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The showbiz cliché is that Hollywood producers solicit starlets for sexual favors in exchange for juicy parts in movies and television shows. But if we’re to believe Sherwood Schwartz, producer of the family sitcom The Brady Bunch, sometimes the sleazy process works the other way around.

Schwartz was running behind when it came time to cast Carol Brady, the All-American matriarch of the Brady clan. He’d spent the summer looking for the right six kids, auditioning more than 1,200 boys and girls, according to Barry Williams’ book, Growing Up Brady. To complicate matters, Schwartz called back and personally interviewed 454 kids in his search for the perfect six. No wonder it took him so long to get to the parents.

Because he got such a late start, many of Schwartz’s obvious choices for Carol had already committed to holding deals with other shows. Other well-known actresses turned down the auditions.

Lightning struck twice for sitcom producer Sherwood Schwartz, who created two monster TV hits within the span of a single decade. Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch were even more popular in syndication than they were in prime time, airing for years in countries around the world.

But just because Schwartz created two treasures doesn’t mean he was an infallible comedy Midas — the producer touched plenty of shows that failed to turn into gold. In fact, here are four of the worst comedies created by Sherwood Schwartz…

1 It’s About Time

It’s About Time, a sci-fi comedy series that Schwartz invented in between Gilligan and Brady Bunch, had all the hallmarks of his hits: a memorably wacky concept, veteran comedians from 1950s sitcoms and a bouncy theme song that explained the show’s premise.

It's about time for you and me

To meet these people of amazing feats...

Sherwood Schwartz earned his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by dreaming up two sitcoms that ran forever in syndication, inspiring decades’ worth of spin-offs, reboots and TV movies. But those two mega-successful creations — Gilligan’s Island and Brady Bunch — existed in two separate Nick at Nite universes, never crossing paths into a single sitcom reality.

At least, not until 2007. When the quasi-crossover finally happened, it was thanks to Schwartz’s genius at milking cash out of new iterations of old hits. In addition to Saturday morning cartoons like Gilligan’s Planet, TV movies like The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island and a reality show called The Real Gilligan’s Island, Schwartz collaborated with his son Lloyd, daughter Hope and son-in-law Laurence Juber (former guitarist with Paul McCartney and Wings!) on the stage show, Gilligan’s Island: The Musical.

If you run a local community theater, you can still license the show,...

Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" is a zany slapstick comedy series, yes, but there's something undeniably classical about it. Although its characters were trapped on an uncharted desert island, and there seemed to be little hope for escape, there was an undercurrent of oblivious optimism at the show's core. The seven stranded castaways were depressed by their plight yet chipper and upbeat on a daily basis. They resembled Voltaire's Candide in this regard. They are living in the best possible world.

One can also easily compare "Gilligan's Island" to "The Myth of Sisyphus," Albert Camus' treatise on the philosophical pleasures of futility. The castaways may be trapped in an unending loop of hope and despair, often poised to be rescued only to see the effort fail once again, but there is a whimsical joy to accepting the absurdity of their plight. One may also compare "Gilligan's Island" to the characters in Commedia Dell'Arte,...

Russell Johnson thought he was going to be Dr. Ben Casey.

The TV veteran was about to make the leap from frequent guest star on westerns to the lead role in an ongoing series. Ben Casey’s producer liked his audition but went with Vince Edwards instead, Johnson wrote in his memoir, Here on Gilligan’s Isle. That freed him up to audition for other series.

The show he didn’t want to land was Gilligan’s Island. As Ben Casey, Russell would have been the star of a hit medical drama. As a comedy castaway, he would have been one of an ensemble of seven. That’s why he kept refusing to try out for the sitcom’s producer, Sherwood Schwartz.

Eventually, Johnson relented, showing up on a soundstage to read a five-minute scene with Alan “The Skipper” Hale. The audition went well enough, and Johnson needed the money.

When Tina Louise arrived on the Gilligan’s Island set, she was “under the impression it was her series,” Bob Denver wrote in his memoir, Gilligan, Maynard & Me. “With fourth billing, how she believed that is beyond me. She changed the wisecracking movie star into the typical dumb actress, proving that sometimes what you see is what you get.”

According to the show’s cast and crew, Louise didn’t get any less insufferable over the course of the sitcom’s run. (She was too highfalutin to return for the made-for-tv movie sequels.) Here are five more times Louise was the worst person to be stranded with on Gilligan’s Island…

1 Method Actress

Louise studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio in New York, and she let everyone know it. She was cashing checks from her hit series while telling TV Guide, “I found out that I can’t use...

For a show whose entire premise rests on the unique challenges of blended families in mid 20th-century America, the makers of The Brady Bunch weren’t too keen to discuss exactly what leads to those blended families. We learn in the first episode that Mike Brady’s wife died, but we never find out how or even when. In fact, the way they talk about her — “I don’t want you to forget your mother,” Mike tells Bobby, and “Your mother would be very proud of you” — she might just be on a secret mission from which she can never return. It was Vietnam, after all.

Even weirder, the fate of Carol Brady’s first husband is never mentioned at all. Creator Sherwood Schwartz wanted her to be divorced, but the same network that was all too happy to cash in on changing family dynamics was still scared to broadcast...

For all its popularity, Sherwood Schwartz's CBS comedy classic "Gilligan's Island" is a very strange waterfowl in the sitcom pond. It combines what's effectively a live-action cartoon with a series of morality plays hidden inside outlandish stories that demand viewers grab disbelief by the neck and hoist it out of their TV room. On top of that, all of this is acted out by characters that were inspired by the seven deadly sins.

From 1964 to 1967, the toil and turmoil of the S.S. Minnow survivors offered viewers a regular dose of Robinson Crusoe antics mixed with a hefty dose of slapstick and a generous spoonful of genuine depth. Despite the series' comparatively short life, this (along with copious reruns) was more than enough to earn it a reputation as one of the best shows of the 1960s.

"Gilligan's Island" ran for three extremely eventful seasons that involved so many...

For a comedy that was often reviled as dumb — “It’s impossible that a more inept, moronic or humorless show has ever appeared on the home tube,” wrote Upi critic Rick DuBrow — producer Sherwood Schwartz sure had some highfalutin ideas about Gilligan’s Island. He pitched the show as a “social microcosm” to CBS, a description he regretted since the network executives were worried that the comedy would be too “lofty.”

Schwartz had other literary allusions on the brain. After the show ended, he insisted his seven castaways were stand-ins for the Seven Deadly Sins, according to NPR. Faux intellectual nonsense, or is there something to it?

Here are the seven imperfect passengers stranded on Gilligan’s Island, paired with the Deadly Sin that each represents…

Gilligan: Sloth

Of all the castaway/deadly sin combinations, Gilligan and Sloth feels like a mismatch. While Gilligan can sometimes be seen resting in his hammock…...

Gilligan’s Island sparked one of the great television comedy debates of all time: Who would you rather date, Ginger or Mary Ann?

While Ginger was the show’s designated sex symbol, a Hollywood starlet who oozed glamour and allure, a surprising majority of fans were in love with Mary Ann. According to Russell “The Professor” Johnson, Dawn Wells received more fan mail than any of the other cast members. In his book Here on Gilligan’s Isle, Johnson quotes another writer about the Ginger versus Mary Ann debate: “Ginger Grant could make men swoon — a perfumed beauty in slinky gowns. But Mary Ann was a breath of fresh air in sporty short shorts. The girl next door.”

Those sporty short shorts were a problem, according to Wells. “There were network censors back in those days, and they were really strict,” she told People in 2018. “They had to make sure that...

The weirdest thing about the last-ever episode of The Brady Bunch isn’t that Bobby got a side hustle selling Nice and Neat Hair Tonic. Nor is it that Greg’s hair turns Carrot Top orange when he tries some of the stuff.

Nope, the strangest part is that Greg is getting ready to graduate from high school with honors, and for the first time in the entire series, his dad, Mike Brady, is nowhere to be found. “Too bad your father was out of town and had to miss it,” says Carol Brady in an offhand remark, casually explaining why the show’s lead is Awol.

Blame actor Robert Reed, who spent most of his Brady Bunch tenure complaining about the show’s unrealistic scripts. “The Hairbrained Scheme” episode was no exception — you can almost hear Reed whining, “Seriously, what 10-year-old sells hair tonic?”

Reed believed The Brady Bunch...

Gilligan and the Skipper made a living by hiring out their boat, the S.S. Minnow, for three-hour tours to visiting millionaires and movie stars. Why was their dinghy called the Minnow? The obvious guess for Gilligan’s Island fans would be that a minnow represents the least imposing creature in the sea. When “the weather started getting rough,” the puny minnow is an apt metaphor for a boat that couldn’t stand up to the storm’s punishment.

But the reality was darker. To understand the context for naming Gilligan’s boat, let’s go back to 1961 when the head of the Federal Communications Commission delivered a fiery speech at the 39th Annual Convention of the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. There, the FCC chairman ripped into TV networks and the producers of its programs, blaming them for quiz show scandals, payola schemes and what he...

Alan Hale, Jr., by all reports, loved playing the Skipper on "Gilligan's Island." He was always an entertainer at heart, having inherited his line of work from his father. Alan Hale, Sr. was already well-known in 1920s Hollywood and had made many famous friends. This will pertain to the headline in a moment.

Critics infamously panned Sherwood Schwartz's popular sitcom, but "Gilligan's Island" was widely celebrated by its many fans. The series was imminently unserious, never bothering to explore the horrifying trials of surviving on an uncharted desert isle, and focusing instead on broad characters and wacky slapstick antics. The cast of "Gilligan's Island" have posited that the show's popularity was due to its silliness. In a hectic world, "Gilligan's Island" was a balm of idiocy. Whatever the magical alchemy, the show became popular around the world, and it entrenched itself deep into the American consciousness. For a spell,...

This might come as a shock, but "Gilligan's Island" was not well liked by critics during its three-season run on CBS in the 1960s. The sitcom about seven castaways stranded on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean was hardly the silliest show on television at the time, but its unabashedly broad gags and repetitive formula -- how will Gilligan and the gang fail to get off the island this week? -- were a far cry from the wit and relative sophistication of "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

Artists have a tendency to be desperate for approval, so you might think all of the critical opprobrium dumped on "Gilligan's Island" would upset the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz. It was, after all, the first series created by the veteran comedy creative, who'd broken into the business 26 years prior as a writer for Bob Hope's radio show. If it failed to catch on with viewers,...

Sherwood Schwartz's 1969 sitcom "The Brady Bunch" was progressive and retrogressive at the same time. On the one hand, it vaunted the virtues of remarrying and finding new families, showing that step-siblings and second spouses could produce as harmonious a domestic unit as more traditional nuclear families. On the other hand, the characters were clean-cut and virtuous to a cartoonish degree, only expressing the blandest sorts of domestic turmoil. It's easy to be harmonious when every member of the family is scrupulous and clean. The show was more about mild, silly pet peeves than about legitimately hard-hitting clashes of character. 

Of course, "hard-hitting" was not Schwartz's métier. He was a writer of high-concept, light-hearted comedies. This was, after all, the "Gilligan's Island" guy. He wasn't about to skew into Neil Labute family dramas with "The Brady Bunch." 

And "The Brady Bunch" was huge. It lasted a gangbusters 117 episodes over its five seasons,...

Even if you never watched "Gilligan's Island" yourself, it's such a pillar in pop culture that you undeniably know the gist of what it's about. A charter boat with two crew members and five passengers ends up getting shipwrecked on a deserted island, except for the occasional guest star who would show up for an episode and then never appear again. These seven individuals frequently get underneath one another's skin, as they figure out how to get off the island, and anytime it seems like they're close, Gilligan (Bob Denver) usually winds up ruining everything.

It's a simple premise, but one that worked incredibly well for 98 episodes across three seasons from 1964 to 1967. To this day, Gilligan's iconic red shirt and white bucket hat remain entrenched in people's minds. But a lot happened during those three seasons that even the most hardcore of fans may not be aware of. After 60 years,...

For a goofy sitcom on which a Professor could make a lie detector out of bamboo and coconuts, yet couldn’t figure out a way to patch a hole in a boat, Gilligan’s Island creator Sherwood Schwartz sure had some highfalutin ideas about the show’s core concept.

“There’s a great deal of sociological implication in Gilligan’s Island,” Schwartz explained in The Unofficial Gilligan’s Island Handbook. “It takes a group of very carefully selected people who represent many different parts of our society and shows how in a circumstance — being shipwrecked together — they have to learn to get along with each other. I mean, none of these people had anything in common with each other, and that’s quite deliberate.”

That’s the reason why the show’s opening theme song describes the characters in such broad terms: a Skipper, a Millionaire, a Movie Star, a Professor. They...

There is a palpable note of despair and futility that runs through every episode of Sherwood Schwartz's whimsical 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island." Each episode begins with a new element arriving at the castaways' tropic island nest -- a radio, a satellite, a hot air balloon, an itinerant guest star -- deposited there as if by fate. The new "wild card" element-of-the-week will allow the castaways to concoct a way to escape, and the bulk of the episode will entail how they construct their means of egress. But then Gilligan (Bob Denver), fate's Joker, will foolishly bumble the rescue in some way, often because of his own clumsiness or childlike ignorance. The castaways will then fall back into despair, iterating that they are doomed to remain on the island until they die. 

Gilligan, in this description, may be described as some kind of ancient, destructive folk deity. Gilligan is a cosmic impediment to freedom,...

When "Gilligan's Island" went off the air in 1967, it had just barely reached the benchmark required to put the show into syndication. Sherwood Schwartz's series was popular during its three-season run, but it remained solidly in the American consciousness thanks to endless reruns. Multiple generations grew up watching the show, and it always seemed to draw big numbers. Interest remained high enough that, by 1978, NBC produced a follow-up TV movie titled "Rescue from Gilligan's Island." The film saw the seven stranded castaways finally returned to the mainland, only to find that life wasn't so rosy. In an ironic twist, a freak storm deposited them back on the exact same island in the end.

That film was successful enough to warrant a 1979 sequel titled "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island," which was actually a backdoor pilot. The movie also saw the castaways getting rescued but coming to the conclusion that, like Sisyphus,...

As most "Gilligan's Island" fans can tell you, the show's original pilot episode, "Marooned," was quite a bit different from the show the public eventually saw. Most notably, three of the show's cast members were different. The characters of Ginger and Mary Ann, for instance, started as a pair of secretaries named Ginger and Bunny, played by actresses Kit Smythe and Nancy McCarthy. The Professor was preceded by a more studly high school teacher played by John Gabriel. After the pilot tested poorly, show creator Sherwood Schwartz re-tooled the series, replacing those three characters with the versions we all know and love today. The seven-person ensemble — Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson, and Dawn Wells — now seems eternal and immutable.

"Gilligan's Island" fans also likely know of the show's original calypso-inflected theme song, famously penned by John Williams. That theme was ultimately rejected and...

Before Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom "Gilligan's Island" took to the airwaves in 1964, Jim Backus was probably the cast's biggest star. Backus had already appeared in the moving 1955 James Dean flick "Rebel Without a Cause" and had been voicing the amusing animated character Mr. Magoo since 1949. He also had a prolific film career, having racked up dozens of high profile credits working for notable directors like William Castle, Jose Ferrer, and Stanley Kramer. "Gilligan's Island" needed Backus more than Backus needed "Gilligan's Island."

The rest of the cast all came from different career paths but had their share of experience. Bob Denver was remembered for playing Maynard Krebbs on the hit sitcom "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," while Alan Hale, Jr. had already snagged dozens and dozens of supporting roles in a bunch of B-comedies and genre pictures. Russell Johnson, in comparison, had mostly starred in Westerns and spy movies,...

Were the sitcom gods picking on Susan Olsen, or did the actress who played Cindy simply have worse luck than a Brady kid carrying the tiki idol during the Hawaiian vacation episodes?

She recently complained on The Real Brady Bros podcast that she was nearly killed on the first day of filming, thanks to falling production equipment bonking her on the skull. And at last week’s Chocolate Expo, per People, Olsen revealed more physical maladies suffered on The Brady Bunch set.

Olsen told the story during a question-and-answer session when one fan asked if she was required to dye her hair to play the part of Cindy. “You bet,” she said. “Every three weeks they had to dye my hair. If you look at the third season, my hair is kind of a different shade of blonde every episode.”

Pouring a bunch of bleach in a kid’s hair...

For a silly sitcom that frequently dabbled in nonsense, "Gilligan's Island" has proven remarkably enduring. Sherwood Schwartz's seminal sitcom only ran for three seasons between 1964 and 67, but it has since displayed a unique staying power, becoming ingrained in the cultural fabric due to syndication deals and an ongoing love for the sitcom among the generation who grew up on its ridiculous antics. That's pretty impressive for any series, but especially so considering "Gilligan's Island" started off enduring some serious ratings woes.

Despite its initial struggle, the show endured, and today its influence can be seen in the sheer number of revisits that have occurred ever since its 1967 finale. There was the time the "Gilligan's Island" cast appeared on an '80s sci-fi sitcom that returned the castaways to the island, as well as the 1992 "Baywatch" episode that featured Gilligan (Bob Denver) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) in-character. Then, there was the weird,...

Great sitcom theme songs come in all shapes and sizes, but the best among them share two traits. First, they put you in the right mood for the show, and second, they’re catchy — but not so catchy that it becomes annoying. The Cheers theme, for example, is absolute perfection. “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” is memorable without being too much of an earworm, and it’s just the right vibe; the song makes you want to pull up a stool next to Norm and Cliff as Coach pours you a cold one.

On the flip side, there are plenty of other theme songs that have you scrambling for the remote to hit that “Skip Intro” option as quickly as possible. Here are the five absolute worst that are so annoying they leave you wanting to skip the entire season and go back in time to when you didn’t even know the show existed.

"Gilligan's Island" is simultaneously incredibly important in the annals of television history and one of the dumbest things you'll ever see. It was immensely popular during its three-season run from 1964 to 1967, raking in huge amounts of cash for CBS and its seven lead actors. Thereafter, "Gilligan's Island" landed a plum syndication deal, allowing it to remain in reruns for literally generations, informing culture in a pervasive — some might say insidious — fashion. Show creator Sherwood Schwartz has attached some hifalutin ideas to "Gilligan's Island," pointing out (rightly and fairly) that it represents an idealized model of American democracy operating at peak efficiency. Seven people, all from varying classes and walks of life, are forced to survive together, and, lo, are able to thrive in comfort and peace.

But those ideas rest comfortably in the background of a series that banks on cheap slapstick jokes and broad, unrealistic characterization. There's no real drama on "Gilligan's Island,...

Television was a whole different ball game when "Gilligan's Island" premiered on CBS in 1964. There were prestigious programs like "Playhouse 90" and "Kraft Television Theatre," but the medium was largely viewed as lesser than cinema. Movie stars wouldn't dare diminish their larger-than-life, big-screen stature by taking a role in an hour-long drama, let alone a sitcom. Television is where washed-up actors went to finish out their careers.

Sitcoms could be artfully done in the 1950s and 1960s, as evidenced by classics like "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." On the other hand, they could also result in things like "Mr. Ed," "Car 54, Where Are You?" and "My Favorite Martian." Network executives basically didn't care one way or the other as long as the shows were drawing eyeballs, but when it came to reviews, it's always worth remembering that there are human beings on the receiving end of harsh notices.

In discussions of Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island," one can often detect a note of ambivalence from the speaker. On the one hand, "Gilligan's Island" may be one of the most important American texts, providing the nation with their own updated version of Commedia dell'Arte archetypes; even those who haven't seen "Gilligan's Island" might know each of the seven central figures by name, and what their personalities are. Thanks to eternal reruns, multiple generations grew up watching "Gilligan's Island," allowing it to seep deeply into the American subconscious.

At the same time, however, most people acknowledge that "Gilligan's Island" is supremely stupid. The gags are lightweight, kid-friendly, and don't require much intellectual engagement from an audience. The jokes are, by Schwartz's own admission, silly and dumb. The seven stranded castaways are ostensibly fighting for survival, but they never face any serious issues of scarcity or starvation. Everyone typically wears the same outfits,...

"The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" is surely one of the most significant TV themes of all time, and not just due to its widespread popularity. For some reason the beloved theme has endured multiple music-related debacles and courted controversy ever since the moment show creator Sherwood Schwartz and songwriter George Wyle brought it into existence.

First off, recording the "Gilligan's Island" theme song was as slapstick as the show itself, with a hurried studio session at director Melville Shavelson's house which took place at the same time he and his wife were hosting a large charity event. "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" then underwent an overhaul for the second season of the CBS sitcom. Whereas the first season featured a version of the tune performed by folk group the Wellingtons and which omitted the names of the Professor (Russell Johnson) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), the second season debuted with a brand new iteration,...

There should be a spot in the sitcom hall of fame for Zamba, the trained lion who appeared on several classic TV comedies. The big cat must have been hilarious, considering it appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr. Ed, My Three Sons, I Dream of Jeannie, The Jack Benny Program, The Addams Family and My Favorite Martian. (Who knew there were so many lion-themed comedy plots?) Zamba even co-starred with Bob Denver twice — first when Denver played Maynard G. Krebs on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

The second time around, Zamba guest-starred on Gilligan’s Island — and the appearance nearly cost Denver his life, according to producer Sherwood Schwartz. “Bob Denver had come within inches, literally, of being crushed beneath a 400-pound lion,” he revealed in his book Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndication, per MeTV.

First, a little more background on Zamba. Exotic animal trainer Ralph Helfer, a...

As many TV historians can tell you, Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" was as popular as it was reviled. Critics dismissed "Gilligan" as cartoonish, unrealistic, and frivolous, an estimation that stuck to the series for generations. Even into the 1980s, when "Gilligan's Island" was merely surviving on reruns, some critics considered it the nadir of culture. At the same time, however, "Gilligan's Island" was always popular, fetching huge numbers throughout its initial three seasons and drawing new generations of fans throughout its eternal syndication. It may have been the nadir of culture, but no one turned it off.

However one judges "Gilligan's Island," it has left an unwashable gravy stain on the tablecloth of the American consciousness. The seven stranded castaways have become new archetypes in a 20th-century American version of Commedia dell'arte, and the theme song can now be considered just as vital an American standard as "Rhapsody in Blue.

The central joke of Betty Thomas' 1995 hit comedy "The Brady Bunch Movie" and of Arlene Sanford's 1996 follow-up "A Very Brady Sequel" was that they were set in the present, but the Bradys themselves were caught in a strange cultural time-warp. Sherwood Schwartz's original "The Brady Bunch" sitcom ran from 1969 to 1974, and the adapters of the "Brady Bunch" films felt that the titular family needed to stay there. As such, the Bradys still dressed and behaved like they were in an ultra-wholesome, ultra-artificial TV sitcom, not perceiving that the world had changed since 1970. This allowed "The Brady Bunch Movie" and "A Very Brady Sequel" to serve as clever meta-commentaries. How would 1990s Americans react if they encountered 1970s sitcom characters in real life? 

The plot of "A Very Brady Sequel" involved Carol Brady's (Shelley Long) presumed-dead husband Roy Martin (Tim Matheson) returning to the family to reclaim his wife.

If you are a main cast member of a long-running network television show in 2025 (i.e. a series that runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 episodes per season), you should be set for life financially once the syndication deal kicks in. This is the dream for many working actors, who, if they so choose, can use the freedom they've earned from a successful series to work on less lucrative projects that satisfy their artistic cravings.

If you're wondering about how this all worked back in the day, network television gigs have always been pretty cushy gigs. For the most part. So when you watch old episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Andy Griffith Show," and "My Mother the Car," you can be fairly certain the folks in front of the camera are pulling down a very comfortable wage. There are, however, exceptions.

Though it would wind up becoming...

It may be common knowledge among TV historians that Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" wasn't beloved by critics when it debuted, but it was a big hit with audiences. Critics said that the show was fluffy, unrealistic, and insubstantial, and Schwartz likely agreed. Indeed, its insubstantiality may have been the main reason for its success. Over the years, the seven main cast members of "Gilligan's Island" have all cited the show's featherweight tone as a necessary relief for audiences who had been inundated with turbulent news of the outside world. It certainly didn't help that "Gilligan's Island" was also very kid-friendly, featuring no serious conflicts, no sex, no violence, and no adult themes. 

In the year 2025, "Gilligan's Island" isn't just accepted as popular, but has become something of a cultural institution. Its images, music, and characters are archetypal nearly to the point of becoming Jungian. Gilligan (Bob Denver) and...

Many fans of the show have noticed that Professor Roy Hinkley (Russell Johnson) was the only reason anyone could survive on "Gilligan's Island." Not only was he able to keep a cool head in extreme situations, but he was also the only one with any kind of engineering knowhow. He was able to repair radios, examine mysterious chemicals that washed up on shore, and it was likely he who constructed the island's aqueduct system. While Mr. and Mrs. Howell (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) were lying around drinking mai tais and Gilligan (Bob Denver) was bumbling through life, the Professor was getting s*** done on "Gilligan's Island." The fact that he never became angry on confrontational speaks largely to the character's maturity and command largesse.

The original "Gilligan's Island" series didn't have proper closure, but some late-stage TV movie follow-ups did explore what happened to the castaways later in life.

Tina Louise was starring on Broadway with Carol Burnett when producers approached her about a part in a new sitcom. “The CBS casting director Ethel Winant called me at the theater, ‘Do you think you could play this Lucille Ball/Marilyn Monroe-type of character?’” the 91-year-old actress told Forbes. “I said yes.”

The Lucy-meets-Marilyn character was Ginger Grant, the “movie star” who was shouted out in the opening credits of Gilligan’s Island. That character description was enough to make Louise ditch Broadway, but she was in for a rude awakening when she arrived on set. “I got there and the director wanted it to be a more sarcastic kind of character,” she said. “And so, then I didn’t even want to work on it anymore. I told him I wanted to quit.”

The head of CBS intervened, calling Louise in for a meeting. “I explained to him...

On Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island," every character represented a different American class, and each one served a vital social function. The Skipper (Alan Hale), for instance, could be seen as a representative of the American military, while his sailing know-how provided the Island with a better understanding of their surroundings. Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) was a working-class character with knowledge of farming, but she was also a barometer of the Island's general mood. If she was happy, then things were going well. Gilligan (Bob Denver), meanwhile, was the innocent of the island, providing a plucky spirit of survival, while also offering something like a childlike perspective to the plight of the castaways.

The itinerant actress Ginger (Tina Louise) was weirdly vital. Many feel that Ginger, because she was so glamorous, provided mere sex appeal to "Gilligan's Island," but one can see that she also served as something of a morale officer.

"Gilligan's Island" only aired for three seasons on CBS, but it became a rerun sensation when it hit syndication after getting canceled in 1967. Kids in the market for a relentlessly silly sitcom to watch after school while they were neglecting their homework and chores couldn't do better than this aggressively formulaic show about seven castaways shipwrecked on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Just about every episode revolved around the characters' inevitably thwarted attempts to return to civilization, and this familiarity bred nary a hint of contempt.

The key reason the show never got old for its undemanding target audience was the cast. Bob Denver (Gilligan), Alan Hale Jr. (Skipper), Jim Backus (Thurston Howe), Natalie Schafer (Lovie Howe), Russell Johnson (Professor Roy Hinkley), Dawn Wells (Mary Ann), and Tina Louise (Ginger) formed a perfectly balanced ensemble that understood precisely what was expected of them. You couldn't imagine anyone else playing these roles.

The second of the three "Gilligan's Island" spinoff TV movies was called "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island," and it aired on NBC on May 3, 1979. It arrived one year after the first movie, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," and 12 years after the final episode of the original "Gilligan's Island" TV series.

The "Gilligan's Island" TV movies were considered dubiously canonical by the show's fans. Tina Louise didn't reprise her role as Ginger from the "Gilligan's Island" TV show for any of them (with Judith Baldwin serving as her replacement), while, generally speaking, they aren't nearly as well-remembered or beloved as Sherwood Schwartz's original creation. The animated "Gilligan's Island" spinoff shows also contradicted what happened in the TV movies, leaving fans to debate which of the "Gilligan's Island" timelines counts as the "real one." Personally, I like to think "Gilligan's Planet" is the canonical path.

In "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island," life...

As fans celebrated the film mastery of the late Gene Hackman over the past week, some pondered the sliding-door moment that could have changed his acting career forever. After all, if sitcom producer Sherwood Schwartz had his way, the unknown Broadway actor would have been cast as Mike Brady, patriarch of The Brady Bunch.

Hackman was Schwartz’s first choice for the role, but ABC executives rejected the idea. Who had heard of Gene Hackman? They wanted someone with more experience like Robert Reed, who TV viewers knew well from several seasons starring in ‘60s legal drama The Defenders. Hackman, on the other hand, only had one-shot appearances on shows like I Spy, The FBI and Route 66. Ironically, he also guested twice on The Defenders.

Lucky for everyone, Hackman didn’t get the part, clearing the way for an Academy Award just a couple of years later for The French Connection.

In the "Alf" episode "Somewhere Over the Rerun," also alternately titled as "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island", the furry little alien Alf (voiced by Paul Fusco), becomes obsessed with watching reruns of "Gilligan's Island" on TV. Alf dreams of living with the castaways of Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom, feeling them to be delightfully funny and living in a tropical paradise. What could be better? He begins dressing in Hawaiian shirts and ordering bamboo furniture, hoping to turn the ordinarily unassuming Tanner household into something more interesting. 

Alf's obsession with "Gilligan's Island" leads him into the Tanners' backyard, where he begins digging up all the grass, hoping to create a tropical lagoon just like on his favorite show. This causes Willie (Max Wright) to become furious, and he demands that Alf fill in all the dirt he dug up. While filling the yard back in, Alf falls asleep and begins to dream.

"Gilligan's Island" isn't exactly known for its sophisticated humor. The show was a light-hearted sitcom about castaways who somehow never managed to escape their isolated locale despite multiple guests visiting them throughout their three-season run. "Gilligan's Island" was nonsense, but it knew what it was and fully embraced its silliness. As a result, it became a beloved TV classic, especially since it became widely syndicated after its final season wrapped up in 1967.

But for all its absurdity and campiness, the show did at least try to provide somewhat of a balance, most notably in the form of Jim Backus' Thurston Howell III and his wife, Natalie Schafer's Mrs. Thurston. The billionaire couple were envisioned as a way to break up the slapstick humor provided by Bob Denver's Gilligan and Alan Hale Jr.'s Skipper, and certainly brought an air of refinement to an otherwise ridiculous sitcom. Much of...

On a recent ranking of the seven main characters on "Gilligan's Island," /Film ranked Mary Ann at only #5. This is not to say that she was an insignificant character, though. Indeed, all seven of the characters on "Gilligan's Island" were invaluable members of the ensemble, and removing any one of them would irreparably damage the established comedic dynamic. Mary Ann ranked low merely because she was given so few stories of her own. Her function, however, was key. Mary Ann was something of an innocent character, and her happiness was a sign that all was well on the island. You knew things were bad when Mary Ann became upset. 

Also, actress Dawn Wells embodied the character perfectly. Indeed, the characters on "Gilligan's Island" have become comedic archetypes for the ages, so deeply ingrained in the American subconscious that they are practically Jungian. It would be hard to imagine "Gilligan's Island...

Everything about your favorite sitcoms feel as though they were fated to be. 60 actors auditioned for the role of Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," but Van Dyke, creator Carl Reiner and the casting director couldn't have known at the time that they were waiting for pool shark Mary Tyler Moore to show up and blow them away. Fortunately, the universe interceded. The cosmos also ensured that "Cheers" would not only survive two major cast departures, but launch the replacement actors (Woody Harrelson and Kirstie Alley) to full-fledged stardom. And when you upset the karmic whims of the television firmament, you get Danny Cooksey in "Diff'rent Strokes."

Piecing together a successful sitcom is tricky business, so it's best not to be rash in your decision making. Obviously, you need to give yourself space to try things because you're creating a universe and characters that are meant to enchant for the long haul (i.

Casting for a television series is considerably different than casting for a film or a stage play in that it's about more than just finding the right ensemble for right now; creators need to consider each actor's capacity for maturing and/or evolving in their role, as well as their ability to work and play well with others. You might be able to get away with casting a bit of a malcontent on a movie (though most directors I've spoken to sternly discourage this line of thinking), but if someone's even just a tad contentious during the casting process, they could make everyone's life miserable over the long haul, and that's just not worth it.

Obviously, creators and casting directors try like hell to get it right the first time through, but compromise is always necessary. Sometimes your first choice suddenly becomes unavailable, sometimes they want too much money and...

By the late '80s, "Gilligan's Island" had become a pop culture fixture. Though Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom only lasted for three seasons and 98 episodes from 1964 to 1967, it was heavily syndicated throughout the '70s and '80s, ensuring new generations became familiar with Gilligan and his fellow castaways. Not only that, the show produced two animated spin-offs with "The New Adventures of Gilligan" (1974-75) and "Gilligan's Planet" (1982-83). What's more, the original cast returned for three live-action TV movies: "Rescue From Gilligan's Island" (1978), "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" (1979), and "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" (1981). So, by the end of the 1980s, the "Gilligan's" universe was most certainly etched into the public's collective consciousness.

But you could also argue that it was waning in popularity. The last live-action TV movie, "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" — which almost featured a different team entirely — was not a big ratings success...

Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom "Gilligan's Island" debuted in 1964, and it was, for the bulk of its three-season run, a pretty big hit. Critics notoriously disliked the show for being too lightweight, disposable, and disconnected from reality, but audiences loved the show's broad slapstick, archetypal characterizations, and overall silliness. The show, as many know, struck a sweet syndication deal after it was canceled, allowing it to be rerun in perpetuity. "Gilligan's Island" reruns remained on the air for decades, allowing the show to seep deep into the public consciousness. The characters became new Jungian archetypes, and the theme song became a national anthem of sorts. Several generations of kids were raised on "Gilligan's Island" without their parents intending it. The show just made its way into our eyeballs.

Those same generations came of age watching the seven "Gilligan's Island" actors, and at least one of them was likely a Boomer — or a Gen-Xer's — first crush.

The "Roseanne" episode "Sherwood Schwartz: A Loving Tribute" was, as the title implies, a tribute to one of the most successful sitcom creators to play the game. Schwartz, of course, is the mastermind behind both "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch," and he worked as a writer on shows like "My Favorite Martian," "The Red Skelton Show," and "I Married Joan." Schwartz is a giant of the televised medium, and many TV shows owe him a debt; he provided several generations of goofy comedians with inspiration.

"Gilligan's Island" was particularly well-known among the public, partly because of its indelibly dumb humor, and partly because of endless reruns that continued through the 1980s. Every American knew the premise of "Gilligan's Island" and every sitcom writer wanted to emulate its success. It stood to reason that the makers of "Roseanne" — a blue-collar sitcom — would want to pay it, and Sherwood Schwartz, homage.

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Fans of "Gilligan's Island" are likely intimately familiar with the show's original pilot, which was shot in 1963, but not aired to the public until 1992. The pilot, called "Marooned," featured Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer, but also starred three rudimentary characters that didn't carry over into the completed series. The Professor was originally a high school teacher played by John Gabriel. The Mary Ann character was a secretary named Bunny (Nancy McCarthy), and Ginger was still named Ginger but was ... another secretary. She was played by Kit Smythe.

Eventually, the show was reworked, and creator Sherwood Schwartz wrote a tighter, better pilot with the Professor (Russell Johnson), Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), and Ginger (Tina Louise) that we all know and love today. 

In Schwartz's biography "Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndication," he mentioned that Louise...

The arc of Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom "Gilligan's Island," which first debuted in 1964, is well documented by TV historians. Because it was so broad, unrealistic, and silly, the series garnered some pretty negative reviews from critics. "Gilligan's Island," after all, takes place in a slapstick universe where none of the characters have to wrestle with survival; their food and water supplies seem to be well taken care of, and all of the characters more or less get along. The only terrible fate the castaways faced was the ever-sinking reality that they would never return to civilization. Which, from the look of it, wasn't too awful a thing to ponder, as they had a bottomless supply of clean water and fruit salads. 

Audiences seemed to latch onto the show's generally nonthreatening tone, however, and the show was almost an instant success. After three seasons, "Gilligan's Island" was folded into a near-perfect...

Ruben Östlund's 2022 film "Triangle of Sadness" was an unlikely Oscar darling, earning nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. It didn't win, but it was odd to see the Academy Awards recognize a movie with an extended ship-wide vomit sequence. The premise of "Triangle of Sadness" was simple and wicked. A group of wealthy know-nothings -- including Instagram influencers, Russian oligarchs, and other ancillary money-hoarders -- gathered on a luxury yacht for an anything-goes-type pleasure cruise. The ship's staff have shifted into "the customer is always right" mode, and have to entertain each of the oligarch's weird whims (Swim party! Whee!), even if it interrupts the natural flow of the ship's operations.

The weather starts getting rough. The yacht lurches through the ocean waves. During a fancy dinner party, all the guests become queasy. Despite the courage of the fearless crew, the cookies all were tossed.