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Gilligan's Island is an American TV sitcom originally produced by United Artists Television. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network, from September 26, 1964 to September 4, 1967. It was sponsored by Philip Morris & Company and Procter & Gamble. The show followed the comic adventures of seven castaways as they attempted to survive and ultimately escape from a previously uninhabited island where they were shipwrecked and stranded.
Gilligan's Island ran for a total of 98 episodes. The first season (comprising 36 episodes) was filmed in black-and-white (later colorized in syndication) and the remaining 62 episodes throughout the next two seasons and three TV movie sequels were filmed in color.
Enjoying solid ratings during its original run, the show grew enormously in popularity during decades of syndication. Today, the title character of Gilligan is widely recognized as a comedic American popular culture icon, ranked, for example, at 122nd place in the July 2003 list of 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons compiled by VH-1 and People Magazine.
Premise
The two-man crew of the charter boat S.S. Minnow and five passengers on a "three hour tour," run into a tropical storm and are shipwrecked on an uncharted, uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. (The episode "The Pigeon" places the island approximately 300 miles southeast of Hawaii, while "X Marks the Spot" gives a location near 140° longitude, 10° latitude, which puts it about 1200 miles to the southeast.
S.S. Minnow The name "S.S. Minnow" was actually named after Newton Minow and was chairman on the FCC in 1961. He made a speech and called television "America's vast wasteland." The boat was named after the man who, Sherwood insists, "ruined television." Minow gave networks authority and placed the power of programming in the hands of the networks. He did this after Gilligan's Island was started.
There were actually four S.S. Minnows used on the show. The first Minnow was purchased and towed out to Kauai and used in the beach scenes. The second one was a rental they used in the opening credits at the Honolulu Harbor. It showed the crew boarding and then showed it sailing out to sea. The third was filmed in the opening credits of the second season at Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles. The fourth one was built for CBS Studios and is shown at the Lagoon in the second season opening credits. Below you'll find the pictures of all four boats.
Cast
Gilligan: Bob Denver as Gilligan, the bumbling, accident-prone crewman of the S.S. Minnow. Denver was not the first choice to play Gilligan. Actor Jerry Van Dyke was offered the role, but he turned it down, believing that the show would never be successful. He chose instead to play the lead in My Mother the Car, which premiered one season later. The producers then looked to Bob Denver, the actor who played lovable beatnik Maynard G. Krebs in the The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Like Lieutenant Columbo, Gilligan's first name is never mentioned in any episode or TV movie. Creator/producer Sherwood Schwartz said he had intended the character's name to be "Willy". Bob Denver stated playfully on some interviews, such as a May 16, 1989 KDKA radio interview, that his name choice would have been "Gil Eggan". Denver reasoned that since everyone yelled at him, it came out as Gilligan.
Skipper: Alan Hale, Jr. as Jonas Grumby, the "Skipper". A longtime actor in B-westerns, Hale so loved his role that, long after the show went off the air, he would still appear in character in his Los Angeles restaurant, Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel. Although the Skipper was a father figure to Gilligan, Hale was only 14 years older than Denver. It is alluded in one episode that Gilligan pushed the Skipper out of the way of a loose depth-charge when they were both serving in the United States Navy.
Thurston Howell, III: Jim Backus as Thurston Howell, III, the greedy millionaire. Backus was already a well-known actor when he took the part. He was perhaps best known as the voice of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. He reused some of the voice inflections and mannerisms of Magoo in the role. He was well known for his ad-libs on the set.
Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell: Natalie Schafer as Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell, Thurston's wife. Schafer had it written into her contract that there were to be no close-ups of her, perhaps due to her advanced age. Schafer was 62 when the pilot was shot although, reportedly, no one on the set or in the cast knew her real age, and she refused to divulge that information. Originally, she only accepted the role because the pilot was filmed on location in Hawaii. She looked at the job as nothing more than a free vacation, as she was convinced that a show this silly would "never go".
Ginger Grant: Tina Louise as Ginger Grant, the movie star. When regular shooting began, Louise clashed with producers, because she had believed that she was to be the main focus of the show.In addition, her character was originally written as a sarcastic and sharp-tongued temptress, but Louise argued that this was too extreme and refused to play it as written. A compromise was reached; Louise agreed to play her as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Lucille Ball. The evening gowns and hair style used were designed to recreate the look of Myrna Loy. Louise continued to clash with producers and was the only cast member who refused to return for any of the TV movies that followed the series' cancellation, and the fourth season, which was later canceled to make room for a western, saying that the role had destroyed her career as a serious actress. However, she did appear in a reunion of the cast on a late night TV talk show in 1988 and on an episode of Roseanne in 1995. In the first season, Ginger often wore gowns that looked as if they were tailored from S.S. Minnow tarps or similar ersatz cloth (some had the name of the vessel stenciled on them. Later on, she wore regular evening gowns.
The Professor: Russell Johnson as Roy Hinkley (The Professor). John Gabriel was originally cast, but the network thought he looked too young to have all the degrees attributed to the Professor. Incongruously, "the Professor" was in fact a high school science teacher, not a university professor. In the first episode, the radio announcer described him as a research scientist and well-known Scoutmaster. Coincidentally, Johnson, an Air Force gunner, was shot down during World War II and ended up on an island in the Philippines. Johnson stated that he had some difficulty remembering his more technically-oriented lines.
Mary Ann Summers: Dawn Wells as Mary Ann Summers. Wells was a former Miss Nevada when she auditioned for the role. Her competition included Raquel Welch. The pilot episode had a different character played by a different actress. After it was shot, the network decided to recast the roles of the Professor and the two young women.
Charles Maxwell was the uncredited voice of the "Radio Announcer", whose plot-advancing radio bulletins were eagerly tuned in to by the castaways in many episodes.
The show's theme song, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle," was written in a sea shanty style to give new viewers a capsule summary of the castaways' predicament. When the show was first presented, executives were concerned that new viewers, tuning in for the first time, might not understand the premise of the show, so the song was written specifically for that purpose. Although the Professor and Mary Ann were in every episode in the first season, they were simply referred to as “the rest”. This was changed to "The professor and Mary Ann" from the second season onward.