Gilligan's Island (1964-1967)

Tina Louise hated Gilligan's Island. She is also the last living member of the cast and crew.

Life can be funny.

Theme from the pilot (The 'Two secretaries' would be replaced by Ginger and Mary-Ann')

And, the rest!

The Professor – Pride (he comes across as a know-it-all)

Thurston Howell III – Greed (no explanation needed if you’ve watched the show)

Ginger – Lust (she always wears skimpy clothes & obsessed with her looks)

Mary Ann – Envy (of Ginger’s looks)

Mrs. Lovey Howell – Gluttony (she was always eating)

The Skipper – Anger or wrath (he always hit Gilligan on every show)

Gilligan – Sloth

R2, I'm surprised by the calypso rhythm and Caribbean accent. I thought they were shipwrecked somewhere in the Pacific.

I learned that I was attracted to big older bears while watching Gilligan’s Island and Family Affair reruns during the summer when I was a kid. I wanted to be on an island with the Skipper and I wanted Mr French to be my nanny.

Mr. Howell and Gilligan had the best lines. One of my favorites was with the Latin American overthrown dictator.

R5 Well, we know Jim Backus and Natalie Schaffer left New York but didn't quite arrived in England.

I was always attracted to Mr. Howell

R5, they were. The port shown in the opening is Hawaii.

My favorite is the radioactive vegetables episode, just for the scene where Mrs. Howell, having eaten radioactive sugar beets, goes mad with energy and cleans her entire hut at a million miles an hour.

The episode with the Mosquitoes is a definite favorite.

The Phil Silvers-Hamlet episode, The Producer

R11 That was my favorite, too! And Gilligan got strong and Mary Ann got superpower eyesight. Then to counteract the effects of the radiation, the professor made them all eat soap and bubbles came out of their mouths when they spoke.

In the early 90s, I used to watch it in the morning before going to work. It was the first time I had ever seen the original b&w episodes (though they had been colorized but didn’t really look too bad as compared to other things).

I don’t know why shows in syndication in the 70s and 80s never aired the b&w episodes. They are usually the most crucial too in setting up the series. I didn’t know there were episodes when Major Nelson met Jeannie or Darrin married Samantha or that there was a “Bub” before Uncle Charlie or hell, an oldest Douglas son I never knew about.

I remember the episode with Rory Calhoun as the hunter who came to the island to kill the ultimate prize - a human - was really disturbing for me as a kid.

What was amazing was that Natalie Schafer was 64 years old (and in the 60s, that was [italic]old[/italic] ) when GI was in production.

When Michael Forest turns up to reclaim Gilligan's slave girl.

Hunky Skipper turned me on to Bears for life.

Mrs. Howell also referred to Gilligan as "steward" in the first few episodes

“pooloo see..pooloo see…pooloo bagoomba!”

“how come you not speak real Koopakai?”

Remember Zsa Zsa Gabor as Eureka Springs?

[quote]I don’t know why shows in syndication in the 70s and 80s never aired the b&w episodes.

From the 60s on there was a push to show all color/all the time on TV. In the case of My Three Sons, the show had switched networks so the first seasons weren't included n syndication.

God I hated this show! Even when I was very young, Gilligan’s utter stupidity grated on me. I liked even the lowly Green Acres more than Gilligan’s Island.

I like the episodes where Denny Miller was the hunky guest star. Also the episode where they can read each other's thoughts and start hurling invisible insults at each other.

When I was a young pre-teen (so a long, long time ago), Bob Denver was doing the regional theatre circuit and came to town. I begged my parents to go, so my mother took me to a matinee and I met Denver. He was sweet and generous to a goofy awkward kid who had no idea he was an accomplished actor with a lot more than a silly sitcom under his belt. '

The only time I believe they left the island, not in a dream or fantasy sequence, happened when the mad doctor and his assistant brought them to HIS island for body swapping experimentation.

I’m glad it didn’t last any longer than it did. They weee already resorting to dream sequences and the like by the final season.

In the original pilot the castaways were in the Caribbean. There are more small, uninhabited islands Yes, the pilot was shot in Hawaii, but it was assumed no one would notice or know the difference. When the network rejected the pilot and demanded changes, Sherwood Schwartz brought everyone back. Filming was delayed due to the assassination of JFK, which was announced during filming. Natalie Schaffer hated the script and hated the idea of doing television. Her agent advised her to take the money and the free trip to Hawaii, as the script was so awful it would never be picked up... That original calypso theme song was by John Williams! If you watch the first episode of the series carefully, you'll see some clips that were reused from the original pilot, most notably near the beginning when Gilligan wakes up. You can clearly see Bunny and the original Ginger asleep on deck.

I remember one dream where Gilligan was a Jekyll-Hyde/Jack the Ripper of murder in Victorian England. It was SOOO much fun:

Mrs. Howell was his Mary Poppins defense attorney

The Professor was the prosecution

Mr. Howell was the judge

Ginger was a proustite

Mary Ann was basically Eliza Doolittle-flower girl

I can't remember what the Skipper was, maybe a bailiff

I would love to rewatch that episode again.

I liked the episode where Mary Ann falls and bumps her head and thinks she's Ginger, so the professor suggests that Ginger pretend to be Mary Ann to help her get her memory back.

Ginger walks around in a black with pigtails and a gingham dress while Mary Ann shortens all the sleeves on Ginger's gowns.

"What are you doing to my...your dress?"

R27 That was a fun one. Ginger swaps bodies with Igor.

"In here. Feels good."

What I never understood about that episode, though, is why didn't they take the evil scientist's boat and sail back to Hawaii? Or why didn't they all at least stay in the castle? It had running water and electricity!

^^^ The boat sinks at the end of the episode.

R33 I don't remember that.

R30, I believe this is the episode you’re referring to:

The one where a phone line washes up on the beach was good. They end up making a dial phone from bamboo to try and call people and get rescued. I remember the woman who played Mrs. Kravitz on Bewitched played a phone operator who receives Gilligan's call, and after he tells her they're stranded on an island, she says, "Why do I get all the nuts?" and hangs up.

R30 Here's a short clip from that episode (S3 E13 - And Then There Were None). Yes, the Skipper was the bailiff.

You can see full episodes of the show for free on Tubi or pay $1.99 per episode on Amazon Prime, YouTube, or Apple TV.

I liked the episode where the rocket aimed for Mars ends up landing on the island. The rocket was supposed to broadcast images from Mars, so all the castaways were getting ready to appear in front of it, but as usual, Gilligan fucked something up and they all ran after him and somehow (I don't remember why), they all ended up with chicken feathers stuck to them.

When the rocket started broadcasting, the NASA people thought the castaways were chicken people from Mars.

R37 I think IFC shows Gilligan's Island marathons on Sunday mornings, too.

I found it online free from 123 movies! S3 E13 And Then There Were None

I found it odd that Natalie Schafer left Dawn Wells a good chunk of money (1m?) when she died to thank her for taking care of her in her old age yet Dawn still needed a GFM to get into a nursing home when she herself was dying.

Schafer probably left $147.

I agree with R11, R12, R13, R14. Those were the four best, nuttiest, most entertaining episodes. If I had been friends with Tina Louise, I would have sat her down, made her watch those episodes, (which she probably has never done herself!), then ask, "Do you now understand why millions of people around the world love this show, and why they love you?". (I mean, it ain't Shakespeare, but that Shakespeare take-off showed brilliance in a completely different way).

On a serious note, the episode where Gilligan is literally hunted as prey (was it Rory Calhoun?) was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen as a child. I think there was even a DL thread written about it.

Also, is there anyone posting on this thread under the age of 50 years old?

r41 and R42 Natalie Schafer's father made a fortune during the Gilded Age. Even though she had a stable acting career, Schafer could live comfortably off he family wealth without having to really work. She did the pilot of Gilligan's Island for two reasons: (1) for a free trip to Hawaii, and (2) to work with her old vaudeville friend Jim Backus. She called it "charming."

She had no children and left most of her money to charities and civic organization.

Even if Dawn was given $1M (unlikely), Schafer died in 1991. Dawn Wells was not that good of actress to escape her reputation as Mary Ann, and did not do much work outside of parodies and self promotions. Wells created a GFM around 2020, 30 years after Schafer died. Ergo, the little money she got from Schafer was gone.

Tina Louise married money and had a daughter I think. Even though they divorced, she had "fuck you Sherwood Schwarz" money.

As a young gayling, I thought Tina Louise was a gorgeous goddess of a woman, and I would tune in just to see what she would be wearing. Well, that, and the Professor.

All the straight boys loved Dawn Wells. With those big doe eyes, she was cute as a button.

Gilligan was annoying.

Glamour couple: Tina and Les Crane.

I can't believe it only lasted three seasons. 🌈⛈️🌬🌫🛥🛖🏝

You don't have to believe me, but this show was new when I was 7, and I thought it was insipid even then. I hated I Dream of Jeannie, Family Affair, Green Acres, Hee Haw, etc.

I did love Dark Shadows, and ran home from school to watch it at 4PM. And I loved the original Bugs Bunny and Road Runner and the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. And The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes, even though they scared me.

Gilligan's Island? That was kid stuff.

To answer r43's query, I'm 45.

[quote] while Mary Ann shortens all the sleeves on Ginger's gowns.

It wasn't the sleeves. She turned them into mini-dresses (it WAS 1967).

As a Rhode Islander, I was surprised to read on a GI fan site (a couple of years ago) that the Howells were from Newport, RI. Apparently, it was said in Season 1 in one of the early episodes.

Lovey Howell in her ineffable accent from who knows where: Ginger is Maryanne and Maryanne is Ginger.

Best episodes:

1. When Maryanne thinks she's Ginger and cuts all Ginger's dresses because they're too big.

2. When the woman arrives on the island and they do a makeover, they discover she looks just like Ginger.

3. The Honeybees

Thurston often comolained about Yale men.

This needs a reboot as a serious drama where they are starving. Skipper is the obvious choice for murder victim as he will provide the most sustenance, and the professor can devise a way to preserve all that meat, but Gilligan is so insufferably stupid and destructive that Mrs. Howell loses it and impales him with a hat pin.

Then they eat him.

Who's next?

All About Eva was a fantastic episode and Tina Louise was outstanding. However, we never found out what happened to Eva when she returned to civilization and took over Ginger's career. In true GI's style, they should have written a tag where they hear on the radio Eva was in a shipwreck, returned to her previous ugly condition and sent to a mental hospital because she kept insisting she was Ginger Grant. They had a couple of episodes like that.

[quote]This needs a reboot as a serious drama where they are starving.

They already did - it's called Lost.

LOST was its own joke. And I say that as an early fan.

They had a reality show in the early 2000's- The Real Gilligan's Island with a real skipper and first mate, real millionaires, etc.

Denny Miller in one episode.

R51 Yes, but there's a scene where Mary Ann's sitting at a table and the sleeves from Ginger's dress are hanging way over her hands. Mary Ann says something like, "I don't know what's happening. Suddenly, all my sleeves are much too long."

R43 Yes, that hunter episode really upset me as a kid. See my comment at R16.

The scene where Rory Calhoun gathers everyone at the table and announces he's going to hunt one of them, then walks around to each one and points his rifle at them. Yikes.

[quote] This silly show has touched the hearts of millions for over 60 years.

Frankly, it never touched my heart. My gag reflex, sure.

There was an episode from the first season when the show was still in black and white and the Skipper went crazy, flashing back to WWII and thinking all the castaways were Japanese soldiers. Does anyone remember that episode? He would look at them and see them dressed up in military gear, and they all had their eyes made up to look slanted, and some of them had thin little moustaches painted on their faces, too.

That's an episode they'll probably never air these days.

[quote] Remember Zsa Zsa Gabor as Eureka Springs?

No, but I remember Zsa Zsa Gabor on the show as Erica Tiffany Smith.

R4, they all look miserable in the photo.

I don't remember any of Gingers' gowns having sleeves.

When my brother and I were little he would tell company he wanted to be a pilot when he grew up.

I wanted to be Ginger Grant and would tell anybody who asked.

with a nod to spring awakening:

“the professor was the best, he looked so nasty in his khakis

oh god , gilligan’s island was like some test!”

Some of the slapstick humor was hilarious. It takes a good actor to do slapstick. Often it can seem so corny unoriginal and dumb.

The episode when the ladies form a singing trio, ‘the honeybees’. Pretty catchy tune: “you need us”. Buzzzzzzzzz

When Ginger sings I Wanna Be Loved By You is sexy as hell

I had no idea that this show had only three seasons. But seasons had more episodes back then (20+ or more if I recall), so I guess that's why it felt like it was on longer.

I was born in the 80s but grew up watching it on Nick at Nite (along with I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Tyler Moore).

Another insane but hilarious episode: the silent movie. "Hello to Rainier and Grace, and all you DEAR little children!"

In retrospect, the stupider the episode, the more hilarious it was.

Natalie did leave Dawn a large amount of money. Dawn used it to open an acting school/summer theatre camp. It went bust. That's why she needed a GoFundMe later.

My favorite episodes involve the radioactive vegetables as well as the one when the undersea cable of phone lines wash upon the shore.

It was a harmless, fun little show, enjoyable especially for late Boomers to watch in reruns for perpetuity beginning in the late 1960s on local “UHF” channels and then onto cable stations.

My guilty favorites included such episodes as the one with Phil Silvers as the director attempting to stage a musical “Hamlet” with the castaways; The Skipper and Gilligan dream of climbing the Beanstalk and battling Jack; Gilligan’s smacked jaw turning his teeth into radio stations; and The castaways becoming involved with spies and a mad doctor switching their personalities around on his evil lab. Innocent, silly, and fun midcentury sitcom times.

A strangely lovely episode. A big storm is coming to the island and they find a cave to hide in. They determine that all of them can't fit so they draw straws to see who stays out. Gilligan rigs it so he stays out. Skipper finds out and joins him. One by one the castaways all join Gilligan. The storm hits and lightning strikes the cave, destroying it. Gilligan unwittingly saved everyone.

For the Skipper fans

This used to air back-to-back with Hogan's Heroes when I came home from school. I remember always being disappointed when their opportunity to get off the island was thwarted. I was also nervous for Hogan and the gang, fearing that they would be caught.

Gilligan's Planet

Why did Tina Louise not appear in the TV movies Rescue from Gilligan's Island and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island?

R80, see R1.

The cast was surprisingly very close except for Louise. She didn't get along with any of them. She has said several times her agent fooled her into thinking Ginger would be the star (even despite the name of the show!), and she was constantly pulling to get more attention from the press than any of the other performers.

The rest of the cast stayed friends for years and years after the show concluded.

Weird facts:

*Bob Denver's (Gilligan's) wife in real life was named Dreama

*Alan Hale, Jr.'s (The Skipper's) wife was named Trinket.

*The Skipper's character's actual name was Jonas Grumby.

*The Professor's was Roy Hinkley, and he wasn't a professor at a college but was said to teach at a high school. His particular area of expertise was botany (he was working on a book called "Fun with Ferns" when he took what was meant to be a three-hour tour), despite his incredible knowledge of chemistry, biology, and other sciences and humanities.

*Mrs. Howell's nickname that her husband used was of course "Lovey," but her real name was Eunice Wentworth Howell.

*Gilligan was never given another name, so it wasn't entirely clear if Gilligan was meant to be his first or last name.

Miss Louise was a serious actress who studied with Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg, won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer - Female for her work on "God's Little Acre", and had leading lady roles in the critically acclaimed westerns, "The Hangman" and "Day of the Outlaw." Taking the Gilligan's Island TV gig was a step back and she blamed it for ruining her movie career.

R80 they offered her the same amount of money as the rest of the cast (I believe it was $50,000) for Rescue, but she wanted more and ultimately said no. Schwartz has said she changed her mind multiple times saying she would do it and then back to no. He got so tired of that it he decided to recast. It’s too bad they didn’t get her back for at least Rescue, but I doubt she was asked back for the last two. The chick they got to play Ginger in the last movie was like 30 lol.

Gilligan was his surname. It was never used on the show, but his first name (per Sherwood Schwartz) was Willy. Willy Gilligan.

Now you know.

Tina Louise scared the shit out of me when she played the sadistic lesbian prison guard in Nightmare in Badham County.

R86 Thank you for the great recommendation. I'm watchin' this later. It looks classic!

Trailer below. Tina comes in at about the 1:42 mark.

[quote]Yes, but there's a scene where Mary Ann's sitting at a table and the sleeves from Ginger's dress are hanging way over her hands. Mary Ann says something like, "I don't know what's happening. Suddenly, all my sleeves are much too long."

It's the episode where Maryanne has amnesia and thinks she's Ginger - "The Second Ginger Grant" - Mary Ann is watching Ginger perform when she falls and hits her head. When she wakes up, she believes she's Ginger.

[quote]Does the show still hold up?

It didn't hold up in the early '60s. It seemed to be geared toward young children. Bob Denver got on my nerves, whereas I had liked him on "Dobie Gillis," a genuinely funny show.

[quote]God I hated this show! Even when I was very young, Gilligan’s utter stupidity grated on me. I liked even the lowly Green Acres more than Gilligan’s Island.

Seriiously? "Green Acres" had Oscar Wilde-level wit compared with the aggressively stupid "Gilligan's Island."

More specifically, they departed from the gas dock at the Ala WaI Marina in Waikiki. It looked quite the same for decades after.

It’s probably more amusing to read about the episodes than to actually watch them.

Jayne Mansfield turned down playing Ginger. I think she would have been great.

[quote]Jayne Mansfield turned down playing Ginger.

It was only offered to her because Marilyn Monroe was dead at that point.

Raquel Welch was offered Mary Ann. (this was before her first big movie, otherwise you might have thought Ginger).

Believe it or not the ENTIRE cast of Gilligan's Island reunited for an episode of this talk show in the 80's. Things seem a little awkward with Tina Louise there as she rarely if ever did any of the reunion stuff.

I forgot about this episode of Roseanne where the last surviving cast members played the Roseanne characters.

I liked the Gilligan's Island episode of ALF.

R95 I just watched that clip. Thank you for sharing. My thoughts:

I get the impression that Tina "respectfully asked" to be seated next to Alan Hale Jr. and Natalie Schafer, both who seem lovely;

Jim Backus steals the show;

Bob Denver seems shy;

Russell Johnson seems chill;

Dawn Wells is just happy to be there

R95 What a gem of a clip! Though not necessarily for the right reasons.

First off, who is that host? Talk about a fanboy! He knew more about the show than any of the guests, but seemed to know little about anything else. It was incredibly cringe!

And if anyone knows anything about Tina Louise, she must have raised holy hell to someone as soon as she walked off the set. Especially when the host actually admitted he only wanted to refer to her as Ginger! I bet she wanted to hit him over the head with a baseball bat!

Obviously, she only made the appearance to promote that movie. The Pool. A movie she likely hoped would revive her film career, but from the little I could find, was probably never finished. I half expected to discover it was directed by John Waters.

I did find this....

I liked the whole cast. I haven’t seen it since TvLand ended the three hour tour. Watched it all the time as a kid but I never cared for it until I sick in bed with a 104 degree temperature. It was the episode where Gilligan goes bald. Then I laughed and liked it ever since.

It's funny how these 60s primetime TV shows became by the 1970s just kiddie shows. Syndicated for juvenile afterschool consumption, like cartoons or Sesame Street.

[quote]There was an episode from the first season when the show was still in black and white and the Skipper went crazy, flashing back to WWII and thinking all the castaways were Japanese soldiers.

There was also IIRC an episode where they encounter a Japanese soldier who has been stranded since 1945 and does not know that the war is over.

R100 "I'll have a hard bald egg!"

R102 Yes, and the solider was played by Vito Scotti, who also later played the mad scientist.

Um, yeah, his performance is on the Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's level.

R66 Here's Mary Ann wearing Ginger's dresses with extra long sleeves (starts at about 11:15).

Miss Tina came to Boston for that never released film She was a regular in the Boston Herald with bad behavior gossip and "pap" shots of her with those stupid parasols. It turned out the parasols were her side hustle, she launched her own line that flopped.

She would get very indignant about GI in interviews and insist on dragging in her bit in Johnny Suede. She would always name check poor Brad Pitt. It was like Faye carrying on about Brando but only slightly berserk.

I've told her book launch Boston boat cruise story here before. More unhinged behavior and the "book" was another flop.

I’ve become so suspicious because of Trump/friends I wonder if threads like these are created to gather information for nefarious reasons.?

To some extent, I understand Tina's resentment toward Ginger and Gilligan's Island. She was beautiful. She could sing. She could act. She was poised to become a big star. Then this show comes along, her agent sells it to her as a vehicle that's all about her, and she ends up in in a silly sitcom playing a wanna be Monroe, and that image sticks. To add insult to injury, she got no residuals from a show that continues to air to this day.

On the other hand, how many actors get the golden opportunity to be immortalized like she was? You say the name "Tina Louise," and everyone immediately knows who you are, even six decades later. Had she embraced that opportunity, she'd have probably been a happier person, gotten more exposure, and who knows? Maybe she could have made more of her film and TV career than she did.

Good points, R108

Why are two millionaires and a famous actress on a tiny boat with a bunch of nobodies?

R110 Thurston and Lovey were bored and were probably waiting for their yacht to be cleaned, so decided to slum it with the common people.

From the show, based on the different movie titles Ginger would say she was in, like "The Rain Dancers of Rango Rango," I never got the impression her character was an A-lister. I saw her more as a B-movie actress trying hard to climb the showbiz ladder, like a Jayne Mansfield or Mamie Van Doren type.

Tina Louise never really worked after Gilligan's Island. Maybe a sitcom episode or B movie here or there, but she never really worked.

How could she support her NY lifestyle? She divorced Les Crane in 1969.

You shteam gwashes!

Anyone remember that episode with the Japanese WW2 soldier?

The host was Ross Schaeffer in one of the numerous attempts at trying to get a talk show going after Fox fired Joan Rivers.

A Hollywood Urban legend is that Tina Louise's excellent oral skills on Jim Aubrey landed her Gilligan's Island.

R114 If true, I bet that's a load she regrets swallowing.

Honestly, what has she done post GI?

R116 Mostly minor TV and movie roles.

I remember her most as one of the robot wives in the original Stepford Wives movie.

R117 yes, but that couldn't pay the bills long term. she hasn't really worked since the 1990's

R118, it was said she gave excellent head. That's work.

Don't forget her stint on then-in-its-prime Dallas as JR's secretary.

So, Tina is the sole survivor, essentially making the Survivor series a spinoff of Gilligan's Island?

For R102 and R113:

Mary Ann often wore this wonderful wide brimmed hat with what looked like pre-flower power appliqués in the first b&w season. When they colorized it, they just colored the whole hat as straw brown but I’ll bet it was nicer than that.

How did the Minnow end up on a completely different beach in seasons 2 and 3 than in the first season?

^^^ How did Samantha get a completely different husband?

Both Tina Louise and Barbara Eden allegedly earned a good living fucking rich guys.

Tina for sure, with Barbara I'm not as convinced.

[quote]There was also IIRC an episode where they encounter a Japanese soldier who has been stranded since 1945 and does not know that the war is over.

This show was jampacked with original plot ideas.

[quote]Yes, and the solider was played by Vito Scotti, who also later played the mad scientist.

[quote]Um, yeah, his performance is on the Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's level.

I remember Vito Scotti always playing annoying overdone Italians on old sitcoms. I think he had a recurring role as an annoying Italian policeman on "The Flying Nun."

[quote]Yes, and the solider was played by Vito Scotti, who also later played the mad scientist.

Is that the episode where the scientist has a machine that switches their bodies?

He was an annoying Puerto Rican policeman on The Flying Nun, R128. Hollywood has always considered all Spanish speakers interchangeable with with Italians, and often Thai or other Asians (see The King and I).

R129, yes, that was one of his appearances as the mad scientist. In another one, he invented a ring that turned the castaways into robots.

[quote]When Ginger sings I Wanna Be Loved By You is sexy as hell

I loved her rendition of “It Had To Be You” and always stop to listen when it’s on:

You just know Tina is a real bitch

Apparently, Tina would go off on fans who approached her and accidentally call her "Ginger." Dawn Wells, on the other hand, talked about going out to lunch or dinner with Natalie Schaefer and people asking Natalie where Mr. Howell was. Instead of being bitchy like Tina was, Natalie thought it was funny and was very good-natured about it.

Thanks, R130. That was carelessness on my part. Of course Scotti was a Puerto Rican policeman on "The Flying Nun," given where the show was set. Vito Scotti was the go-to TV actor at the time for broad ethnic characters. I watched "The Flying Nun" as a kid and enjoyed it, but later in its three-season run, Scotti's character seemed to be getting increased air time, which caused me to enjoy the show a lot less. Even when I was young, I disliked broad comic actors of limited talent. I stopped watching "The Carol Burnett Show" after Tim Conway became a regular and started stinking up every sketch he was in with his heavy-handed characters and routines that just went on and on and on without a trace of wit or nuance.

My favorite episode was the one where they almost get off the island but Gilligan messes it up.

Does anyone remember the voodoo witch doctor episode. IIRC, he made dolls resembling the castaways and stuck them with pins

And that was the very line that started it R103!!

I own the whole series on DVD. This thread made me dig them out. I rewatched the pilot and the first two official episodes. Still a few chuckles here and there, and not as stupid as I remembered. The cast was really good. They knew their characters and did a professional job. They were much better actors than they got credit for.

In one of the tributes or reunions, they discussed how, during the run, a few of them did a special visit to a prison system who were all fans. They expected the guys to go crazy for Ginger and Mary Ann.

They didn't expect the Professor would be the one most in demand.

R137 Yes, and I remember him holding the Gilligan doll over a fire and Gilligan started jumping around because his feet were hot.

The episode “Ghost a Go-Go” scared me as a kid. Those shots of the guy in the white ghost sheet running though the set at night in slow motion, going “Whoooo-oooo!” It was weirdly creepy.

The make-up on Tina Louise on the show was strong. She looks recognizably the same in varied works such as “God’s Little Acre”, “The Stepford Wives”, and “Dallas” but looks completely different as Ginger.

Best post-series story is when Bob Denver was busted for weed that had been sent to him by Dawn Wells.

So Tina basically became an escort?

R145 Don't knock eet, beechez. It veddy profitable.

Yay! An opportunity to discuss Vito Scotti. Only on DL.

Having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s, Vito Scotti was constantly on TV, and since WWII was still a hot topic, he had a great job market on those TV shows. I loved it when he'd show up in a show.

Really enjoyed his cameo in 'The Godfather', because he played against the usual part where he used an Italian accent.

A few years ago I watched an old 'Columbo' episode where he played a small part as a tailor or menswear salesman, and for the three minutes of the scene he found endless ways of working in 'little bits of business'.

Another favorite was Mako, who got the Japanese TV parts, mostly WWII stuff, and he was an incredible actor. I recall an episode of 'Time Tunnel' where he played a military officer who was traumatized by the war.

Then there was Whit Bissell, who showed up in every single? show at one point, playing the generic old white guy part. It got to the point where I referred to him as 'The Lovely Whit Bissell'.

I think Tina became a kept woman when she moved to New York. She said something of the effect that there were so many virile men in Manhattan, very different from Hollywood.

I met the Professor and Gilligan in Seattle at an event. They looked just like they did on TV but older. I saw Dawn in a play at the University Washington, too. It was nice to see them in person.

The Skipper and Gilligan were every May-December relationship in Palm Springs.

Just watched the first season episode with the gold mine and the life raft. For once, the calamity wasn't Gilligan's fault!

151 posts and I’m the first to say I kind of had a thing for Gilligan?

Also, this clip from Jim Backus … “Delicious”. I have amazing memories when my dad would play this for me howling in laughter. He had it on a 33.

Denver had another sitcom after that. The Good Guys.

And Dusty's Trail lol

Skipper had a seafood restaurant in LA

R152, is that his wife, Henny with him?

My favorite episode is when MaryAnne bakes one of her famous banana cream pies, but it makes everyone ill. Ginger cuts a massive putrid fart and they have to all run to the other side of the island to escape it.

I like the episode where the rock band is stranded on the island and the women created a girl group called The Honeybees. And they sang this horrible song called, “You Need Me”.

R157, if they released You Need Me as a single, I guarantee it would have been at least a Top 10 hit.

Sadly, Dawn Wells couldn't sing a note and was dubbed by Jackie DeShannon.

What was her talent in the Miss America pageant, r159?

I saw Dawn do They're Playing our Song in Seattle. There were numerous complaints about her singing but her acting was fantastic and she looked like Carole Bayer Sager, which was a plus in my book. I don't know why she didn't put more work into her singing because it would have opened up a lot more opportunities in theater, even though she had a nice career doing plays.

Hey, this thread is getting off the main topic- me.

R159 It wasn't Jackie DeShannon. It was Carol Connors.

For R160: She recited Rosalind from As You Like It.

I hope that R156 isn't attempting a career in comedy writing.

My 2 bit take...

Back in the late 70s, or was it the early 80s? Alan Hale Jr. had a short lived, seafood joint on La Cienega just below Sunset. A group of us, all young teens, went there for a fancy meal, maybe for a birthday. The big draw was of course, meeting the Skipper. We did, and he couldn't have cared less. Didn't want to talk about Gilligan's Island, just seemed glad we were paying. The place was a dump and overpriced. Lesson learned: never meet your heroes, or more precisely, syndicated has-been fictitious sea captains.

For anyone interested, there’s a Gilligan marathon on Sundance today.

R156, are you 12?

I had Russell Johnson’s book from the early 90s and it was quite entertaining. He said that the episode where Mary Anne thought she was Ginger worked so well partly because Dawn Wells was such a lousy singer.

So why would people cast her in a singing role onstage when it would appear many knew she couldn’t carry a tune?

There was a sniglet, or something similar, where it cited the moment where the GI theme went from “and the rest” to “The Professor and Mary Anne”. I didn’t get that for years because I never saw the first season until I was older and the b&w episodes were finally aired.

The first aired episode did not show them get shipwrecked. The Christmas episode in the first season cobbled together the original pilot and new footage as a flashback episode to show their first days on the island.

The castaways wanted to get off, but I always thought the island life they created for themselves was fun and cozy.

The first scene of the first episode ("Two On a Raft") begins with the Skipper waking up on the aft deck of the Minnow, the morning the ship was washed up on the beach. There was no episode that showed them aboard the Minnow during the storm -there are just references to things that Gilligan did wrong. As R171 mentions, the Christmas episode ("Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk") fills in additional scenes along with footage from the Pilot (which opens with exactly the same scene are the first aired episode.

I think that one of Russell Johnson’s sons died of AIDS complications.

R174 so did Robert Reed

He did, R174. Russell Johnson campaigned for HIV prevention and AIDS awareness for the rest of his life.

In real life, Gilligan would have been killed after his very firsr fuckup.

Killed and eaten.