Gilligan's Island

*Gilligan's Island*
Gilligan's Island
Created by	Sherwood Schwartz
Starring	Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; Dawn Wells
Opening theme	The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	98 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	approx. 0:30 (per episode)
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 26, 1964 –; September 4, 1967

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.

Premise

The show is about a group of castaways that have been shipwrecked on a previously-uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" (written by George Wyle and Sherwood Schwartz), is a well-known example of ballad meter, and it begins:

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this tropic port

Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,

The Skipper brave and sure.

Five passengers set sail that day

For a three hour tour... a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,

The tiny ship was tossed,

If not for the courage of the fearless crew

The Minnow would be lost.... The Minnow would be lost.

The ship's aground on the shore of this

Uncharted desert isle,

With Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire, and his wife,

The movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann,(and the rest)

Here on Gilligan's Isle.

The song was written to give new viewers a capsule summary of the unusual situation in which the castaways find themselves. Another few verses were played over the closing credits, after the invariably unsuccessful attempts of the castaways to leave the island:

Now this is the tale of our castaways,

They're here for a long, long time.

They'll have to make the best of it -

It's an uphill climb.

The first mate, and his skipper, too

will do their very best

to make the others comfortable

in their tropic island nest.

No phone! No light! No motorcar!

Not a single luxury.

Like Robinson Ca-rusoe,

It's primitive as can be.

So join us here each week, my friends,

You're sure to get a smile

From seven stranded castaways

Here on Gilligan's Isle.

The last episode of the show, "Gilligan the Goddess" (prod. no. 1625-0502), aired on April 17 1967, and ended just like the rest: with the castaways never succeeding in leaving the island. Under a wave of pressure from the wife of the network president 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.^{[citation needed]}

Cast

File:Gilligan's Island.jpg

The cast of Gilligan's Island. (From Left to Right) Back row: Jim Backus as Thurston Howell III, Natalie Schafer as Lovey Howell, Tina Louise as Ginger Grant. Front row: Russell Johnson as the Professor, Bob Denver as Gilligan, Alan Hale, Jr. as the Skipper, Dawn Wells as Mary Ann Summers

Bob Denver	– Willy Gilligan (Gilligan)
Alan Hale, Jr.	– Jonas Grumby (The Skipper)
Jim Backus	– Thurston J. Howell III (Mr. Howell)
Natalie Schafer	– Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell (Mrs. Howell)
Tina Louise	– Ginger Grant (Ginger)
Russell Johnson	– Roy Hinkley (Professor)
Dawn Wells	– Mary Ann Summers (Mary Ann)

Gilligan, of the show's title, was the hapless first mate of the S.S. Minnow. Other characters are The Skipper (referred to as Jonas Grumby in the first broadcast episode), the millionaire Thurston J. Howell III and his wife Eunice, nicknamed Lovey, movie star Ginger Grant, the Professor (referred to twice as Roy Hinkley), and Kansas farm girl Mary Ann Summers.

Bob 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 make it. 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. Denver embraced the role.

Alan Hale, Jr. both embodied and relished the role of the Skipper. A long time actor in B-westerns, Hale so loved his role as the Skipper, that long after the show was 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 was well known by the time he took the role of the Millionaire, Thurston Howell, III. He was perhaps best known as the voice of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. He used some of the voice inflections and mannerisms of Magoo in the role of the Millionaire. He was well known for his ad-libs on the set.

Natalie Schafer had it written into her contract that there were to be no close-ups of her during filming. This was 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, and 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 the character of Ginger Grant, created a version of the quintessential Hollywood star and even her 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 believed she was the main focus of the show, despite its being titled "Gilligan's Island". In addition, her character was originally written as a sarcastic and sharp-tongued temptress but Louise argued that this type of character was too extreme and refused to play it as written. A compromise was reached and 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, saying that the role had destroyed her career as a serious actress. However, after the series ended she did appear in a reunion of the cast on a late night TV talk show in 1988, on an episode of Roseanne in 1995, and as the mistress of J.R. Ewing in five episodes of Dallas.

Russell Johnson took over the role of the Professor from John Gabriel. The network thought Gabriel looked too young to have all the degrees attributed to the professor. Ironically "the Professor" was in reality just a high school science teacher, not a university professor.

Dawn Wells was a former Miss Nevada when she auditioned for the role of Mary Ann. Her competition included Raquel Welch. She was part of the replacement cast that was hired after the pilot was shot and the network wanted the roles of the professor and the two girls recast.

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

Pilot vs. first broadcast episode

The pilot episode was not broadcast when the show was finally scheduled, because of casting changes and restructuring of characters. In the pilot, the part of the Professor (played in the series by Russell Johnson) had been played by John Gabriel. Instead of the movie star, Ginger Grant, and the Kansas farm girl, Mary Ann Summers (played by Tina Louise and Dawn Wells, respectively), the pilot had two secretaries, Ginger (played by Kit Smythe) and Bunny (played by Nancy McCarthy). Ginger was a practical redhead and Bunny a cheerful air-headed blonde.

The pilot had a different theme song and somewhat longer opening credits shots than the broadcast show did, including scenes of Gilligan carrying the Howells' luggage to the boat and, during the storm, spilling coffee on the Skipper. The episode proper begins with the castaways waking up on the beached boat, and deals mostly with practical problems on landing: 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 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 - mostly - 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 that the Skipper's name is Jonas Grumby and the Professor's name is 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 from the pilot, concerning the practical problems on landing, is related via a series of flashbacks. Some of the scenes from the pilot episode were reshot using the current actors, while other scenes (the ones involving only Denver, Hale, Backus, and Schafer) were simply reused as they were.

Episode list

Typical plots

The show's plots seem to be centered on one of three primary themes. The first theme is a show about life on the island (example episode 1.06 - "President Gilligan", or episode 2.16 - "Not Guilty"). The second theme involved some contrived visitor to the "uncharted" island. The third common theme was the use of dream sequences, in which one of the castaways would "dream" themselves as some character that relates to that week's storyline (example: Gilligan dreams he is Dracula after being bitten by a bat). All of the castaways would appear as characters within the dream, as was done in The Wizard of Oz, with the exception of a dream had by Mr. Howell (episode 2.05 - "The Sweepstakes") in which Mrs. Howell was not present.

The majority of episodes involved some failed attempt to get off the deserted island where they were shipwrecked. Often the failure of that week's rescue attempt was due to some bumbling error committed by Gilligan. Gilligan's bumbling of the rescue plan would often result in his having saved the others from some unforeseen impending catastrophe. For example, in episode 3.22 - "Splashdown", where an unmanned space capsule with sensitive technology landed in the lagoon, Gilligan allowed the other castaways to talk over him, failing to tell them in time that the capsule was floating away. As the group criticized Gilligan, the capsule was blown up by NASA via remote control. Another example is in episode 1.08 ("Goodbye Island"); when while looking for tree sap for Mary Ann's pancakes, Gilligan discovers a glue like substance that the Professor believes will repair the damage to the Minnow. However, the substance is temporary and dries off. Just a few minutes before they're to cast off, 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 (episode 1.09 - "The Big Gold Strike"), in which the castaways discover a rich vein of gold on the island, is notable in that Gilligan was not responsible for the failed escape attempt: 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.

What many people consider one of the most enjoyable aspects of Gilligan's Island was the vast array of things that the castaways were able to fashion from bamboo and other local material. Some were simple everyday things, some were real stretches of the imagination. These inventions also made it seem very unlikely that the castaways were never able to construct a vessel to sail to the mainland, though many fans still willfully suspended their disbelief and accepted this running gag as part of the show's general silliness. For the production crew's part, Russell Johnson noted in his autobiography that they enjoyed the challenge of building the creations. Some bamboo items included: bamboo framed huts with thatched grass sides and roofs, and 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.

Visitors to the uncharted island

One challenge to a viewer's suspension of disbelief is the frequency with which the supposedly uncharted island is visited by people who do nothing to help the castaways get rescued. Some have ulterior motives for not helping to rescue the castaways; some are simply unable to help, as detailed below. Also the island is home to an unusual assortment of animal life, some of it native, some just visiting.

In various episodes they are encountered by:

Various natives, visiting the island from supposedly "nearby" islands in no less than eight different episodes. (With so many nearby islands, how can this one be uncharted?) Many are "headhunters" with less than honorable intentions, and most seem to be of Polynesian descent. Hawaii is part of Polynesia so this is realistic.
Daffy aviator "Wrong-Way Feldman" (played by Hans Conried and obviously based on the real-life story of "Wrong Way" Corrigan), who appears in two episodes. In the first, he is discovered to have been living on the island for many years. His plane is called The Spirit of the Bronx, a spoof of the Spirit of St. Louis. He was already known to the Howells. Many years before he vanished, he flew for Howell Airlines. Mr Howell tells how he made the first non-stop flight from Chicago to New Orleans – he was supposed to fly to Minneapolis. In his second appearance, he returns to the serenity of the island to escape the hustle and bustle of civilization.
A Japanese (Vito Scotti) submariner (complete with mini-sub) convinced that World War II was still in progress.
A gangster, on the lam from the law, played by Larry Storch, of F Troop fame.
A jungle boy, played by Kurt Russell, whom the castaways actually send to Hawaii in a homemade helium balloon.
A famous fictional surfer named Duke Williams, played by Denny Miller, who surfs onto the island on a tsunami and leaves on a "reverse tsunami".
A famous painter, Dubov (played by Harold Stone), who comes to the island to escape the rigors of civilization. He is convinced to return when the castaways set up Gilligan as a rival artist.
An exiled Latin American dictator (Nehemiah Persoff), El Presidente Rodrigues, who was left on the island after a revolution overthrew him. He leaves the island and returns home to Ecuarico, after a counter-revolution reinstates him. When he tells the story of "Gilligan's Island" he is immediately overthrown and sent to exile in the Andes.
Soviet cosmonauts, who land on the island.
A rock and roll band, The Mosquitoes (portrayed by The Wellingtons, the group that performed the theme song in the first year). They are driven away when they do not find the peace and quiet they sought, a refuge from their legion of female fans. The members were named Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving.
A Hungarian countess and prominent well-to-do socialite, Erika Tiffany Smith, played by Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Unfortunately for the castaways, they can't be rescued because 1) Smith's ship log is written in Hungarian and 2) even when translated into English any directions to Gilligan's Island give neither Latitude nor Longitude.
A Soviet agent who disguises himself as a ghost to scare the castaways off the island. He provides them with a self-destructing boat.
A mad scientist (Vito Scotti again) who wants to do mind-swapping experiments on the castaways. In a second visit in the third season, he returns to the island with mind-control rings in an attempt to turn them into robots who will assist him in robbing Fort Knox.
A Hollywood producer, Harold Hecuba (portrayed by Phil Silvers), who comes to the island for a vacation. The castaways stage a musical production of Hamlet in order to convince him to return to society.
A world famous butterfly collector, Lord Beasley, played by John McGiver. Lord Beasley is searching for the elusive Pussycat Swallowtail butterfly and will not leave until he finds it.
A kidnapper, played by Don Rickles, who comes to the island and begins kidnapping the castaways one by one.
A radio game show contestant, George Barkley, played by Strother Martin is exiled on the island, to survive alone for one week. If he does, he will win $10,000.
A big-game hunter, Jonathon Kinkaid, played by Rory Calhoun, comes to island to hunt big game. Finding none, he decides to hunt the ultimate game, Gilligan. A spoof of The Most Dangerous Game.
An out-of-work actor (Denny Miller again), who is trying to land the role of Tongo the apeman. He comes to island to practice his character and upon finding the castaways, he decides that if he can convince them that he is a true apeman, then he is certain to land the role of Tongo. Ironically, Miller had already played Tarzan in the 1959 feature Tarzan, the Ape Man.
A Mr. Howell imposter, who is shipwrecked while on a cruise spending Thurston's money.
A foreign (presumably Russian) spy disguised as Gilligan, who believed the castaways were on a secret American base.
A suicidal librarian, Eva Grubb (played by Tina Louise), who resembled Ginger Grant. Attempting to befriend the ungroomed woman, Ginger tutors her in cosmetics, poise, and general glamor. Grubb returns to civilization intending to impersonate Grant (and so has no motive to arrange for the real Grant's rescue).

Dream sequences

Another common story format had the castaways confront a problem and one of the castaways, usually Gilligan, has a silly dream that relates to the problem in question. Almost all of the castaways in later interviews and memoirs have stated that the dream episodes were among their personal favorites.

Gilligan dreams he is a Wild West sheriff who protects a duck everyone wants to eat.
Each of the men has a dream about being an object of adoration to women: Gilligan dreams he is a matador, Skipper's dream is that he is a Sultan with a harem, Mr. Howell dreams he is being pampered, and the Professor imagines himself as a dashing film star.
Gilligan dreams he is a spoiled prince of the Royal Howells, who only wants to be a "normal" boy.
Gilligan dreams he is a puppet (literally) ruler of a country, where he must promise the people "dis, dat and de udder ting"[sic].
Thurston Howell dreams he is a prospector who strikes it rich, but gets into debt and trouble.
Mary Ann dreams she is a patient in a hospital everyone wants to pronounce terminal.
Gilligan dreams his own version of Jack and the Beanstalk where the Giant is hoarding oranges.
Gilligan dreams he and the other castaways are all doddering old fogeys celebrating their fiftieth anniversary of being shipwrecked (the radio announcer's voice also sounds extremely like a very old man).
Gilligan dreams he is a vampire who battles Inspector Sherlock (The Professor) and Colonel Watney (Skipper).
Gilligan dreams he is Secret Agent 014 ("twice as good as 007") charged with delivering an attaché case with most of the other castaways being assassins.
Gilligan dreams he is Henry Jekyll on trial with Mary Poppins (Mrs. Howell) as his counsel. It is revealed by a witness called "The Lady in Red" (Tina Louise) that Gilligan turns into Mr. Hyde when he hears people talk about food.
Gilligan dreams he is Lord Admiral Gilligan battling pirates on his ship.
Lovey Howell stars in her own dream version of Cinderella with Gilligan as her Fairy Godfather.
Gilligan dreams that the castaways are cave people following a map to get to the other side of the island.

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 seasons. The lyrics were slightly altered in the second season to add direct mention of the Professor (Russell Johnson) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) in the opening credits. According to Schwartz, as the show evolved, the Professor and Mary Ann grew into more important characters than were originally planned.

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."^[1]^[2]

"And the rest"

In the first season theme song, the Professor and Mary Ann were not mentioned by name or role, but rather 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 later-season lyrics.^[3] ^[4] ^[5] Dawn Wells tells the story that it was Bob Denver who went to the studio execs and said that Johnson and Wells' names should be in the opening credits. The execs originally refused, stating that it would cost too much to reshoot and rescore the opening. So Denver pointed out that, as the show's star, it was in his contract to have his name anywhere he wanted in the credits, so they could put his name in the end credits with Johnson and Wells'. The studio felt itself obligated to have Denver's name appear in the opening, so they capitulated, granting The Professor and Mary Ann a place in the opening credits. 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 to get them into the opening credits.

Gilligan's full name

Gilligan's full name has been a subject of debate among fans of the series for decades, a debate resolved by the release of Gilligan's Island — The Complete First Season on DVD in 2004. In a documentary called "Before the Three Hour Tour", excerpts from Sherwood Schwartz's original treatment for the series reveal that Gilligan's full name was Willy Gilligan, a name that Bob Denver had sometimes given during talk show interviews. The documentary also reveals that Schwartz found the name "Gilligan" by opening the phone book to a random page. Bob Denver stated on a KDKA radio interview in May 1989, that Gil Eggan was his choice for the character's name. Denver reasoned that since everyone yelled at him, it came out as Gilligan. However, no first name is used in any of the three seasons, films or animated series. In "Rescue From Gilligan's Island", the returning castaways' names are announced. The writers, heightening the folklore surrounding Gilligan, artfully omit the reading of the first mate's given name.

Location of the island

The actual filming of the show took place at the CBS' Radford Studios complex in Studio City, California, identifiable as user-defined landmark in Google Earth. 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.

In episode 3.28, titled "The Pigeon", the note pinned on a pigeon's leg by the castaways says the island is located approximately 300 miles southeast of Hawaii.

In episode 1.18, entitled "X Marks the Spot", viewers were informed that the Pentagon had decided to test a new warhead just above the equator at 140 degrees latitude and 10 degrees longitude. This is inaccurate, as latitude is measured north and south of the equator to the poles and only ranges from 0 to 90 degrees. If the coordinates were simply reversed — 140 degrees longitude and 10 degrees north latitude — then this would place the island approximately 1200 miles southeast of Hawaii.

A common question is how the castaways were able to determine their location, given that the island itself was supposedly not on any of the Skipper's nautical charts. Their latitude is the angle of the North Star above the horizon, and their longitude is the difference between "noon" at their location and "noon" on their watch (in minutes), divided by four, and added to the known longitude of Hawaii.

Spin-offs

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

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 at the first Christmas after their rescue, fate intervened and the group found themselves marooned on the exact same island. It starred the original cast except for Tina Louise, who refused to participate and was replaced as Ginger by Judith Baldwin (who seemed much too young for the role, compared to the other actors). The plot of the movie involved Soviet agents seeking a memory disc from a spy satellite that landed on the island and facilitated their rescue.
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), some villains (played by Martin Landau and then-wife Barbara Bain, who also appeared together on Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999) try to take over the island to gain access to a valuable but unknown substance. (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. This is odd, because it was established in the series that the Howells were childless (though historically, adoption has been considered a perfectly valid method of securing an heir).
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 First produced in the early 1990s, script by Lloyd Sherwood, Sherwood Schwartz's son, with songs by Sherwood 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.
Gilligan's Island: Underneath the Grass Skirt (1999)
Gilligan's Island: The E! True Hollywood Story (2000), a backstage history of the show, featuring interviews with some of the stars or their widows.
Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History (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 the Survivor 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.

DVD Releases

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

Cover Art	DVD Name	Ep #	Region 1	Additional features
File:Gilligan's Island S1.jpg	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
File:Gilligan's Island S2.jpg	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"
File:Gilligan's Island S3.jpg	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"

Trivia

In the Jack and the Beanstalk dream sequence of the episode "V for Vitamins", the smaller version of Gilligan, running from the Giant Skipper, is played by Bob Denver's real life son, Patrick Denver. [1]
The show was filmed what is today the CBS Studio Center in Studio City, California. [2] The same stage used by the show would later be used by The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Roseanne.
Bob Denver, Jim Backus, and Tina Louise each had feature episodes where look-alikes came to the island (who were, of course, played by themselves).
The opening scene of the Minnow in a storm was reused in an episode of The Wild Wild West in which several persons are trapped on an island.
Alan Hale Jr guest starred on The Wild Wild West. At the end he remarks he is going on a vaction to a "desert Island" {An in-joke reference to "Gilligan's Island"!}
Four different boats played the part of the SS Minnow in the show. One was used in the opening credits and rented in Honolulu Harbor. 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 and another Minnow was built on the CBS Studios set in the second season.^[6]
In "You've Been Disconnected", Lovey Howell claims to speak fluent French, while in "All About Eva", she claims she cannot speak any French.
When the castaways are kidnapped to a mad scientist's lab in the episode "The Friendly Physician," they succeed in physically getting off the island and onto another piece of land for the only time in the series.
According to Here on Gilligan's Isle by Russell Johnson and Steve Cox, many shots from the opening credits from the first season were filmed on November 22, 1963, the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A clue to this is a panned shot early in the sequence in which an American flag is clearly at half staff.
The show's theme song is written in common meter, meaning that poems written in this fashion can be sung to it. This includes many Emily Dickinson poems and, ironically, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
Unusually for such a successful American television series, the programme is virtually unknown in the United Kingdom — only thirteen episodes were ever shown there.^[7]
In the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest, washed-up actors from a Star-Trek-like television show, Galaxy Quest, are enlisted by real aliens, the Thermians, to help them in an intergalactic war. The Thermians have no concept of theater or make-believe, and for years the Thermians had watched the Galaxy Quest tv show and thought it was the "historical documents" of actual space voyages. While trying to make the Thermians understand that the show was fictional, the actors suggest Gilligan's Island as an obviously fictional show, but at the very mention of Gilligan's Island, the Thermians all moan in despair, "oh, those poor people."
In the song Rubberband Banks, rapper Young Dro states "f***in with my clique will get you lost like Gilligan."
In the 1987 film The Running Man, set in the future, the old gameshow 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."

Notes

^ http://www.gilligansisle.com/theme.html
^ http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mr8P27wTVKQ
^ * Green. Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook.
^ Straight Dope staff (Lileth). "Was the "Gilligan's Island" theme song tampered with?". The Straight Dope. Cecil Adams. Retrieved 2006-04-04.
^ "Gilligan's Island (Gilligan's Island Tidbits section)". The Fifties Web. Retrieved 2006-04-04.
^ "Gilligan's Minnow no longer lost". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2006-08-28.
^ Lewisohn, Mark (2003). "The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy - Gilligan's Island". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-01-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

References

Denver, Bob (1993). Gilligan, Maynard & Me. Carol Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-8065-1413-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Green, Joey (1988). Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-38668-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Johnson, Russell (1993). Here on Gilligan's Isle (1st edition ed.). Perennial. ISBN 0-06-096993-8. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Schwartz, Sherwood (15). Inside Gilligan's Island : A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making Of A Television Classic. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-10482-0. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
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

[1] ttp://www.gilligansisle.com/theme.html

[2] ttp://youtube.com/watch?v=Mr8P27wTVKQ

[green-3] * Green. Unofficial Gilligan's Island Handbook.

[straight-dope-4] Straight Dope staff (Lileth). "Was the "Gilligan's Island" theme song tampered with?". The Straight Dope. Cecil Adams. Retrieved 2006-04-04.

[50s-web-5] "Gilligan's Island (Gilligan's Island Tidbits section)". The Fifties Web. Retrieved 2006-04-04.

[CBC_Arts-6] "Gilligan's Minnow no longer lost". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2006-08-28.

[7] Lewisohn, Mark (2003). "The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy - Gilligan's Island". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-01-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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v t e Gilligan's Island
Episodes	Season 1 Season 2 Season 3
Characters	Gilligan The Skipper Thurston Howell III Lovey Howell Ginger Grant The Professor Mary Ann Summers
Spin-offs	The New Adventures of Gilligan Rescue from Gilligan's Island The Castaways on Gilligan's Island The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island Gilligan's Planet Surviving Gilligan's Island
Related	S. S. Minnow The Adventures of Gilligan's Island Gilligan's Island pinball machine A Very Brady Sequel Gilligan's Wake The Real Gilligan's Island Newton N. Minow (Vast Wasteland speech)