GILLIGAN'S ISLAND

:''For the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) video game, see The Adventures of Gilligan's Island. For the Puerto Rican island, see Cayos de Caña Gorda.''
'''Gilligan's Island''' is an American TV sitcom originally produced by United Artists Television. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964 to September 4, 1967. It was sponsored by Philip Morris & Company and Procter & Gamble. The show followed the comic adventures of seven castaways, a representative microcosm of white American society, as they attempted to escape from a previously-uninhabited island where they were shipwrecked and stranded.
''Gilligan's Island'' ran for a total of 98 episodes. The first 36 episodes in season one were filmed and shown in black-and-white (later colorized in syndication) with the remaining 62 episodes throughout the next two seasons and three TV movie sequels filmed in color.
Enjoying solid ratings during its original run, the show grew enormously in popularity during decades of syndication. Today, the title character of Gilligan is widely recognized as a comedic American popular culture icon, ranked, for example, at 122nd place in the July 2003 list of 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons compiled by VH-1 and People Magazine.

Contents

Premise

Cast

Episodes

Pilot vs. first broadcast episode

Last episode

Typical plots

Theme song

Production

Gilligan's first name

Cancellation

Reunion films, clones & spin-offs

Television and video distribution

DVD releases

Cultural references

Notes

References

External links

Premise

The show is about seven people, the two-man crew of the charter boat S.S. ''Minnow'' and five passengers, who become shipwrecked on a previously-uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. (The episode "The Pigeon" places the island approximately 300 miles southeast of Hawaii, while "X Marks the Spot" gives a location near 140° longitude, 10° latitude, which puts it about 1200 miles to the southeast.)
The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle", was written in a sea shanty style to give new viewers a capsule summary of the castaways' predicament.

Cast

★ 'Bob Denver' as 'Gilligan', the bumbling, accident-prone crewman of the S.S. ''Minnow''. Denver was not the first choice to play Gilligan. Actor Jerry Van Dyke was offered the role, but he turned it down, believing that the show would never be successful. He chose instead to play the lead in ''My Mother the Car'', which premiered one season later. The producers then looked to the lovable beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs, from the ''The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis''.

★ 'Alan Hale, Jr.' as 'Jonas Grumby, the "Skipper"'. A longtime actor in B-westerns, Hale so loved his role that, long after the show went off the air, he would still appear in character in his Hollywood restaurant. Although the Skipper was a father figure to Gilligan, Hale was only 14 years older than Denver.

★ 'Jim Backus' as 'Thurston J. Howell III', the greedy millionaire. Backus was already a well-known actor by the time he took the part. He was perhaps best known as the voice of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. He reused some of the voice inflections and mannerisms of Magoo in the role. He was well known for his ad-libs on the set.

★ 'Natalie Schafer' as 'Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell', Thurston's wife. Schafer had it written into her contract that there were to be no close-ups of her, perhaps due to her advanced age. Schafer was 62 when the pilot was shot although, reportedly, no one on the set or in the cast knew her real age, and she refused to divulge that information. Originally, she only accepted the role because the pilot was filmed on location in Hawaii. She looked at the job as nothing more than a free vacation, as she was convinced that a show this silly would never get on the air.

★ 'Tina Louise' as 'Ginger Grant', the movie star. The name, an amalgam of Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant, was an homage to Hollywood's past. When regular shooting began, Louise clashed with producers, because she had believed that she was to be the main focus of the show (despite its title). In addition, her character was originally written as a sarcastic and sharp-tongued temptress, but Louise argued that this was too extreme and refused to play it as written. A compromise was reached; Louise agreed to play her as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. The evening gowns and hair style used were designed to recreate the look of Myrna Loy. Louise continued to clash with producers and was the only cast member who refused to return for any of the TV movies that followed the series' cancellation, and the fourth season, which was later canceled to make room for a western, saying that the role had destroyed her career as a serious actress. However, she did appear in a reunion of the cast on a late night TV talk show in 1988 and on an episode of ''Roseanne'' in 1995.

★ 'Russell Johnson' as 'Roy Hinkley (The Professor)'. John Gabriel was originally cast, but the network thought he looked too young to have all the degrees attributed to the Professor. Incongruously, "the Professor" was in fact a high school science teacher, not a university professor. In the first episode the radio announcer described him as a research scientist and well known scoutmaster. One episode has the Professor claim the only sport he ever took was a Chess club; another episode the Professor claims he used to be a scuba diver. Ironically, Johnson, an air force gunner, was shot down during World War II and ended up on an island in the Philippines.

★ 'Dawn Wells' as 'Mary Ann Summers'. Wells was a former Miss Nevada when she auditioned for the role. Her competition included Raquel Welch. The pilot episode had a different character played by a different actress. After it was shot, the network decided to recast the roles of the Professor and the two young women.

★ Charles Maxwell was the un-credited voice of the "Radio Announcer", whose plot-advancing radio bulletins were eagerly tuned in to by the castaways in many episodes.

Episodes

Main articles: List of Gilligan's Island episodes

Pilot vs. first broadcast episode

The pilot episode was not broadcast, because of casting changes and restructuring of characters. In the pilot, the part of the Professor was played by John Gabriel. Instead of the movie star and the Kansas farm girl, the pilot had two secretaries: Ginger, a practical redhead played by Kit Smythe, and Bunny, portrayed by Nancy McCarthy as a cheerful, stereotypical dumb blonde.
The pilot had a different theme song with a Calypso beat and singer and somewhat longer opening credits shots, including scenes of Gilligan carrying the Howells' luggage to the boat, and spilling coffee on the Skipper during the storm. The episode proper begins with the castaways waking up on the beached boat, and deals mostly with practical problems: exploring the island, trying to fix the transmitter, building huts and finding food. Contrary to some descriptions, there are no flashbacks or detailed accounts of the characters' backgrounds.
The first episode actually broadcast, "Two on a Raft", is sometimes wrongly referred to as the series pilot. This episode begins with the same scene of Gilligan and the Skipper awakening on the boat (cut slightly differently to eliminate most shots of the departed actors), and continues with the characters on the boat, listening to a radio news report about their disappearance. This is the scene that reveals the names of the Skipper (Jonas Grumby) and the Professor (Roy Hinkley). There is no equivalent scene or background information in the pilot, except for the description of the passengers in the original theme song. Rather than re-shooting the rest of the pilot story for broadcast, the show just proceeded on. The plot skips over the topics of the pilot; the bulk of the episode tells of Gilligan and the Skipper setting off on a raft to try to bring help, but unknowingly landing back on the same island.
The plot for the pilot episode would eventually be recycled into that season's Christmas episode, "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk", in which the story, concerning the practical problems on landing, is related via a series of flashbacks. Some of the scenes from the pilot episode were re-shot using the current actors, while other scenes with Denver, Hale, Backus, and Schafer were simply reused.

Last episode

The last episode of the show, "Gilligan the Goddess", aired on April 17, 1967, and ended just like the rest, with the castaways still stranded on the island.

Typical plots

The majority of episodes involve an attempt to get off the deserted island. Often the failure is due to some bumbling error committed by Gilligan. This would often result in his saving the others from some unforeseen catastrophe. For example, in the episode "Splashdown", where an unmanned space capsule with sensitive technology lands in the lagoon, Gilligan allows the other castaways to talk over him, failing to tell them in time that the capsule is floating away. As the group criticizes Gilligan, the capsule is blown up by NASA via remote control. Another example is in episode "Goodbye Island"; while looking for tree sap for Mary Ann's pancakes, Gilligan discovers a glue-like substance that the Professor believes can be used to repair the damage to the ''Minnow''. However, the substance only works temporarily. Gilligan tries to warn everyone, but no one will listen. Suddenly, the boat starts to break apart until it is completely destroyed. (Despite this, the ship was still prominently presented in the opening titles for the rest of the series' run.)
However, one episode ("The Big Gold Strike") in which the castaways discover a rich vein of gold on the island, is notable in that Gilligan is ''not'' responsible for the failed escape: the other castaways, having agreed to leave the gold behind, each smuggle bags of gold onto a makeshift raft; the combined weight of all the gold sinks the raft to the bottom of the lagoon. Gilligan is the only one who does not smuggle any gold and even comments that he is glad that it's not his fault this time.
When the castaways are kidnapped to a mad scientist's lab in the episode "The Friendly Physician," they succeed in getting off the island and onto another piece of dry land for the only time in the series.
Recurring elements centered on one of three primary themes. The first deals with life on the island. A running gag is the castaways' ability to fashion a vast array of useful objects from bamboo and other local material. Some were simple everyday things, while others were real stretches of the imagination. Russell Johnson noted in his autobiography that the production crew enjoyed the challenge of building the creations. Some bamboo items included: bamboo framed huts with thatched grass sides and roofs, along with bamboo closets strong enough to withstand hurricane force winds and rain; the communal dining table and chairs, bamboo pipes for Gilligan's hot water, and a stethoscope.
The second theme involves visitors to the "uncharted" island. One challenge to a viewer's suspension of disbelief is the frequency with which the castaways are visited by people who do nothing to help them get rescued. Some have ulterior motives for not doing so; some are simply unable to help. Bob Denver, Jim Backus, and Tina Louise each had feature episodes in which look-alikes come to the island (who were, of course, played by themselves). Also, the island is home to an unusual assortment of animal life, some of it native, some just visiting.
The third recurring theme is the use of dream sequences, in which one of the castaways "dreams" he or she is some character related to that week's storyline. For example, after being bitten by a bat, Gilligan dreams he is Dracula. All of the castaways would appear as other characters within the dream, as was done in ''The Wizard of Oz''. The only exception is in Mr. Howell's dream, in the episode "The Sweepstakes", in which Mrs. Howell is not present. In later interviews and memoirs, almost all of the actors stated that the dream episodes were among their personal favorites. In the Jack and the Beanstalk dream sequence of the episode "V for Vitamins", the smaller version of Gilligan, running from the Giant (played by the Skipper), is actually Bob Denver's son Patrick.[1]

Theme song

"The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle" is the proper name for the theme song for ''Gilligan’s Island''. The music and lyrics were written by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle.
There were two versions of the theme during the run of the show, one for the first season and another for the second and third. In the original theme song, the Professor and Mary Ann were referred to as "and the rest". Actors Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells were originally considered "second-billed co-stars", but with the growing popularity of their characters, their names were inserted into the lyrics.^[1][2][3]
Wells says that it was Denver who went to the studio executives to get them added to the opening credits. The studio originally refused, stating that it would cost too much to re-shoot and re-score the opening. Denver pointed out that it was in his contract that he could have his name anywhere he wanted in the credits, so they could move it to the end credits along with Johnson and Wells. The studio capitulated. Wells said that Denver never mentioned this to anyone in the cast, and she didn't find out until years after the show ended what he had done.
The first season version was recorded by the The Wellingtons and had a more folk music sound. It starts with an acoustic guitar strumming for two bars before the lyrics start. The instrumentation, which includes a slide guitar, is subdued and very Hawaiian sounding.
The second and third season version was not credited to a particular group in the credits, but according to Russell Johnson in his book ''Here on Gilligan's Isle'', it was performed by a group called The Eligibles. It begins with a mini-fanfare, and has a more traditional pop music sound but with some almost reggae-like underpinnings. The instrumentation is much more prominent in this version, and it does not have any slide guitar.
The show's original pilot episode featured a calypso theme song with different lyrics. Notably, the original length of the voyage was "a six-hour ride", not "a three-hour tour."^[4][5]

Production

Filming of the show took place at the CBS' Radford Studios complex in Studio City, California.[2] The same stage would later be used by ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' and ''Roseanne''. The lagoon was drained and used as a parking lot during the show's off-season, and was the last remaining element of the show until it was demolished in 1997 as part of an expansion project.
Four different boats played the part of the S.S. ''Minnow''. One was used in the opening credits and rented in Ala Wai Yacht Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Another was used in the opening credits in the second season, and eventually turned up for sale on Vancouver Island in August 2006, after running aground on a reef in the Hecate Strait on the way south from Alaska. One boat was used for beach scenes after being towed to Kauai in Hawaii. The fourth ''Minnow'' was built on the CBS Studios set in the second season.^[6]
According to ''Here on Gilligan's Isle'' by Russell Johnson and Steve Cox, many shots from the first season opening credits were filmed the week after the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A clue to this is a panned shot early in the sequence in which an American flag is clearly at half staff.

Gilligan's first name

Like "Columbo", Gilligan is never addressed with a first name during any episode or subsequent TV movie. Creator/producer Sherwood Schwartz said he had intended the character to have had the name "Willy". Bob Denver stated playfully on some interviews, such as a May 16, 1989 KDKA radio interview, that his name choice would have been, "Gil Eggan". Denver reasoned that since everyone yelled at him, it came out as Gilligan.

Cancellation

Under pressure from the network president, William S. Paley, and his wife, Babe, to reverse the threatened cancellation of ''Gunsmoke'', which had been airing late on Saturday nights, CBS rescheduled the western to an earlier time slot on Monday evenings. This had been ''Gilligan's Island's'' timeslot in its third season. (The show ran on Saturdays in its debut season, before moving to Thursdays in season two.) Though ''Gilligan's Island's ratings had slumped from 24.7 (18th) to 22.1 (22nd) out of the top 25 (possibly as the result of two timeslot shifts in two years), the series was still profitable. Nevertheless, it was cancelled at practically the last minute. Some of the cast had bought houses based on the notice of renewal for a fourth season and found out about the cancellation only days before they were to report for work.
Ironically, one epsiode of ''Gilligan's Island'' had a dream sequence filmed on the ''Gunsmoke'' set.

Reunion films, clones & spin-offs

The success of ''Gilligan's Island'' spawned a number of clones and spin-offs:

★ "Dusty's Trail" was a 1973-1974 syndicated television series by Sherwood Schwartz starring Bob Denver as "Dusty" and Forrest Tucker as "Mr. Callahan", the assistant to the leader of a wagon train and his irascible boss. Its cast was made up of nearly identical character roles as "Gilligan's Island".

★ ''The New Adventures of Gilligan'' was a successful Filmation-produced animated remake that aired on ABC Saturday (and Sunday) Morning from September 7, 1974 to September 4, 1977 for 24 episodes (16 installments airing in 1974-75 and 8 new ones combined with repeats in 1975-76). The voices were done by the original cast except for Ginger and Mary Ann, voiced by Jane Webb. An additional character was Stubby the Monkey, voiced by Lou Scheimer.

★ In a successful 1978 made-for-TV movie, ''Rescue From Gilligan's Island'', the castaways did successfully leave the island, but had difficulty reintegrating into society. During a reunion cruise on the first Christmas after their rescue, fate intervened and they found themselves marooned on the same island. It starred the original cast except for Tina Louise, who refused to participate and was replaced as Ginger by Judith Baldwin. The plot involved Soviet agents seeking a memory disc from a spy satellite that landed on the island and facilitated their rescue. Gilligan and the Skipper "rescue" Mary Ann right as she is to marry her long time fiance, which contradicts the series where it was established that Mary Ann had no boyfriend after having made up a story about a boyfriend to keep the others from feeling sorry for her.

★ In a 1979 sequel, ''The Castaways on Gilligan's Island'', they were rescued once again, and the Howells converted the island into a getaway resort, with the other five castaways as "silent partners". Ginger was again played by Judith Baldwin. This sequel was intended as a pilot for a possible new series in which the castaways would host new groups of tourists each week, using the all-star cast anthology format made popular by ''The Love Boat''. The series never materialized, though the premise was the basis of a short-lived 1981 series titled ''Aloha Paradise''.

★ In a second sequel, ''The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island'' (1981), villains played by Martin Landau and then-wife Barbara Bain (who also appeared together on '' and '') try to take over the island to gain access to a valuable, but unknown substance. This time, Ginger was played by Constance Forslund. They are thwarted by the timely intervention of the Harlem Globetrotters. Jim Backus, who was in poor health at the time, only appeared at the very end of the episode, arriving back on the island. David Ruprecht played the role of Thurston Howell IV, which is odd, since it was established in the series that the Howells were childless (though he may have been adopted).

★ ''Gilligan's Planet'' was an animated science fiction version produced by Filmation and starring the voices of the ''Gilligan's Island'' cast save for Tina Louise (Dawn Wells played the voices of both Mary Ann and Ginger). They escape from the island by building a spaceship, and get shipwrecked on a distant planet. Only 12 episodes aired on CBS (Gilligan's old network) between September 18, 1982 and September 3, 1983. In one episode, they travel to an island, get shipwrecked there, and Gilligan observes, "First we were stranded on an island, then we were stranded on a planet, and now we're stranded on an island on a planet."

★ ''Gilligan's Island: The Musical'' was first produced in the early 1990s, with a script by Lloyd Sherwood, Sherwood Schwartz's son, and songs by Schwartz's daughter and son-in-law, Hope and Laurence Juber. After extensive revisions since 2001 it has been produced at various theaters around the U.S.

★ '' (1999).

★ '' (2000), a backstage history of the show, featuring interviews with some of the stars or their widows.

★ '' (2001) was a docudrama where Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson reminisce about the show.

★ On November 30, 2004, the TBS network launched a reality series entitled ''The Real Gilligan's Island'', which placed two groups of people on an island, leaving them to fend for themselves a la ''Survivor'' — the catch being that each islander matched a character type established in the original series (a klutz, a sea captain, a movie star, a millionaire's wife, etc.). While heavily marketed by TBS, the show turned out to be a flop with a very "''Survivor''"-like feel, but little of its success. A second season began June 8, 2005 with two-hour episodes for four weeks. TBS announced in July 2005 that a third season of the show would not be produced.

Television and video distribution

United Artists Television originally produced the series (in association with Phil Silvers' Gladysya Productions and CBS) and subsequently distributed it in syndication. In 1986, the series was sold to Turner Entertainment as part of a package that included the classic MGM/WB/RKO film and television library, with half the interests sold to the Silvers estate (both Turner and the Silvers family now share the show's copyright). Some years later, after Turner merged with Time Warner, Warner Bros. Television became responsible for the show's distribution, and continues to do so today. The entire series has been released on DVD through corporate sibling Warner Home Video, and online via AOL's IN2TV service.
Unusually for such a successful American television series, the program is virtually unknown in the United Kingdom — only thirteen episodes were ever shown there.^[7]

DVD releases

All three seasons of ''Gilligan's Island'' have been released on DVD in Region 1 by Warner Home Video.

DVD Name	Ep #	Region 1	Additional features
The Complete 1st Season	37	February 3 2004	★ Includes the rare pilot episode ★ Commentary by creator Sherwood Schwartz on the pilot episode ★ Tropical Tidbits trivia for the premiere episode "Two on a Raft" ★ Gilligan's Island Survival Guide ★ "Before The Three-Hour Tour" featurette
The Complete 2nd Season	32	January 11 2005	★ Introduction to Season Two by Sherwood Schwartz and Russell Johnson ★ Commentary by creator Sherwood Schwartz on "The Little Dictator"
The Complete 3rd Season	30	July 26 2005	★ Introduction to Season Three by Sherwood Schwartz and Russell Johnson ★ Commentary by creator Sherwood Schwartz on "The Producer" ★ Documentary: "''Gilligan's Island'': A Pop Culture Phenomenon"

Cultural references

★ In the 1999 movie ''Galaxy Quest'', washed-up actors from a Star-Trek-like television show, ''Galaxy Quest,'' are enlisted by the alien Thermians to help them in an intergalactic war. While trying to make the Thermians understand that the show was fictional, the actors bring up ''Gilligan's Island'' as an example, but at the very mention of the show, the Thermians all moan in despair, "Oh, those poor people."

★ In the 1987 film ''The Running Man'', the game show host Killian comments, "You won't get ratings like that with reruns of ''Gilligan's Island''" (referring to how frequently the show has appeared in reruns). His PR person, who is obviously much younger, responds, "What?". Killian says, "You know, the one with the boat," and hums the theme tune. When his PR person still doesn't get it, frustrated, he responds, "Oh never mind."

★ Alan Hale Jr guest starred on ''The Wild Wild West''. At the end, he remarks he is going on a vacation to a "desert island". The opening scene of the ''Minnow'' in a storm was also reused in an episode of ''The Wild Wild West''. in which several persons are trapped on an island.

★ In the song "Rubberband Banks", rapper Young Dro states "f
★
★
★ in with my clique will get you lost like Gilligan."

★ In the 1988 hit comedy film ''Scrooged'', Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is examining his life with the Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane), and sees his brother, James (John Murray) playing Trivial Pursuit. The question was, "What was the name of the ship that brought them all to the island in ''Gilligan's Island''?" In the end of the film, Frank shocks everyone when he makes up with his brother on live television, but scolds him for not knowing it was the S. S. ''Minnow''.

★ In the episode, "Everybody Hates Cutting School" of the television series ''Everybody Hates Chris'', Chris tells Greg, "We're going to the movies, not Gilligan's Island," at which Chris Rock narrates, "If we did, Greg would've got with Mrs. Howell."

★ In an episode of House M.D. (Control), Dr. Eric Foreman, annoyed by Dr. Cameron's optimism, says to her, "Do you ever watch "Gilligan's Island" reruns and really, really think they're going to get off the island this time?"

Notes

1.
★ Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook, , , Green, , ,

2.
Was the "Gilligan's Island" theme song tampered with?

3.
Gilligan's Island (Gilligan's Island Tidbits section)

4. http://www.gilligansisle.com/theme.html
5. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mr8P27wTVKQ
6.
Gilligan's Minnow no longer lost

7. The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy - Gilligan's Island

References

★ Gilligan, Maynard & Me, , Bob, Denver, Carol Publishing Corporation, 1993, ISBN 0-8065-1413-2

★ Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook, , Joey, Green, Warner Books, 1988, ISBN 0-446-38668-5

★ Here on Gilligan's Isle, , Russell, Johnson, Perennial, 1993, ISBN 0-06-096993-8

★ Inside Gilligan's Island: A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making Of A Television Classic, , Sherwood, Schwartz, St. Martin's Griffin, 1994, ISBN 0-312-10482-0

★ ''Gilligan's Island - The Complete First Season'' (DVD), 2004, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939673425.

★ ''Gilligan's Island - The Complete Second Season'' (DVD), 2005, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939692624.

★ ''Gilligan's Island - The Complete Third Season'' (DVD), 2005, Turner Home Entertainment, UPC 053939733129.

External links

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★ Official Gilligan's Island Fan Club

★ Bob Denver's Gilligan's Island Fan Club (includes obituary)

★ Classic TV - ''Gilligan's Island''

★ CTVA US Comedy - ''Gilligan's Island'' (1964-67) Bob Denver

★ Gilligan's Island: the Musical

★ Tim's TV Showcase - ''Gilligan's Island''

★ Essay on The Odd Couple and Gilligan's Island

★ The Seven Deadly Sins of Gilligan's Island

★ TV Series Finale - Details on series cancellation, reunions, cameos, actors post-series, trivia, and podcast