie. Wooly Mammoths) thrive in secret, and there's an antagonistic character called "The Machine".
- Artificial Limbs: The Machine's rmetallic right arm is a replacement to his original flesh-and-bones right arm, which he lost due to an accident in the past.
- Big Bad: The Machine is a cyborg who lives in a big techno-submarine underwater and wants to wreck the environment, but has a huge grudge against Willy; in his Corrupt Corporate Executive identity of Rockland Stone, Willy had interfered with his first submarine and hurled him into a propeller, forcing the cyborg implants onto him to keep him alive.
- Blinded by the Light: Marlene's submarine is equipped with a device that emits a bright, stunning flashlight. In the pilot episode, she uses it to briefly blind the Machine and escape from the latching claws of his submarine.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Machine's alter-ego, Rockland Stone.
- Dark and Troubled Past: In the pilot episode, Marlene reveals to Jesse that the reason why she became a marine biologist is because she had a pet otter called Whiskers when she was nine, and it died due to being unable to swim properly after an oil spill (which occured near the waters where it was swimming) soaked its whole body.
- Ecocidal Antagonist: The Machine, who serves as the show's Big Bad, has little regard of the environment, and was already this when he was Rockland Stone. He resorts to all sorts of un-ecological means to kill Willy, and his closest minions are henchmen who look like living radioactive waste.
- Henchmen Race: Early in the series, The Machine jettisons his ship's skipper, a rather nervous fellow by the name of Captain Frye, revealing he has created, à la Frankenstein, four green, slimy, synthetic henchmen called Amphonids from inanimate toxic waste.
- Homing Projectile: The Machine's submarine is equipped with missiles capable of homing at targets, and the one shot near the end of the pilot episode is specifically targeting Willy, urging the eponymous orca to swim ASAP to dodge it until he finds a way to get rid of it.
- Humans Are Bastards: The Machine and the humans who do his dirty work for him.
- Meaningless Villain Victory: In an episode, Jessie and Willy are looking for a lost treasure and lose it to the villain. Then, it is revealed the chest actually contains whistles.
- Revenge: The Machine's motivation to get rid of Willy originally arose from an accident involving the whale that made him lose an arm and part of his face, even though the event was caused by the eco-terrorist acts he had commited under his former Rockland Stone persona.
- Scarred Equipment: One episode has an environmental activist show up and run everyone through the damage his boat's taken protecting animals from hunters. It plays out like a PG version of an Every Scar Has a Story scene.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: The first season takes place in the Pacific Coast in the United States (specifically the Misty Island Oceaning Reserve), while the second takes place in the Arctic region in the North Pole.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: In the first episode, Jesse learns that he can talk to animals and understand what they say.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Willy really likes fish, and in the pilot episode he sneakily eats the rations Jesse intended to feed other animals with, even after being given some before for lunch.
- Villain with Good Publicity: The Machine's alter-ego before Jesse got proof linking him to weapon smuggling.
- Worthless Treasure Twist: An episode has Jesse and Willy scoop a long-fabled treasure chest before the Big Bad (the Machine) does. In the end, the villain gets the chest, but upon opening it he only finds whistles, which are of no use to him.
