News

For a situation comedy as derided by critics as Gilligan’s Island, there were a lot of actors vying to be shipwrecked among the castaways. Perhaps those grouchy TV reviewers would have enjoyed the sitcom better if ‘60s sex symbol Raquel Welch had won the part for which she auditioned.

Aha, you might be thinking, Welch would have been a natural for sultry movie star Ginger Grant. Except that’s not the role producers had in mind for Welch. Instead, she auditioned for farmgirl-next-door Mary Ann. While Welch was “a wonderful lady,” producer Sherwood Schwartz told Retrocrush, “she was just too sophisticated for the role.”

Gilligan’s Island’s history is littered with other casting what-ifs. For the show’s main character, Sherwood Schwartz had Dick Van Dyke’s brother, Jerry, in mind. “Jerry seemed just right as Gilligan,” Schwartz wrote in his book, Inside Gilligan’s Island. But Van Dyke’s...

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,...

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,...

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,...

Will Hutchins, the eccentric actor who portrayed the wholesome sharpshooter and frontier lawyer Tom Brewster on the 1957-61 ABC Western Sugarfoot, has died. He was 94.

Hutchins died Monday, his wife, Barbara, told Western film and TV historian Boyd Magers.

Hutchins also starred as Woody Banner, who inherits a Manhattan brownstone from his uncle, on the 1966-67 NBC sitcom Hey, Landlord, created by Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson, fresh off their work on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Two years later, the blue-eyed Los Angeles native played Dagwood Bumstead opposite Patricia Harty on the 1968-69 CBS comedy Blondie. Based on the comic strip and following a set of films and a 1957 NBC series, it lasted just 16 episodes before being canceled.

On the big screen, Hutchins appeared opposite Elvis Presley in two movies: as the gourmet cop Tracy Richards (the name was a Dick Tracy pun) in Spinout (1966) and as buddy Tom Wilson...

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.

"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...

In the United States, the last time any of the extant cast members of "Gilligan's Island" were united on screen, specifically to reprise their characters from the show, was for a 1992 episode of "Baywatch." The episode, titled "Now Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale," saw some of the Baywatch lifeguards finding a small island off the coast of California where Gilligan (Bob Denver) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) had been stranded for a few years. They explained that they left their original island in a daring escape, only to become equally stranded on another island. Sadly, by the end of "Now Sit Right Back," it was revealed that Gilligan and Mary Ann weren't real, and that the events of the episode were all a dream.

By 1992, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer had already passed away, and it seems that Russell Johnson and Tina Louise didn't want to,...

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...

At the start of "Gilligan's Island," before the seven castaways-to-be took their fateful three-hour tour, there were only two pre-established inter-character relationships. There was, of course, the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Howell (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer), a couple that had been married for years, but there was also the professional relationship between the Skipper and his first mate, Gilligan (Bob Denver). As audiences would eventually learn, Gilligan was kind of clumsy and innocent like a child, but he was clearly capable enough as a sailor to remain in the Skipper's employ. 

Also, the Skipper, although often wrathful enough to strike Gilligan with his hat, clearly had affection for the man; the Skipper often referred to Gilligan as his "little buddy," and the two men had no compunctions about sharing a cabin. It's never made an integral part of the show, but one might get the impression that the...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

On "Gilligan's Island," romance always ran at a low ebb. Apart from Mr. and Mrs. Howell (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer), there were no couples on the island, and none seemed to form over the course of the show. Indeed, several of the characters seemed too silly or childish to form anything approaching a real-life affair. Gilligan (Bob Denver) was too innocent, and the Skipper (Alan Hale) was more often thinking of engineering and survival than being charming. Ginger (Tina Louise) was often dressed in pretty gowns, and was certainly presented as a sex symbol, but was more concerned with fame and acting than flirting with any of the men or women around her. 

The two "normal" characters on the island were Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and the Professor (Russell Johnson), who often served as the show's "straight man" characters...

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.

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

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...

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.

To the eyes of this author, there are four perfect TV theme songs in the history of the medium. For instrumentals, the two best themes are Jack Marshall's surf-like monster music he composed for "The Munsters" and Danny Elfman's Platonic-ideal-of-a-haunted-house music for "Tales from the Crypt."

For theme songs with lyrics, the two best of all time were, not coincidentally, written by Sherwood Schwartz. He and Frank de Vol composed the handy, catchy theme for Schwartz's own sitcom "The Brady Bunch," while Schwartz teamed with George Wyle to compose "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle." These two theme songs, each only about 60 seconds, managed to explain -- in rhyme -- the premise of their respective shows succinctly while also introducing each of the characters. Additionally, the songs are catchy earworms that burrow deep into the brains of listeners, latching onto the memory and never letting go. When I'm in my 90s,...

Jim Backus began his acting career in the 1940s, lending his voice to myriad radio dramas and animated shorts. He was a recognizable staple in Hollywood throughout the 1950s and 1960s, having appeared in films like "Rebel Without a Cause," "The Naked Hills," "Man of a Thousand Faces," "Zotz!," "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," and dozens of others. Also throughout the same period, Backus voiced the whimsically aged Mister Magoo in many, many cartoons. In addition, he headlined his own sitcom, "The Jim Backus Show," and appeared on "The Untouchables." He was capable of dramatic work, comedic work, and everything in between. By the time Backus played Thurston Howell III on Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island," he was a massive star, deeply entrenched in Hollywood. Backus was certainly the biggest celebrity on the series and his involvement even led to some major last-minute rewrites.

"Gilligan's Island," however,...

Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom "Gilligan's Island" was a tremendous success when it premiered in 1964. The premise is well-known to TV viewers the world over, thanks to its immensely catchy theme song. Five passengers set sail from Hawai'i one afternoon, hoping to take a three-hour boat tour of the island, guided by the Captain and the First Mate of the S.S. Minnow. The ship, however, hit bad weather, was thrown off-course, and crash-landed on an uncharted tropical island. The series showed the travails of the seven stranded castaways as they aimed to survive, and consistently bungled their own attempts at escape. "Gilligan's Island" took place in a cartoonish world, however, where there was no actual scarcity or death. Everything was bright and clean and the castaways generally got along. 

Meanwhile, two years later ... 

William Dozier's adventure comedy series "Batman" was a tremendous success when it premiered in 1966. Its premise...

Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" is simultaneously hopeful and hopeless. It is hopeful in that seven ostensible strangers, all from different classes and walks of life, became stranded on a remote tropical island, and managed to survive and thrive, living together in harmony and often working together to achieve common goals. Even though there are rich people and poor people on the island, all sense of class has been erased. On Gilligan's Island, everyone is equal. Democracy works.  

The show is hopeless, however, because the seven stranded castaways seem to be eternally trapped on that island. Every time an opportunity for escape presents itself -- a hot air balloon, a new signaling device, etc. -- Gilligan (Bob Denver) fouls it up for everyone. Gilligan, a friendly, gentle, clumsy idiot, bumbles his way through life, often ripping hope from his compatriots. 

More viewers likely see "Gilligan's Island" in its former context,...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

There are many ways to interpret Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island." Author Paul A. Cantor once wrote in his 2001 book "Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization" that the series presents an idealized version of American democracy. Cantor's thesis pointed out that the show's seven castaways all came from different American classes -- there were two millionaires, a professor, a farmer, a pair of military men, and an entertainer -- but when they were forced to live on a deserted island together, they became fast friends. Not only that, but they also thrived. Schwartz was said to have confirmed Cantor's thesis in an obituary printed in the Washington Post.

Many (including this author) see a Sisyphean element to "Gilligan's Island." Every episode begins with hope. Often, a new person or object will wash ashore, offering the castaways an opportunity for escape.

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Though there are only three seasons of "Gilligan's Island," the CBS sitcom became hugely popular thanks in part to its frequent showings in syndication. The show debuted in 1964 and ran until '67, but it was shown widely throughout the '70s and '80s, helping establish it as one of TV's most familiar sitcoms.

But it wasn't just the show itself that gave "Gilligan's Island" its cultural recognition. Once the series wrapped up, it lived on in the form of two animated spin-offs: "Gilligan's Planet" and "The New Adventures of Gilligan." Most of the castaways from the S.S. Minnow — named as such for a hilarious reason — also returned in 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).

In the latter, the original castaway characters returned to the...

Behind every cheerful, carefree franchise, there's a fan theory hypothesizing that someone was dead the whole time. Despite having aired decades before fans began sharing viral theories that the castaways on "Lost," musical teens in "Grease," and even the old sweetie pie in "Up" somehow died before the opening credits rolled, "Gilligan's Island" has nonetheless gotten swept up in a grim fan theory like a ship in a monsoon.

Generally, these weirdly dark non-canonical fan theories titillate some people while making others (myself included) respond with a big ol', "Who cares?" In the case of the tale of Gilligan's isle, though, the depressing theories are based on a real part of the show — an inconsistency in the theme song that becomes more and more noticeable each time you throw on an episode.

The "Gilligan's Island" theme song, brought to us by series creator Sherwood Schwartz and prolific composer and songwriter George Wyle,...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

The seven lead characters in Sherwood Schwartz's 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island" have become an indelible part of the world's pop consciousness, emerging as a new canon of distinctly American Commedia del'arte archetypes. The Professor (Russell Johnson) is the updated version of Il Dottore. Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) is the new Pantolone. The Skipper (Alan Hale) is clearly a modern Scaramuccia, and Gilligan (Bob Denver), well, he's Arlecchino. Additionally, Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) is likely Colombiana, Ginger (Tina Louise) is Gianduja, and Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) is ... I guess another Pantolone.

It's hard to imagine a world where the seven stock "Gilligan's Island" characters were dramatically altered, as the seven characters audiences saw were downright perfect. One could always predict how one character might interact with any of the others.

Of course, it took a little trial and error to get the characters right.

Over the course of several decades, Jim Backus starred in more than 100 films and dozens of TV shows. During that time, the man displayed a unique range that saw him portray the ineffectual patriarch of the Stark family in "Rebel Without a Cause" and voice the beloved cartoon character Mr. Magoo from 1949 to 1989. But Backus' also gained fame by playing another millionaire: the elitist Thurston Howell III in "Gilligan's Island."

The actor was there from the very beginning, when his "Gilligan's Island" casting as Howell caused last-minute rewrites. Backus stuck around for all three seasons of the CBS sitcom before then voicing the character for the animated spinoffs "Gilligan's Planet" and "The New Adventures of Gilligan." But he also reprised the role in live-action for all three TV movies: "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island," "Rescue From Gilligan's Island," and, "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island."

Sadly, his appearance in the...

The premise of Sherwood Schwartz's popular 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" is handily explained in its theme song: five passengers check into a three-hour boat tour, run by the skipper and first mate of a tiny tourist boat called the S.S. Minnow. The ship hits some bad weather and is thrown miles off course, landing on an uncharted desert isle. The seven tourists become seven stranded castaways. No phones, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Like "Robinson Crusoe," it's as primitive as can be. The septet have to learn to live together, usually to comedic effect. 

Gilligan (Bob Denver) was the above-mentioned first mate, and his innocent cluelessness and tendency to bumble often thwarted the castaways' ability to escape. He shared the island with his Skipper (Alan Hale), a professor (Russell Johnson), a pair of married millionaires (Natalie Schafer and Jim Backus), a farmer (Dawn Wells), and a...

60 years ago, "Gilligan's Island" blessed the world with an ensemble seemingly fashioned by the gods. Bob Denver as Gilligan, Alan Hale Jr. as the Skipper, Russell Johnson as the Professor, Jim Backus as Thurston Howell III, Natalie Schafer as Eunice Howell, Dawn Wells as Mary Ann, and Tina Louise as Ginger. They are immortalized in the theme song, and ironclad comedic types thanks to the reinforcement of syndication. "Gilligan's Island" was always meant to be, and we must consider ourselves fortunate that we lived to behold its goofball majesty.

So prepare to be shocked. When the "Gilligan's Island" pilot went before cameras, Sherwood Schwartz hadn't yet fully communed with the comedy gods. In terms of the castaways, he had five out of seven figured out. Where he'd yet to strike gold was with the young female characters. Schwartz had a very different notion of how to give the show the...

In the "Gilligan's Island" episode "Forward March", the castaways find themselves unexpectedly under attack. Grenades begin flying at them from the bushes, thrown by an unseen assailant. The explosions activate the war trauma of Mr. Howell (Jim Backus), and he immediately appoints himself a General, taking charge of the castaways and organizing a slapstick counterstrike. The castaways search the island and find that they are being attacked by a gorilla (Janos Prohaska), who has been living in a nearby cave. The gorilla has a machine gun and boxes upon boxes of hand grenades, presumably left over from World War II. The Professor (Russell Johnson) figures that the gorilla was merely imitating the soldiers it once observed, decades earlier. 

Gilligan (Bob Denver) manages to stare the gorilla down, and eventually trains it to throw its explosives out into the nearby lagoon, where no one will be hurt. The gorilla eventually runs out of ammo,...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

In Paul A. Cantor's 2001 book "Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization," the author posited that Sherwood Schwartz's celebrated-and-lambasted-in-equal-measure 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" stood as a symbol of America's indomitable confidence in its post-War, Baby Boom period. One could, "Gilligan's" argued, place a random assortment of seven Americans in whatever isolated locale you wanted, and they would essentially form a pleasant democracy. The seven stranded castaways of "Gilligan's Island" might have bickered, but they never went to war. Instead, several distinct American classes came together. The ultra wealthy (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer's Howells) hobnobbed with a farmer (Dawn Wells' Mary Ann). The intelligentsia (Russell Johnson's Professor) got along perfectly well with the Hollywood elite (Tina Louise's Ginger), and they were all held together by a gentle military hand (Alan Hale's Skipper). Gilligan, meanwhile,...

In the first season of Sherwood Schwartz's "Gilligan's Island," the opening theme song infamously left out character descriptors for Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson. It listed Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the Movie Star, but then merely described Wells and Johnson as "And the rest." This was certainly unfair, as all seven members of the show's ensemble were equally important, each one bringing something valuable to the overall character dynamic. 

As many "Gilligan's" fans know, the reason Wells and Johnson weren't described was because of a stipulation in co-star Tina Louise's contract. Louise, who played Ginger the Movie Star, required that she be named last on any opening credits roll. Title star Bob Denver, however, felt that Wells and Johnson deserved more, and pulled rank on Louise. It seemed that he, too, had a contract stipulation allowing him to be listed in the credits wherever he wanted.

When most television series generate will-they-or-won't-they tension, this nervous energy is usually centered on a friendly relationship threatening to blossom into romance, or an innocent romance threatening to head to the bedroom. This is something shows like "Cheers," "Frasier" and "Moonlighting" did to perfection.

"Gilligan's Island" had a completely different kind of will-they-or-won't-they going, one that involved the entire cast. Put bluntly: most episodes revolved around the possibility that the castaways — either via rescue or their own craft-constructing ingenuity — might finally get off that blasted island. And if they did get off that island, how would the show continue? After all, once they return to civilization, it's not like they're all going to move in together due to some kind of bizarre Stockholm Syndrome impulse (though I would totally watch that version of the show).

CBS abruptly canceled "Gilligan's Island" after its third season (to save "Gunsmoke" at William S.

There are some sitcoms that simply don't work if you're down so much as a single cast member. Could you imagine an episode of "Cheers" without Sam, Carla, Cliff and Norm? The series' producers and writers couldn't, which is why they never missed an episode. The same was true on a much larger scale for "The Brady Bunch," where every single member of the family (and their live-in housekeeper Alice) reported for duty on all 117 episodes.

This kind of consistency was evidently key to a successful Sherwood Schwartz sitcom. The writer/producer who created "The Brady Bunch" was also the mastermind behind "Gilligan's Island," the CBS joker about seven castaways who wash up on the shore of an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The key to the show's success was its shamelessness: from the pilot to the series finale (which arrived a little sooner than expected thanks to...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

The writers of "Gilligan's Island" were typically careful to retain storytelling clarity by pairing two of seven stranded castaways for their stories. Most typically, the bumbling Gilligan (Bob Denver) was paired with the short-tempered Skipper and their explosive relationship would unfold naturally. Mr. and Mrs. Howell (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) tended to move as a unit, and many felt that there was romantic chemistry between Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and the Professor (Russell Johnson). Mary Ann was also often paired with Ginger (Tina Louise) as they were the only two unmarried women on the island and they bunked together.

Seen less often was the pairing of Mary Ann and Gilligan, which is a bit of a head-scratcher. Gilligan was the slapstick buffoon, while Mary Ann was the optimistic farm girl, both possessed of a disarming friendliness and an appealing naïveté.

The overarching story of "Gilligan's Island" is, upon a moment of reflection, surprisingly nihilistic. Sherwood Schwartz's whimsical 1964 sitcom may take place in a cartoon-like universe where no one is really desperate, starving, or unclean, but it also takes place in a world where hope cannot thrive. At the beginning of every episode, the seven stranded castaways are presented with the opportunity to escape the island and return home. They become joyous and hopeful. Then a cataclysm occurs, usually at the bumbling hands of the clueless Gilligan (Bob Denver), and their opportunity is squandered. The castaways are stranded for another week, their prison sentence essentially extended. Hope becomes despair, again and again, creeping into this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.

Sisyphus would relate.

"Gilligan's Island," however, offsets its despair with an unshakeable sense of whimsy. The show's characters may have eternally been pushing a boulder uphill,...

Producer Sherwood Schwartz wasn't looking to make anyone a star when he began casting his 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island." The show was intended to be slapstick fun for the whole family, peppered with jokes that landed just as hard with parents as they did with their children. To get this across, he needed an ensemble that could remain in mellifluous orbit around Bob Denver's blundering Gilligan. (Denver himself was already a small screen star thanks to his portrayal of beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.") If the actors could get away with delivering Schwartz's groan-worthy banter without evoking groans from the undemanding folks at home, they were welcome on his uncharted desert island.

This isn't to say he hired a bunch of nobodies to fill out the cast of "Gilligan's Island." Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer were established, veteran performers, while Tina Louise...

Natalie Schafer had been working for four decades before she was offered the role of Lovey Howell on Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island." Schafer later admitted that she only took the gig to get a free Hawaiian vacation, convinced that the show would fail, and she would be allowed to go on to better jobs. She was dismayed to learn that the original pilot had been picked up, and was further bummed out when the series became a hit. She was in the for the long haul. Luckily, the success of "Gilligan's Island" was so unexpectedly overwhelming that it likely smoothed over any trepidation she might have had, providing the actress with one of her most recognizable roles. 

Schafer was 64 years old when she appeared on the show, but that wasn't a fact she wanted anyone to know. The actress was raised in an era when it was considered...

It's hard to think of a sitcom that typecast its actors more severely than "Gilligan's Island." Even though it only aired for three seasons, the slapstick comedy series about seven castaways marooned on a desert island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean proved inescapable professionally for its entire ensemble.

This was partly due to the albatross of syndication. After its cancellation, "Gilligan's Island" quickly became a favorite with undiscriminating couch potatoes, who got off on the show's laughably simple formula, inane gags, and colorful locale. They loved watching Bob Denver's blundering Gilligan repeatedly sabotage every single effort to get off the island, Ginger doing just about anything, and the Howells somehow living in the lap of bamboo luxury.

The show's enduring popularity was understandably bad news for the future endeavors of its younger performers, particularly Denver, Tina Louise, and Dawn Wells, all three of whom lacked a strong enough pre-...

Alan Hale Jr. was a showbiz veteran before he could speak. The son of Alan Hale, a popular character actor best known for his portrayal of Little John in Michael Curtiz' classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood," Hale Jr. appeared in silent films as a baby and made a few war movies as a young man before serving in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. Once the war was over, Hale Jr. worked steadily in film and television, turning up on episodes of "Gunsmoke," "Mister Ed," and "Lassie" while landing supporting roles in movies starring John Wayne, Gregory Peck, and Randolph Scott.

Hale Jr. would be castigated as a nepobaby today, but while being literally born to the business didn't hurt his cause, he was a natural in front of the camera and a welcome presence in just about everything. So, it's no surprise that, after a difficult casting process,...

Some sitcom actors only ever get one really great role, but Jim Backus had several. The actor, who played wealthy Wall Street regular Thurston Howell III on the popular castaway series "Gilligan's Island," had already made a name for himself by the show's premiere in 1964. He'd appeared regularly on the radio before TV was the dominant media of the time, and voiced the nearly blind cartoon character Mr. Magoo beginning in 1949. Backus also played a key role in Nicholas Ray's 1955 teen movie "Rebel Without A Cause," portraying the father who falls short when James Dean's angsty antihero Jim Stark needs him.

A few years before "Gilligan's Island," Backus even got his own show, aptly named "The Jim Backus Show" in the style of the time. In the Backus-led series, which was also called "Hot Off the Wire," the actor played a man named Mike O'Toole, who was attempting...

Deep-cut fans of Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" will likely be able to tell you all about the show's original pilot episode, "Marooned." Considered a "dry run" of the series, "Marooned" featured the same premise -- seven whimsically mismatched castaways are trapped together on an uncharted desert isle -- but the characters were reshuffled a little bit. Gilligan (Bob Denver), the Skipper (Alan Hale), and the Howells (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) were present, but the Professor (Russell Johnson), Ginger (Tina Louise), and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) hadn't been invented yet. 

In their places were completely different characters played by different actors. The original Ginger was played by Kit Smythe and was a sardonic secretary. Mary Ann was originally a character named Bunny, Ginger's ditzy best friend, played by Nancy McCarthy. The Professor, meanwhile, was originally a high school teacher played by actor John Gabriel, probably best known for...

Most audiences, I feel, would describe Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" as an ensemble piece. All of the seven castaways were important to the overall comedic dynamic, and no single star was any more important than the other. Well, apart from Bob Denver, the title character, who might have been the central figure of the ensemble. When the show first began, actor Jim Backus -- the millionaire Thurston Howell, III -- might have been the most recognizable star on the cast, but he fell in with the ensemble easily. He was a professional.

Despite the ensemble nature of the show, however, there was an issue over its credits. Tina Louise, who played the movie star Ginger Grant, insisted that her name be listed last in the credits, feeling that she was to be one of the show's biggest draws. For the first season, the opening credits of "Gilligan's Island...

Say what you will about "Gilligan's Island," but the critically derided 1960s sitcom knew its audience and pandered to them with buffoonish élan. Though that audience didn't fully materialize until after the series' cancellation in 1967, decades of successful syndication is all the proof you need to acknowledge that creator Sherwood Schwartz (who also brought together "The Brady Bunch") was some kind of low-aiming visionary.

Those of us who blew countless hours of our childhood hanging with the castaways on that uncharted desert isle somewhere in the Pacific Ocean owe Schwartz a debt of gratitude. Watching Bob Denver's Gilligan ineptly ensure that the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) and the passengers of the S.S. Minnow remain stranded on that tropical patch of earth made not doing chores and/or homework a brain-numbing joy. Yes, the jokes were awful and the plots shamelessly recycled, but there was something strangely compelling about Schwartz's dramatis personae.

TV trivia fanatics will happily point out that the first-season theme song to Sherwood Schwartz's seminal sitcom "Gilligan's Island" is different from the theme heard in later seasons. The song is the same -- it's the usual, earworm sea shanty that everyone can sing from memory -- but the final listing of the show's dramatis personae is different. In the later seasons, the theme song listed Gilligan (Bob Denver), the Skipper too (Alan Hale), the Millionaire (Jim Backus) and his wife (Natalie Shafer), the movie star (Tina Louise), the professor (Russell Watson) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), there on Gilligan's isle.

In the first season, however, the professor and Mary-Ann were introduced merely as "And the rest." Watson and Wells didn't have credits and photos like everyone else. This was a little baffling, as all seven characters were of equal value to the series; no one was a supporting player.

"Gilligan's Island" wasn't the most sophisticated television series ever to beam into our living rooms. For three seasons between 1964 and 1967 (and over decades of syndication thereafter), viewers turned in to watch seven castaways stranded on an uncharted island somewhere far off the coast of Hawaii attempt and inevitably fail to find their way back to civilization. In just about every case, their endeavors were bungled by Gilligan (Bob Denver), an energetic young shipmate with a heart of gold and a headful of rocks.

The show never deviated from this stupidly simple setup (despite the network's initial efforts), but it was so good-naturedly silly and energetically performed that you excused the rigid repetition. Kids loved the broadly visual gags, while parents could appreciate the ensemble chemistry generated between old pros like Jim Backus, Alan Hale, Jr. and Natalie Schafer.

Ensemble dynamics are tricky things. When casting a sitcom this formulaic, creators...

Gen X kids grew up with a steady after-school diet of Gilligan’s Island, a show that, despite its pop-culture ubiquity, only lasted three seasons. Maybe that was because there were only so many ways for seven castaways to try (and fail) to escape a desert island. But the show’s producer, Sherwood Schwartz, foresaw that shortcoming and had plans to mix it up if the show continued to get renewed.

Only one more season of being stranded was the plan, Schwartz told the Muncie Evening News via MeTV. “I hoped from the outset that the show would go for four years with them on the island,” he explained. “But I’ve had a projected escape in the back of my mind.”

Schwartz’s bonkers plan sounds like a cross between Fantasy Island and White Lotus. “Should they get rescued, or should the ratings go down, or should we feel...

In his 1992 piece "Reflections after 25 years at the movies," the late, great film critic Roger Ebert observed: "Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may seem." You can extend that sentiment to any other artistic medium, television included. Even a fluffy slapstick show like "Gilligan's Island" has an unspoken depth that's kept viewers coming back to it decades after it went off the air.

According to creator Sherwood Schwartz, who passed away in 2011 after a long, prolific TV career, people were quick to assume the '60s sitcom began as a comedic spin on the Robinson Crusoe story. However, he maintained that the series was really born out of his desire to make a show about what might happen if a group of people from different walks of life somehow found themselves stuck together and...