Gilligan's Island: Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information,
the show that brings you the little known facts and
figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.
We are your professors of pop culture, your little buddies
of ludicrously detailed deep dives, your skippers of scholarly sitcom takes,
about to embark on a three hour tour of trivia.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
My name's Jordan Ron Togg and I'm Alex Sigel. I
knew you were going to be excited about this one,
you weirdo. Damn it, I am. What are we doing, buddy?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Today we are looking at one of the load stars
of mid century entertainment, A show that has got to
be really, when you think about it, one of the
most instantly recognizable pieces of media we have ever examined
on the show, familiar to everyone from boomers to millennials
who came of age with Nicket Knight and TV Land
and endless TBS marathons, and then it stopped there.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I don't really know if this crossed the chasm to zoomers.
Do zoomers know anything about this?

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I will find out. Actually, no, we won't I always
ever hear from them.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm talking, of course, about Killigan's Island, a three hours four.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I was just gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Encourse that right out of the gate, A three hour episode,
my friends.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
No, folks, it won't be, I promise, Unless it will.
You got a plane to catch unless it will.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It's a show that's endlessly silly but undeniably charming in
its own gloriously kitchy way. It's fascinating to me because
it heralded the start of the high concept era of sitcoms.
You know, I mean, throughout the fifties, the airwaves have
been filled with family stories set in the suburbs or
the Old West, it must be said. But by the
mid sixties these types of shows had grown stale, and

(01:52):
TV execs had moved on to.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Things that were, frankly a little weirder.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
You had your Fish out of Water stories like The
Beverly Hillbillies, slightly more subversive and surreal takes on sitcom
life like Bewitched and The Monsters and the Adams Family,
And then of course something like Gilligan's Islands, which is
oh so many things. It's a farcical social commentary about
seven vastly different people starting civilization anew. It's a fascinating

(02:18):
look at lost souls who bring the trappings of the
modern world to a tropical paradise. And it's also Asaphia
and horror story about us, troubling as groundhog Day, where
attempts at salvation are thwarted by an idiot in a
bucket hat over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Heigel, what do you think about Gilligan's Islands? You know what,
maybe the younger generations will glom onto it. And now
the bucket hats have on ironically come back around. I'm wait,
I am counting the days for like, I don't know
if the cut like who would publish the thing that
is like or like complex that would be like uh
like bucket hats are back. No, I mean they've already

(02:55):
run that. But I mean, like, you know Gilligan, like
Gilligan fit check. Did you know that Gilligan Loki had
fire outfits?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Loki swag?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, Loki swag.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
It's such an aesthetically disgusting time.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Sure is what are my thoughts on Gilligan's Island? Null?
I mean that that makes sense, and you know what,
I don't even get offended by that because it's just
one of those things that I'm not trying to there. Yeah,
I mean, you know, I definitely I'm trying to think
of exactly the hierarchy of shows that I was involved
in that you mentioned succinctly as the aforementioned like millennial

(03:35):
grows up with you know, uh nigh programming, and you
know it was definitely uh, I'm actually Adam Sandling Monster's
part of Nicked Knight. You know, I don't think they were.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
I think I would see them at my grandparents because
they had TV lands.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, so of the Nicked Knights stuff, I was more
of a mash and I also liked All in the
Family a good bit. But yeah, man, some of this
like just misses me. I'm also like an educase on
Happy Days. I know that might strike you as blasphemous,
but I just I'm surprised you're even an edge case.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Like now, how much you hate the fifties, I'm shocked
to hear that you would even tolerate that.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, was it the Fawns? Did you like the Fawns?
Did you think the FONX was cool? Yeah? I did,
but but tepidly so.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
When he dang the jukebox and made it play for free.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
That was cool?

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Was it?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
When he had the bathroom stalls his office? That was
also cool? Yeah? Didn't they steal that in Fast Times
at Ridgemont High anyway? That's neither here nor there. Uh yeah,
you know, and my distaste of that time period bleeds
into as you well know, like the early sixties basically
anything pre like Summer of Love. And I hate deifying
that row because dun dunt dun dun dun dun dun

(04:46):
dun dun dun or like you know, uh oh, some
folks born, you know, that stuff's all been like pumped
into our veins. But that is to me when like
there's just such a much needed shot of interest and
danger into like American mainstream culture. Maybe it's just because

(05:08):
I'm reading chaos right now, I think about, you know,
it's really Tinfoily is doing what I'm doing, which is
reading chaos and cross referencing it with McGowan's program to
Kill Tell the folks what chaos is about. Yeah, So,
dedicated longtime TMI fans know of Jordan and I shared
fascination with Laurel Canyon and the Fringe theory of Laurel

(05:29):
Canyon in the sixties as an extended CIA psyop And
what my current work presupposes is that it was that. No,
but I'm cross referencing it two with two very bizarre books.
One of his much more celebrated than the other. One
is Chaos, which is about Charles Manson and the CIA

(05:52):
in the sixties in la and elsewhere, and that is
that this guy worked on Tom O'Neil worked on for
like twenty years.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
I almost drove him insane, like like a bankrupted him,
Like yeah, no, he's.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, he's a hero. And then the other one is
Programmed to Kill, which is by the guy who wrote
the definitive text on the Laurel Canyon era. Is that
called weird Echoes in the.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Canyon, weird scenes in the Canyon. I think it's Senians
in the Canyon.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, And it is a much less whimsical book. The
Program to Kill is about the entire the really tinfoily
theory that much of the CIA's activities in the middle
of the twentieth century and sort of what we have
deemed like the peak serial killer era are all tied
back to the CIA's mid twentieth century attempts at like

(06:41):
mind control, whether it was through mk ultra or just
like finding exquisitely damaged humans in the course of their
day to day and then damaging them further to try
and create like weapons that you know, would didn't go
rogue and stuff up. So that has nothing to do
with Gillian's Island, but or it does what I'm or

(07:02):
does it? Yeah, but that's what I'm reading right now.
And how did we get onto that, Jordan? Oh, yeah, yeah,
this Gillian's other stuff. You know, we did the monsters.
We talked a little bit about how the reflection of
the atomic family of this era came so much out
of you know, the Eisenhower era and sort of GI's
coming back and establishing the white picket fence and the

(07:23):
home and the burbs, like you know, quote unquote American dream.
But that was started to get subverted by as you said,
like I would argue the seeds of the early exploitation
movement less with like Hillbilly, Like, have you heard of
exploitation as a genre.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I've never heard it referred to as such. I mean,
like Beverly Hillbilly's Petticoat Junction.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
No, not the whimsical stuff. I'm talking about bringing it
into the horror realm. Yeah, exploitation would be like hills
have Eyes anything where like a murderous redneck is the
you know, the kind of thing. And then yeah, and
then you kind of trace a line, I think, from
that to like the monsters and kind of spooky stuff
and sci fi all that can kind of I don't
know a better man than I would trace that sort

(08:06):
of directly to this era than sitcoms, rather than just
wildly conjecturing on a podcast. But here we are, and yeah,
I don't know. It's interesting. Yeah, like you said, it's
a pivotal time in American television, and that's what's interesting
to me about it. But other than the theme song,
and I'm gonna be honest with you, I also forgot
some of the characters, Like there's.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Only seven of them. Come on, these archetypes are indelible.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
I forgot the rich people. You would yeah, exactly. They
would be first against the wall in my island utopia.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
It's rich people straddling on an island. You would love that.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, well that's what Triangle of Sadness was about. But yeah,
I forgot about them, for sure, I knew that there
were the two babes and the blundering Idiot and the
Captain the Skipper. Yeah, and then that was it and
the rest it's in the theme It's in the theme

(09:03):
song minus thrust Right the Professor. Yes, I also knew
about him. Maybe anyway, this will bode well for our
you know, the Apple podcast reviews where they're like Heigel
lazily proclaims his ignorance of the topic at hand. So
now I'm not even doing it lazily. I'm doing it
full throatedly. I don't know anything about Gilligan's Island. Oh come,

(09:24):
but you will.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Once we start talking about this, you're gonna be like,
oh yeah, because everyone does. That's what's so interesting about it.
You just absorbed it. Like I never sat down to
try to learn about this until like three days ago,
in which case I very much yeah, went and sent yeah.
But before that, it's just it's just one of those
things and everyone knows it. That's what's so interesting to me.
I'm so fascinated by things that nobody sets out to
learn but everybody knows about. And we've talked about that.

(09:47):
I don't know if that stuff exists for zoomers anymore,
because we would just watch things because it was on.
Now demands nobody demands.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Mean, yeah, the monoculture is dead, right. And like even
pre streaming or like pre social media web three point
two point zero, whichever freaking one we're on, pre like
social media, ubiquity and smartphones, like that was already disappearing
just because the Internet balkanized everything and you were able
to find stuff and you didn't bond over, just like

(10:16):
I watched this a lot when I was stoned on
my couch or whatever. Like I watched this a lot
because it was on in between soccer practice and homework
or you know any of that stuff that's that doesn't
exist anymore, for better or for worse. And you know
we're all here to mourn it. I'm celebrating it, Okay, cool, Yeah,

(10:38):
that's fine too. Whatever makes the doughnuts Baby well.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
From the surprisingly high brow origins of this decidedly low
brow classic to the hilariously petty meeting behind the ss
Minnow's name, the hilarious feud between Ginger and the rest
of the Castaways and the rest, and the heartwarming tale
of the skins final days, here's everything you didn't know
about Gilligan's.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Island, doesn't light this candle.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Gilligan's Island was the brainchild of Sherwood Schwartz, the awesomely
named Sherwood Schwartz, a TV icon who also created The
Brady Bunch at the end of the sixties. LOYALTMI listeners
will recall that he was inspired to create The Brady
Bunch after reading an article about the rising divorce rate
in the United States, and amazingly, Gilligan's Island came from

(11:35):
similarly academic beginnings. Schwartz was attending a public speaking class
at New York University when the professor asked the students
to write a one minute speech on the following topic,
If you were stranded on a desert island, what's one
item that you'd like to have?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
This is such a litany of like completely by gone
relics a public speaking class, yes, like a writing assignment.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Schwartz found himself intrigued by this question and filed it
away in the back of his mind for many, many years.
After spending much of the fifties as a writer on
shows like The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet, Wait shut up.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
For a second. What could you bring?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Oh man, you know, I've thought a lot about this
because there's a great British radio show that's been on
since the late forties called Desert Island Discs, which is awesome,
and it's all about the eight songs, one book, and
one luxury that the guests would bring. And they've had
everybody from Carl Sagan to Bruce Springsteen, to Princess Margaret

(12:37):
to Alfred Hitchcock on over the course of the last seventy years.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Bruce Springsteen probably had something dumb like umpa popa rock aoo,
like from like nineteen fifty three that he's been obsessed
with for four hundred years. There was a McSweeney's article
that was like Keith Richards stranded on an actual desert
island with his discs and it was just talking about
him like trying to attract seagulls with like the Chuck

(13:00):
Berry collection or like eating Robert Johnson's The King of
the Delta Blues CD. That's what I remember from this. Yeah,
what would I bring? What would I bring?

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah? Now this is when it gets weird. Is it
something of practical value or is it.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Just a luxury? Yeah, that's that's I guess the question like,
are you are we discounting like knife acts, gun net.
I'm gonna say yeah, because that's just that then and
then it gets into a you know, a purely academic
thing as it closed to something of it. What I bring.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Either an extremely long book that I've never read, like
something like the complete works of Shakespeare, or something that
I just have never gotten around to reading and figured
that there'd be enough there to like keep me interested,
or maybe a piano because it's something I can kind
of play but not well.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, yeah, if you bring like yeah, I mean, mine
would probably be an instrument of some kind. There's a
famous Reddit bit that this like guy, They're like, uh,
you know, what would you do again? What would you
do in the world if you could have anything in life?
And this one of the comments is this like beautifully
emotional thing about this guy being like, you know, I
would just want to make love to my wife one

(14:15):
more time she died, this, that and the other and
like blah blah blah, and then the comment underneath it is,
I also choose to this guy's wife, Mine would be
like Desert Island. Monica Bulucci in the year two thousand
Elizabeth Hurley, but only from the first Austin power Like

(14:38):
those are my those are my picks. I don't know,
like I was a huge tome something I could go
something that I could go insane with. So maybe like
the maybe like the Bible.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, many before you have gone insane with the Bible,
better men than I.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
I remember. This all reminds me of a big group
of friends.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
We're having dinner some friend's birthday and one of our
friends was wearing this ring that's very distinctive looking, fascinating ring,
and we asked him about it because it was like
very very striking.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
He was amazing. I mean it kind of seemed like that,
it seemed like some kind of you know, imbued with
some kind of significance. And he said it was this
like ring made a petrified wood that his grandfather had
given to him, and it had been given to his.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Grandfather by like some army buddies life. He'd say, hey,
this long involved story, and then everybody gets quiet after
just taking it all in, and then somebody just goes,
can I have it?

Speaker 1 (15:35):
It's great? Yeah, it runs my category on I guess
it's excluding like slavery, right, like you can't bring like humans.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
No, a human I think that's frowned upon in these
in these hypothetical exercises.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, all right, well then I have no interest in it.
Moving on, where were you? Short Retorts?

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Sure Retorts, Going back to Sharlotte Short, it's the creator
of Gilligan's Island. After spending much of the fifties as
a writer on shows like the Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet,
which is also known as the proto reality show. Look
it up, folks, we're already twenty minutes in and we
were on page one of eighteen and high Goals, Flight
to Catch. He was also the writer on The Red
Skelton Show and several other sitcoms. Sure Rechhorts enter the

(16:24):
decade of the sixties ready to pitch a show of
his own, and he thought back to this old college
writing prompt, which he thought was rich with possibilities. Specifically,
he was intrigued by the dynamic between a group of
strangers from varied backgrounds learning to work together and live
alongside one another, all stranded on this island. He approached

(16:45):
the writing of this show as a sociological experiment seriously,
and that is part of the reason why characters like
the Professor and the Skipper are known by their titles
and not their actual names. Interesting, as Schwartz would kind
of over explain in the book Inside Gilligan's Islands, from
creation to syndication, the island would be quote a social

(17:07):
microcosm and a metaphorical shaming of world politics in the
sense that when necessary for survival, yes, we can all
get along. That is a quote from the creator of
Gilligan's Islands about Gilligan's islence.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
It's gonna get deep on this episode.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Words like microcosm went over the heads of CBS network brass,
who are looking for something simultaneously dumber and smarter for
a new show.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Maybe a car and your but it's your mother. It's
very Freudian. We'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
The executives at CBS felt that the premise of Gilligan's
Island was too unrealistic and boring. Somehow, Sherwood Schwartz convinced
them to make a pilot in the fall of nineteen
sixty three to be shot on location in the new
state of Hawaii. Have only been a state for four
years at that point, barely four years.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
That's crazy. I feel like people don't know that I
know it's so weird. And by people, I mean maybe
me at this exact moment, like, no wonder we lost
our shit for Hawaiian kitch crap. In those seventies, we
had a brand new state to be excited about. I
can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Can you imagine having a not only a brand new state,
but a brand new state that's not like Connecticut, Like
a brand new state that's like, we got a good
one this time. We took one with stuff that we
don't already have.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
But before American history is soaked in blood.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
I bring the kitchen, you bring the shame. You say Tomato,
I say it's a beautiful salary. But before film it
could begin, obviously they needed a cast. It all hinged
on the humbling first mate we all know and love,
sort of as Gilligan, the instinctive Moniker was chosen by

(19:07):
Sherwood Schwartz at random from a Los Angeles telephone directory.
Over the course of the series, he's only ever referred
to as Gilligan, but Schwartz's original notes indicate that his
full name is Willie Gilligan. Yet Bob Denver, who played
the character, always insisted that Gilligan was the character's first
name and the last name remained unknown. This became a

(19:29):
mild point of contention with Schwartz, who later said, almost
every time I see Bob Denver, we still argue. He
thinks Gilligan is his first name, and I think it's
his last name because in its original presentation it's Willy Gilligan.
But he doesn't believe it, and he doesn't want to
discuss it. He insists the name is Gilligan. But before
Bob Denver entered the picture, there was very nearly a

(19:51):
different Gilligan. Schwartz initially had his eye on Jerry van Dijke,
brother of sitcom star dujoor Dick van Dyke, who would
later star in the sitcom Coach Oh with Uh, what's
his name, Craig Craig Nelson.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Jerry van Dyke was Schwartz's first choice to play Gilligan,
explaining in his memoir, you not only expect to see
Jerry Van Dyke in a sweatshirt, you expect to see
a hole in it.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Ouch.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Maybe he's still mad that Jerry van Dyke turned it down.
I guess he turned down the role because he wanted
to follow in the footsteps of his brother Dick and
star in a series of his own instead of an
ensemble cast. Dick Van Dyke was at this time starring
in The Dick Van Dyke Show. I just want to
close the loop on that. God, that's gotta suck. If
your brother is Dick Van Dyke and you go into

(20:39):
show business. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Was there a Steve Carson who was also in Late Night?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
I mean, Paul McCartney's got a brother, Michael McCartney, and
he made music.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
You either lean into it or you get as far
away from it as possible.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Jerry Van Dyke was not impressed with the Gilligan's Island
pilot script, calling it the worst thing I'd ever read,
until until he accepted the lead in a short lived
sitcom called My Mother the Car, which is on the
shortlist of shows widely considered.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
To be the worst of all time, and yet has
repeatedly come up in TMI lore because it's so. This
is our second or third mention of My Mother the Car.
It's such an insane premise. We touched on it earlier.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
It's about a man whose late mother inhabited a car
it tells you everything. It's right there on the title.
I guess that's what it says on the tin. I've
never actually seen it, have you?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
No?

Speaker 4 (21:40):
No?

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Yeah, okay maybe one day at this point? Why not?

Speaker 4 (21:44):
So?

Speaker 2 (21:44):
I mean, I think we can all agree that Gilligan's
Island is not exactly you know, it's not Chaucer, it's
not Dickens here. But Jerry van Dyke somehow managed to
find something even worse.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, right, good for him.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, he would later say I had a lot of
problems with the agency I was at because they were
trying to push me into taking Gilligan's Islands.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
But that's the joke. I turned it down and took
my mother the car.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
But again it was really good because I'd have forever
been known as Gilligan, So that worked out too. Do
you want to be known as Gilligan or do you
want to not be known it at all? Hastick Van
Dyke's brother.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, man, Well, at least he's like self aware about it. Yeah,
it'd be funny if he was like Bill Shatner and
like just continually insisting on his own worth and like,
you know, legacy. And at least he's like yeah, I
was in my mom with a car.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Any questions, Yeah, I'd do anything for you.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
No.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Ultimately, the role of Gilligan went to actor Bob Denver,
who is not related to singer songwriter John Denver, whose
real name is Henry John Dusendorf Junior.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Common misconception, Yes, but this this is wild.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Bob Denver, the guy who played Gilligan, is in fact
the great great grandson of James William Denver, for whom Denver,
Colorado is named far out Denver, Colorado.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
That do ending for you. So they definitely killed a
lot of Indians if you're named after Colorado or at
least Buffalo. Oh yeah, certainly. Man. Well, all right, blood,
you know, America's soaked in the blood of not white people.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
And you could even argue that Gilligan's colonizing another place,
hence Gilligan's islands.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Hell, yeah, let's go, let's go there. Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Despite playing two of the most notorious screw ups in
television history, Bob Denver is kind of a serious dude,
no less of an authority than the Professor himself. Russell Johnson,
who will talk about later. The guy who played the
Professor admitted to me TV. Bobby Denver was the opposite
of the character he played. He was a school teacher.
He's very straight and organized, not this bumbling guy. Bob

(24:04):
wasn't like that at all. Bob Denver was pre law
before shifting to acting. Gilligan was pre law to make
ends meet. Well, presumably while he was pre law, he
served as the athletic director at a school in Pacific Palisades,
coaching football, basketball, and baseball while teaching history to seventh
graders and math the fourth graders. Plus a night gig

(24:27):
at a post office. This is a whole brains man
that couldn't have been while he was in pre law.
Having a day gig and a night gig and being
pre law. That's too many things.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Pre Law is just a bachelor's degree, right, Yeah, but yeah,
I mean so yeah, and this was what the forties, fifties. Yeah,
so they just kind of waved you through, right. It
costs like two dollars back then. Come on, working at
the post office was probably harder. Yeah. When he was

(24:57):
twenty four.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
In nineteen fifty nine, Bob Denver lan and his third
ever acting gig as Beatnik hero Maynard G. Krebs on
the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Many loves, not many lives. Yeah, it would have been
better if it was many lives and it was like
a quantum leap kind of thing. Oh, like the reincarnation
of Peter Pride. How do you come up with a
more obscure TV reference?

Speaker 4 (25:18):
No, that was a movie.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Oh, okay, you would like it, though, No, I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Okay, I loved the Many Loves of w Gillis.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
It had Tuesday weld On a big crush on Tuesday
weld h of course you did. The MAINO G.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Krebs character is the character that Shaggy from Scooby Doo
is based on. Like, he's the stereotypical Beatnick with the
goatee and the ragged T shirt and the bongos.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, big bongos. That's like the cultural perception of Beatnick
before Nick, right, Like, and how long was that actually
a thing though before? Because here's my question about that,
and you don't forgive me for digressing, But no, beat
culture was like what early fifties to the until they

(26:04):
turned into hippies, right, I mean beat culture. I mean
it's it's like the hippie thing.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
I mean the hippies were a thing underground for you know,
I mean, that's the tip of the icebergs when it
was actually in media, but it was probably underground before
much longer. So I would say beat culture could have
been I mean, I'm not as steeped in that as
I am that the hippie stuff, but I would say
probably fifty two, fifty three, fifty four, and then it
started going mainstream in the late fifties, and then hippies

(26:32):
were a thing, I'd say, you know, early in the decade,
probably even before Kennedy was you know, I mean you
had student activists in your adopted hometown of Berkeley, Hay Savvi.
Oh yeah, the throw your your bodies on the wheels
of production, that famous speech. I think that was nineteen sixty. So,
I mean there was some crossover between the Beats and
the hippies, but hippies I think were more animates.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Back to the this gets back to the psyop thing,
which yeah, oh now we're yeah, completely digressing, But like
you know, there are people who theorize that the hippie
movement was again the psyop to defang the very legitimate
student protesting anti war movements and the labor, the labor movement.
People talk about like the glory days of the unions,

(27:14):
but like that was a very specific moment in time
that was ended pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
By transforming them into LSD soaked flower children who you know.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Tune in, turnout draw whatever that was. It was not
exactly a cohesive message to you know, organizing or or
you know, war movement opposition. Anyway, that's all fascinating. I
don't know beat Nicks man, I knew that's funny.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
I assumed you would, but jazz and poetry and.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
I kind of just stopped with on the road. Yeah,
I like Fairlyngetty. I like some of the poets that
came out of City Lights, but yeah I didn't.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
You're in San Francisco. Do you ever go to city Lights,
very famous bookstore?

Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah? Yeah, Yeah. Well it's funny because we talked about
the you know, we talked about in the Big Trouble
Little China episode, Victor Wong, who's that like character actor
that my generation grew up with as like a mentor
wizard figure, and was like actually like first generation city
Lights Beatnick guys, which I will never get over. Uh,

(28:19):
what were we talking about?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Jordan we somehow managed to organically link all of the
hippie stuff now, all the all the hippie syeop stuff
with Gilligan's Island through Bob Denver playing this beatnik.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I'm really happy about that. I feel really good about this. Yeah,
me too, all right. So Bob Denver played this beatnik character,
man A. G.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Krebs on The Many Loves Adobe Gillis from nineteen fifty
nine until the show ended in nineteen sixty three, the
same year casting began for Gilligan's Island.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
So that's Gilligan. Now we got to have John the
skip set, Yes, transition, the Skipper or as he was
known on his birth certificate, Jonas Grumby, which is mentioned
in the pilot episode and then on one other occasion
throughout the run of the series, Jordan, have you we
verified that? I believe so? Yes? Okay. As one might expect,

(29:08):
the Skipper is an ex navyman. There are several episodes
where he indicated that he fought in the Pacific Theater,
including the famous Battle of Guadalcanal, which he relives during
a PTSD related stress dream. In one scene of the
series had to have been played for laughs, right, yeah,
confronting that notion of trauma.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
This wasn'tsh No, this was not the end of mash.
When he realizes it wasn't a chicken crying.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, God is grim episode? Yeah yeah, just thinking about
that one again. Probably shouldn't have anyway, the comedic the baby.
Why do you make me remember that? Snap? Heal so.
According to his backstory, the Skipper met Gilligan during his

(29:58):
navy days and w W the Big One while while
serving on a destroyer. Together, the b bucket headed Gilligan
actually saved the Skipper's life when a depth charge got
loose and rolled down the deck would have crushed the
Skipper had Gilligan not pushed him out of the way.
Hence the skippers lifelong weird, indentured servant man Friday advisor

(30:24):
life partnership with the Galligan despite his clear incompetence. The
Skipper's military careers collaborated on in the two thousand and
three postmodern novel Gilligan's Wake Sephinnigan's Wake Joke, Thank you, Jordan,
that was the joke. Not officially cannon but still a

(30:44):
fascinating document written by Tom Carson. He posits that the
Skipper served on a pt boat with both John F.
Kennedy and Quintin McHale of McHale's Navy, which is also
a show.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh yeah, you know Mchael's Navy. Come on, that's what
I thought. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
In case anyone thought that millennials on Tumbler invented weird
fan fiction, no they did not, you postulate. This is
famously PT one oh nine, which was historically known to
be struck by a Japanese destroyer in August of nineteen
forty three, splitting the boat into causing it to explode
and ultimately sink. This is John F. Kennedy's origin story,

(31:22):
by the way, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kennedy and his crew
were thrown into the ocean, where they clung to the
flaming hall for some twelve hours before swimming to a
nearby island. Kennedy took the life jacket of a wounded
crew member in his mouth and swam for four hours
through crocodile and shark infested waters to the relative safety
of plum Pudding Island, a whimsically named one hundred yard
patch of land with no food or water. Over the

(31:45):
course of the next few days, he would make more
lengthy swims, towing his injured crewmen with his teeth. They
arrived at an island with coconuts for sustenance. Kennedy would
carve a message on a coconut shell, which he delivered
to nearby natives, leading to their rescue some six days
after the event, during which time they were also seeking
to avoid discovery by the Japanese. The only bummer in
this whole story as it relates to Gilligan's Island is

(32:07):
you'd think the skipper would have mentioned the other time
that he had been stranded on an island in the
South Pacific with someone who is in this timeline a
well known senator, right president President? Yeah, is Gilligan's on
current days, I would assume, yeah, okay, it's not a
period piece like an earlier to Okay. Interesting, isn't that
nuts about Kennedy? Like the PT one on nine thing? Yeah?

(32:30):
That is crazy. You know, like a lot of people
my age, I don't care about John F. Kennedy.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
You like the dunk on JFK.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, it's fun and easy. He was a weird guy. Also,
you know, I used to am still not over you know,
his little brother coming after the Mafia you know, everyone
knows your family was made by them, and then you're
going to turn on him. Doth protest too much? Is
that kind of the feeling? Yeah? Yeah, he got what
he deserved.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Speaking of sixty syops, Oh yeah, it was the Saran
Saron Like that's like they think he was like a
CIA as st.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, yeah, they think that he was like mk ultrad. Yeah, honestly, dude,
Even more I read about the CIA, even the stuff
that's not redacted, the more I don't. I don't put
anything past them. Just saying that aloud puts me on
a list of some kind, right anyway, Sure, when Schwartz
initially considered casting future All in the Family star Carol

(33:27):
O'Connor as the Vuncular Skipper but ultimately thought better of it,
do you know what a vuncular actually means? Uncular like
an uncle? Yes, isn't that so funny? I've learned that,
like within the past couple of years. Uncle like of
uncle like good cheer as if that's like a common
a common description. Yeah, Oh, my uncle's are racist. I

(33:48):
don't like spending time with them, but I wouldn't I
would use it vuncular as an insult you a vuncular head.
Would you like me to cut that off? No? I
don't care if they know it anyway. According to Sherwood
Schwartz's son Lloyd, he was really struggling to find the

(34:08):
right actor to play the character. Inspiration struck one night
at dinner, but he heard a jovial laugh at a
nearby table. As Lloyd Schwartz relates, the Skipper was probably
the most difficult role to cast. Dad was upset because
it was getting down to the wire. He was at
a restaurant with my mother and at another table was
Alan Hale Junior, whom my dad didn't know, but he
said that's the guy based on his laugh. He didn't

(34:31):
approach him or anything, but the next day he told
the casting director to pursue him. Unfortunately, Hale left the
next day to film a movie called Bullet for a
Bad Man in Saint George, Utah, when he got the
casting call for Gilligan and was unable to get time
off for a screen test, so he had to sneak
off set after a day of filming, which was about
as eas he's actually getting off the titular Island in

(34:52):
Surviving Gilligan's Island, the incredibly true story of the longest
three hour tour in history. It is revealed that Hale
made his way to Los Angeles from Utah to read
a scene with Bob Denver via horseback, hitchhiking, airplane, and taxi.
He then reversed the process after his audition and made
it back to Utah just in time to resume filming

(35:13):
his Western the next day. He would later appear opposite
Clint Eastwood in nineteen sixty eights Hang Them High? Is
that crazy? Yeah? Okay, yeah, Hall all the time. He's
sort of a more genial George Kennedy. He would later
say he learned his most valuable acting lessons while working
as a vacuum salesman. I'll never get over this forty

(35:33):
year period in American life when you could wind up
a senator after like digging ditches and working as a
brush salesman and maybe a roused about a brief period pimping.
Was that Harry Truman like a pianist and a brothel.
This is like early just it's like it's all those
like it's also like a lot of silver age Hollywood
guys where you're like, yeah, he was a prostitute, and

(35:55):
also a pimp, and he dealt tie sticks to all
the freaks. And actually that I was just reading part
of William Burrow's Junkie the other day, and that was like,
it was like all those junkies he was hanging out
with the proto beat nick days. He was like, yeah,
these guys are you know? They were GI's And then
they maybe dealt a little penicillin and post War of France,
and then they would come back work for a carnival

(36:16):
and eventually they wound up hooked on heroin. That's when
I met them. Truly an amazing time in American history anyway.
Alan Hale's father was a character actor, so Hale spent
many hours on Hollywood studio backlots as a kid watching
his father work. He also saw other stars of that
era at work, one of whom was Oliver Hardy, famous
of the Laurel and Her Partner of a partner of

(36:38):
a guy named Laurel Stan Laurel Right, h yes, nailed it. Yeah,
that's the next sentence. Great job. Oliver Hardy was famous
for breaking the fourth wall, a look of exasperation aimed
directly at the camera whenever his partner Stan Laura would
do or say something particularly dim witted, a move Hale
would borrow on Gilligan's Island and which has been winnowed
down in recent memory to just jim face from there.

(37:00):
Oh wow, yeah, yeah, that's the only time I think
we could ever force a Laurel and Hardy reference onto
the career of John Krasinski. Hale also played a guest
role in nineteen sixty two episode of The Andy Griffith Show,
in which he refers to Don Knott's character Barney Fife
as little Buddy on several occasions. That'll come back later.

(37:25):
He brought that to the role. I would be so
pissed off if someone started calling me that. No one
ever will. Don't you get any ideas? Also, Alan Hale
Junior is only forty two in the first season of
Gilligan's Island, which is astounding. Recently on Twitter the picture
of Roy Kinnear, the actor not to be confused with
current actor Rory Kinnear Roy Kanear Ruger Salt's dad in

(37:49):
Willy Wonko thirty eight. That's terror. Oh, I hate that.
I hate that. Yeah, that's horrifying. Wow, it really is crazy, man,
You got like Brad pitt is like hotter than ever,
like pushing sixty sixty. Oh he is sixty yeah yeah,
And you got these guys that are half dead in
their mid thirties.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
And he died falling off a horse on the set
of Terry Gilliam's Ill Fitted Man, a Lamasha.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Movie that he never finished. That's how I want to
go out, falling off a horse on a keyxotick literally
kyhotic unfinished movie. Ideally buy an acclaimed British director, but
it's like Nolan right, there's like not that many other
good British directors, Guy Richie's kind Jack a Shark. Oh no, no,
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
He fell off the horse making The Return of the Musketeers.
That was filmed with director Richard Lester, who directed The
Beatles two scripted movies, A Hard Day's Night and Help,
and Roy Kaneer was starting Help with the Beatles.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
I retract my statement. I would no longer like to
go out like that. Yeah, sorry, I know. That's why
I felt very necessary to get that in there. Yeah,
thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Next up we have Thurston Howell the Third described show
Lore as a cunning, ruthless businessman known as the Wolf
of Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
I did not make that up.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
In the pilot episode, the radio announcer reading the name
of the lost Castaways refers to mister Howell as a billionaire,
which would put him on par with Howard Hughes and
John D. Rockefeller, the latter of whom became the world's
first confirmed US billionaire in nineteen sixteen.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yeah, that's like a trillion dollars today. There's a lot
of money today. Yes, I love this.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
At one point during the show, when someone asks how
he fared during the Great Depression, Thurston Howell Third's wife
says that he was a billionaire, lost most of his
money in the crash, and then quote became just a millionaire.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
How angry are you right now? Yeah, I'd kill that dude.
I mean, I guess at a certain point, like you
had he would I mean, you have to acknowledge that
he would be your best chance of getting off the island,
right because like these guys have private security people looking
for him. But I would say, after I knew that
he had contacted someone who would get us off the island,

(40:08):
then I would kill him. Probably his wife too, just
to feel something.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Among Howell's assets were a diamond mine, a coconut plantation,
a railroad, an oil well, and forty acres in Colorado,
which included all of downtown Denver before I mentioned Denver,
friend of the show, End of the Pond Denver.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, all that stuff was super racist. Man, like you
said in the sixties, Like that's still the Belgian congo era.
Oh yes, Batman did not have ethical wealth. No, this
is funny.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
When he hears that an impostor is going to sell
off his companies for cash, He's so enraged that he
tries to swim back to the mainland three times, intent
on kill the man, only to be stopped by Gilligan,
the Skipper and his wife. They don't call him the
Wolf of Wall Street for nothing. The role of Thurston
Howell the Third was written especially for the late great

(41:11):
Jim Bacchus, familiar to most of us as the voice
of the classic cartoon character mister Magoo. Fun fact, I
really like this. One of his elementary school teachers was
none other than Margaret Hamilton, who would later play the
Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's pretty wild, that's funny.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, shere Rechwarts had to get special approval from CBS
to meet Bacchus's high salary requirements, and once he signed on,
he was a beloved figure on the set, known for
his body, sense of humor and his eagerness to help
his fellow actors tweak a joke, develop an ad lib,
or land a punchline. Despite his cash flush status on

(41:50):
the show and his premium day rate as an actor,
the real life Jim Backus was notoriously tight with his wallet.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Jim Backus was cheap.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Don Wells, who played Mary Anne, later told The New
York Times he would take Natalie Shaffer, his on screen wife,
and I had a lunch and say, oh, I forgot
my wallet. I think after the first year, Natalie presented
him with a bill for three hundred dollars and told
him this is what you owe us. That's like three
grand today.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Good for her.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, now, of course we have to talk about missus
Howell Lovey a name I assumed was an affectionate nickname,
but apparently that's her real name, Lovey Howel.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
That's so weird. This is back at the also during
the era when guys were like calling their wives mother. Mm. Yeah, weird,
weird fucking yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Missus Howell was played by the wonderful Natalie Shaffer, who
has become quite possibly my favorite character in all this
after learning about her. She was heavily in the Beverly
Hills real estate and was probably worth about as much
as her on screen character at the time, but she
came from a serious acting background. Between nineteen twenty seven
and nineteen fifty nine, appeared in seventeen different Broadway plays,

(43:03):
as well as landing supporting roles in numerous movies. All
this to say, she was experienced enough to know that
the pilot script for Gilligan's Island was pretty silly. According
to legend, she only took the job because it meant
a free trip to Hawaii, thought the thought of the
pilot getting picked up for a full series seemed very remote,

(43:24):
and when it happened, she was not pleased. I didn't
even want to be on Gilligan when I tested, she said.
I cried when I got the role. Apparently, she was
on vacation in Mexico with friends when she got a
telegram saying that the show had been picked up for series,
and she did literally cry, and she was so hysterical
that her friends thought she'd gotten a telegram saying that

(43:45):
her mother died. The funny thing about Natalie Schaeffer was
that she was extremely secretive about her age. To even
her close friends. She lied and pretended she was born
in nineteen twelve, which would have made her about fifty
one or so when Gilding Island premiered. In fact, she
was born in nineteen hundred, meaning she was in her

(44:05):
mid sixties during the production of A Gilligan's Island, to
which I.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Said, damn yes, yeah, spry old bird.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
She wanted her real age to be revealed at her obituary,
reportedly because she wanted people.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
To say she was howled. I love that. That's good stuff.
I remember back before they probably laid her off and
oh maybe had her killed. People magazine had a full
time research person who was in the library verifying stuff
for across a couple different Yeah, yeah, yeah, is she
still there? And I don't know she alive anyway. When

(44:44):
I was we had an orientation with her. I was like,
who gives you the worst trouble with like this kind
of verification and stuff? And she was like Mariah Carey
answered costantly, Yeah, it's like every time we print in
her real age, we hear about it. She doesn't believe
in time. It's even on a Wikipedia page.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
It's like birthday nineteen sixty nine slash nineteen seventy, question
mark night, lu Schaeffer. She's got so many great anecdotes.
In nineteen sixty five, she told the Let's Be Beautiful
columnist Arlene Dahl that she kept in shape by swimming
in her backyard pool in the nude and by periodically

(45:22):
following her special quote ice cream diet, which consisted of
eating nothing but one quart of ice cream spread over
three meals daily. She says she would shame she would
lose three pounds in five days following that regimen. Did
she do well crying? Because that's like how I usually
get through it? Man, those old fad diets are so hilarious.

(45:44):
What was the grape birth of white wine diet?

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Oh diet? Yeah? I think I was reading an either
White album or Yeah, John Diden's other one where she
talks about like if I was over one hundred pounds
or over ninety nine pounds, I would just like eat grapefruits,
drink coffee and chain smoke only until I was back underweight.

(46:07):
The sixties. Yeah, this was from Helen Gurley Brown actually
with Vogue nineteen seventy seven, from her nineteen sixty two
Sex and the Single Girl. Wine and Eggs diet three
days ballparked weight loss at five pounds. Breakfast, one egg,
hard boiled, one glass white wine dry preferably chebles, black

(46:30):
coffee Lunch, two eggs hard boiled as best, but poached
if necessary. Two glasses white wine, black coffee. Dinner, five
ounce steak grilled with black pepper, lemon juice, remainder of
white wine. One bottle allowed per day black coffee. Incredible,

(46:53):
what a country. Yes.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Natalie Schaeffer aka Missus Howell was clearly set instead of
about her appearance. She had it written into her contract
that there would be no close ups of her during
the show, a rule that apparently was forgotten very soon
after production began, because there are many close ups of her.
Natalie Shaeffer also reportedly didn't like her ankles, so she
had input in what Missus Howell would and would not wear,

(47:18):
and it was rare for Missus Howell to be seen
without pants. Let me rephrase that, you know what.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Moving on.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Despite her age, Natalie Shaeffer did nearly all of her
own stunts, which included jumping into the lagoon or sinking
in fake quicksand a badass. We stand, we surely do.
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with more too much information.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
In just a moment.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
We have now come to the professor, whose real name
in the show is Anybody Anybody, Anybody Dope? John tim
Sasha Roy Brinkley Jr. Okay, how do we learn that, Jordan?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
It's in the pilot episode when the radio announcer broadcasts the.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Name of all the missing passengers from the ss Medow.
Professor was played by actor Russell Johnson, who got the
role despite the fact that he refused the producer's request
to take off his shirt during auditions. Sam yeah, uh,
former Husky kid, did he swimming swimming pools with a
T shirt on? That's what I did? Perhaps this was
because Johnson could probably said, oh, you really hit it

(48:46):
out of the park with the zoomer slang on this one,
Jordan wrote, Perhaps this was because Johnson could probably body
these producers. Was that because I talked about a chimp
bodying you or something? In the last episode?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Did yeah, yeah, Prior to his acting career, Johnson had
served as a bombardier bombadier bombardier bombadierda.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
I assume it's bombardier like bouleverda. I always thought it
was bombardier. But that's my American. Yeah. In forty four
combat missions over the Pacific during WWII, the Big one
on March fourth, nineteen forty five, the B twenty five
he was flying as the navigator was shot down, killing
the co pilot and breaking both of Johnson's ankles. He

(49:30):
would earn proverbial boat load worth of medals, including the
Purple Heart and Bronze Starr. His acting career included a
role opposite future president and the anti Christ Ronald Wilson
Reagan think About It six letters in each name in
nineteen fifty three film Law and Order, plus the nineteen
fifty five western Many Rivers to Cross co starring future

(49:51):
skipper Alan Hale Junior. In the aforementioned Gilligan's Wake satirical novel,
The Professor's given a backstory as one of the chief
consults in the Manhattan Project. Love It isn't doing anything
for you. Yeah, that's good stuff. It is. Who was
that guy? Who's this who's this scamp who wrote Gilligan's Wake.
I couldn't. I think he was like an Esquire columnist

(50:12):
or something. Yeah, that tracks well.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
From darkness, we come to the lightness of mary Anne.
Everyone loves Marianne or Marianne Summers, as it says on
her birth certificate. Canonically she has a farmer's daughter from Winfield, Kansas,
a reference to Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz a
references hammered home with nods to Judy Garlands. You bichoed
his pigtails and Gingham dress. Oh oh, this is the

(50:37):
Gingham one.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you remember mary Anne.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
I know you remember marian although you see more of
a ginger guy, which is Brunette Marianne. That one ginger
is oh here, okay.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, see if you can keep off.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
The whole girl next door angenue vibe from Mary Anne
was decided upon somewhat late, considering producers initially wanted to
hire Raquel Welsh for the gig, which would have been
a very different show. Instead, they went with Don Wells,
herself a former Miss Nevada nineteen fifty nine and I
believe a contestant in Miss America nineteen sixty.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
I miss Nevada. She was a competition who was a
runner up. Like a lizard. A cactus is out there
other than Vegas.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Her dad owned an early strip hotel, the Las Vegas Thunderbird.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
I believe.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Mary Anne was a fan favorite on the show. She
was especially popular with soldiers fighting abroad for truth, justice
and the American Way, and mid tier sitcom characters. Apparently,
Don Wells revealed in a Forbes interview, many vets from
Vietnam have said that Marianne kept them going, kept them positive,
and focused on returning safely.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Jacket it and jacket it and jacket it good, jack it. Well,
they kept my picture in their helmets.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
I have the utmost respect for what it takes to
be one of America's finest, and I'm very thankful for
what they do. Filthy dun dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun dund.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Push zoom on it on. A big Midwestern corn fed
guy just hunched over a pile of charred skeletons in
the middle of a rice paddy just furiously pounded it
to this whole.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Girl on a I guess as much as I hate too.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Later the sort of related note. Okay, oh man. Although
it's widely believed that you were not allowed to show
women's navels on American TV in the sixties, people famously
cite shares the first in the early seventies, that was

(53:05):
not the case, at least for Maryanne or Ginger on
Gilligan's Island. This was an actual network edict.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Which Sherwood Schwartz amusingly described in his Gilligan's Island book.
The CBS censors would allow belly button exposure in one
scene as long as the character covered her navel in
another scene, even if she was wearing the same outfit.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Puritanical sixties for you, Yeah, I mean that was like
an ankle in the Victorian era, right, yeah, God, guy
over that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Good for her by guys, you mean you no via
a Vietnam h.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Oh Yeah, people committing atrocities, Yeah for sure. But back
to Mary Anne, who kept her character's famous short shorts
for the rest of her life. I really liked that.
Good for her.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Yeah, she was a favorite on the show. Even recent
online polls show her ranking number one on the favorite
list for the castaways on Gilligan's Island, followed by Gilligan himself,
and sadly missus Howell was at the very bottom.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Oh I know, yeah, yeah, Bummer, I'm sorry, Bud. That's okay.
I know she meant a lot to you.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Uh, not to pit women against one another, but the real,
but the real fandom rivalry was between mary Anne and
fellow Gilligan's Island starlett Ginger Grant, played by Tina Louise.
Don Wells had a good sense of humor about the rivalry,
even admitting that she sometimes wore a T shirt that
someone had given her that read Ginger or mary Anne

(54:34):
the ultimate dilemma.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Gross. Then again, Marianne can afford.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
To laugh about this because she was always the winner
between the two, and she puts it. You can go
anywhere and say Ginger or Marianne. You don't even have
to say what the show is, and everybody gets it,
and I always win.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
And this is true. Bob Denver said in a two
thousand and one interview that don Wells received somewhere between
three thousand and five thousand fan letters weekly, whereas Tina Louise,
who played Ginger, may have had fifteen hundred to two thousand.
That is tough, tough, Dahoe.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Dun Wells likely took a certain degree of pleasure in
Marianne's triumph over Ginger, because.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
In real life there was some strain between her and
the actors who played Ginger.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
That is Tina Louise, who, as much as I hate
to say it is sort of the villain of this episode.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
I'm sorry, I know she meant a lot too.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
To play Ginger Grant, her name a combination of Ginger,
Rogers and carry Grant.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Producers initially wanted.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
To cast a real life movie star, the silver medalist
of fifties blonde bombshells, Jane Mansfield, now most.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Famous for that picture of Sophia Lauren looking angrily at
her cans.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Before getting decapitated in the car accident. And she wasn't decapitated.
That that was the myths.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
That was the Hollywood Babylon Ask myth. Didn't that actually
happen to Isabelle somebody like a f misdancer?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Duncan is about her star sunk yeh Off got caught
in the car and drove off, And I don't know
if it decapitated.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Her, It just strangled her. It got close, probably just
hanging by a thread.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
She had some kind of create like parting line or
last words or something lovely day for her drive farewell,
my friends, I go to glory.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Yeah, that's pretty metal. Was this as she was choking
to death or as she was getting into the car.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
She wore a long, flowing, hand padded silk scarf, a
gift from her friend, The mother of American filmmaker pressed
in sturges, that's weird. As I departed, she reportedly said Pharaoh,
my friends would go to glory. Her silk scarf, draped
around her neck, became entangled in the wheel well round
the open spoked wheels and a real axle, pulling her
from the open car and breaking her neck.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
She was taken to the hospital where she was pronounced
dead like immediately after, she said that I assume mm hmm,
what a way to go. That's how I'd like to
go out, So not horseback, No, I've to victorious statement,
followed by next snapping at high speeds, what are we
talking about?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Tina Louise Ginger from Gilligan's Island. Yes, producers nearly cast
Jane Mansfield, but Jane Mansfield turned down producers a Gilligan's
Island for fears that she would be typecast as a
dumb blonde. I say this with all love and respect
because she was a brilliant, well read woman. A little
late for that in nineteen sixty three, after The Girl

(57:28):
Can Help It in fifty seven and okay anyway, Yeah,
producers went with Tina Louise, who had actually appeared alongside
Jane Mansfield in the October November issue of the Fredericks
of Hollywood catalog, which is sort of a forerunner of
Victoria's Secret, where she was billed as Hollywood's fastest rising star.
She also released Smooth Jazz records in the late fifties,

(57:51):
back by helly legendary jazz player Coleman Hawkins.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
That doing anything for you. Yeah, he's pretty famous as
one of the guys who pushed swing music into what
we consider bebop and oh famous as one of the
you know, huge tenor saxophonies of the era. So she
sang with him.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
She also was a star in Italian sword and sandal
epics like the Siege of Syracuse and The Warrior Princess Cool.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, you know, I support that those things.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
She also appeared in the nineteen sixty four Tony nominated
play Fade Out, Fade In, and also in the teen
Summertime Surf Movie For Those Who Think Young, which was
a blatant Pepsi cash in, alongside Nancy Sinatra, a super
young Ellen Burston later to star in The Exorcist and
future Gilligan star Bob Denver.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Have you seen that one? I have? Not? No? Okay?

Speaker 2 (58:43):
A real sort of yin yang tragedy of her acting
ambitions can be seen in the following pair of lines
from her Wikipedia page. Tina Louise began studying with Lee
Strausberg and became a member of the Actors Studio. In
nineteen sixty two, she guest starred on the situation comedy
The Real McCoy's, playing a country girl from West Virginia

(59:06):
in the episode Grandpa Pigmlien. All this to say, like
Natalie Shaeffer, Tina Louise had worked long enough to know
that Gilligan's Islands wasn't exactly high art, and she was
not exactly fond of her role in it. Unlike Natalie Shaeffer,
she was very bad at playing along. According to numerous reports,

(59:26):
Tina Louise clashed with the show's producers, apparently because she
was under the mistaken assumption that she was playing the
main character.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
I guess her agent had allegedly pitched this to her
as the story of an actress stranded on an island
with six other people. Presumably he hid the fact that
the title of the show was Gilligan's Island. There are
stories that she tried to get out of her contract
mid series, which would have a disastrous effect on her
relationship with her co stars.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
As we'll see, she would famously be the only cast
member who refused to appear in any of the post
series TA movies or cartoons series. In a January nineteen
sixty five edition of TV Guide, an article about Bob Denver,
the star of Gilligan's Islands, mentioned the on screen tension
between Tina Louise and the rest of the castaways. It
was so bad that it was mentioned in contemporary interviews

(01:00:16):
that's hilarious. Denver will not say why he and the
glamorous Tina Louise do not get along, nor will any
of the castaways.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
They just ignore her and she ignores them. Between scenes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
While the other six Principles chat and tell jokes together,
she sits off by herself and recently, when Denver was
asked to pose for pictures with her, he adamantly refused.
Denver eventually agreed to do a photo shoot with Tina
Luise for the TV Guide cover in May of that year,
nineteen sixty five, but only of Don Wells Mary Anne
was included. Then, to his immense displeasure, Wells was cropped

(01:00:51):
out of the final image.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Oh oh man, what a silly world we live in.
Of course, while we're on the topic of characters, we
have to mention the doomed vessel, the SS Minow, which
in many ways could be considered the eighth lead of
the show, above Missus Howell. I always assumed that this
was just a cute nautical joke. I didn't Jordan always

(01:01:17):
assumed that this was just a cute nautical joke naming
a tiny boat after a baby fish. But the name
is much deeper, and actually much much pettier. The Minnow
is named after a man named Newton Minnow, who was
at the time the chairman of the FCC. He had
made waves hold front clause in the television world in

(01:01:38):
nineteen sixty one with a landmark speech entitled Television and
the Public Interest, in which he took aim at TV
producers for making formula comedies about totally unbelievable characters and
creating a vast wasteland of bad television Sherbred Schwartz did
not take kindly to this knock against his medium, so
he named the Doomed Ship in his sitcom after Newton

(01:01:58):
Minnow as an in joked these fellow TV producers. Accounts
seem to vary about how much Schwartz actually disliked Minno,
but apparently the FCC chairman had a sense of humor
about the whole thing, and reportedly the two exchanged friendly
correspondence in the biblical sense. The boat that was used
for the opening credits for second and third seasons of
the show, aaka The Ones in Color, had been previously

(01:02:20):
named the Blue Jacket, and in two thousand and six
it was sold in Nanoos Bay, British Columbia. People came
from all over the world to view the boat, speaking
in hushed tones while in its presence. According to the broker,
we wanted to know where Mary Anne slept, said one man, okay,
leaving that one right there. The asking price where was

(01:02:41):
ninety nine thousand dollars. Seems undervalue. It underwent a two
year restoration by the Schooner Cove Marina, where it is
used for charters and sightseeing tours. Who Knows if they're
three hours on the East side of Vancouver Island. The owner,
now doing business as Kellen Devres, equipped it with an
old life preserver with ss Mino on it, as well

(01:03:04):
as other items that nod to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Before becoming the series, We Know and Love Sherwood, Schwartz
and Company filmed a pilot for Gilligan's Island in nineteen
sixty three that prompatbly went missing for thirty years. Then
in the early nineties, an employee of the TBS network
started reading a book about the show and made some
calls to the corporate office Turner Entertainment, who owned the
syndication rights. Soon, the network executives fouled the negative for

(01:03:28):
the pilot, which had been collecting dust for some thirty
years in the archives of the Turner owned MGM United
Artists Film Library. TBS then aired that episode, titled Marooned,
for the first time in October nineteen ninety two. One
of the biggest differences between the pilot and the final
series is that the cast of Castaways featured different characters.

(01:03:50):
Instead of a movie star and a Midwest farmer farmer.
I don't know what Mariam was a color a farmer.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Farmer's daughter brother. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
The pilot included two secretaries.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
One was named Ginger she was played by the actress
Kit Smythe, and the other was named Bunny and played
by Nancy McCarthy. Nothing weird there. Also, instead of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
The professor, there was a high school teacher played by
a guy named John Gabriel.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Do they have like fifth Beatle thing like Stuart Sutcliffe
where they just like have been dining out on that
almost being cast for their entire lives. That's a good question,
Pete Best, I don't know. That's a good question.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Another major difference here here this will interest you. Another
major difference with the pilot was that it was missing
the famous sea shanty theme tune. Instead, it featured.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
A rather lame faux calypso number written by number then,
but it was written by none other than John Williams,
the most Williams film composer of all time. Yes, he
was still known as Johnny Williams at the time, though
he would they would eventually lose that theme. He would
continue to write incidental music for the first season of
the show. Did we have a similar like recently acquired

(01:05:04):
state or something with like clipse somewhere in the Caribbean
that spurred the Calypso boom? I don't you know what.
It might have even just been like Harry Belafonte or something.
I don't know what. Yeah, yeah, I think that is
honestly what you can chalk it up to. But I
don't know. It was a funny man, Oh yeah, for sure.
I mean there was that whole viral TikTok thing, like, God,

(01:05:25):
what are we in two years ago where there was
that Elaine stretches are you having? And if Oh yeah,
Robert mitchell as I think we've talked about on this
show before, cut a Calypso out. Oh right, yes, yes, yes, yes,
he just looks like the surliest, most hateful lounge singer
of all time on the cover. Nothing about that man

(01:05:47):
radiates island cheer. Uh you know, And maybe I'll splice
it in here. The original GILLIGANSI Calypso.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
The original Calypso style Gilligan's Island theme, that is that
was only used for the pilot. It was sung by
Sherwood Schwartz himself. He wrote the lyrics too. He's sang
it in a faux Caribbean. There it is accents.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
I don't know what you can call it a black
scent sorry gejorative.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
Yes, yes, shockingly, there is no mention of a three
hour tour, but instead a six hour ride on this
early theme, which honestly makes more sense than three hours.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Now it's pretty short. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
In tropical c is a tropic port vacation. Funny is
the favorite sport. This is the place where the tourist
block renting the boats at TV's he talk two secretaries
from USA s a this lovely day. A high school
teacher is next day board while taking trip that they

(01:06:58):
cannot afford. The next two people are millionaires. They got
no worries, they got no cares. They climb aboard and
they step inside with just enough bags for collar.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Rid touris.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Come touristool to resting too, and from.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
These five nice touries they take this trip.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
Relaxing on deck on this little ship, the weather is clear,
and this on his hot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
The weather is clear. I think it is not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Sure Schworts would ultimately swap out the theme tune to
the more familiar one We Know and Love, presumably because
the Calypso craze of the late fifties had given way
to the folk group boom of the early sixties with
bands like The Kingston Trio, So Schwartz wrote one of
the all time great explainer themes, called the Ballad of
Gilligan's Isle with composer George Wile.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
He would do the same for The Brady Bunch and
six years later for the first season of the show.
The song is formed buddy folk act the Wellingtons, who
also performed the Ballad of Davy Crockett, heard in the
Disney mini series of the same name, Crockett Frontier. Yeah,

(01:08:14):
I was a Davy Crockett. I had the coonskin cap
and everything. Yeah. I feel like and I mean this
as somebody spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania's kid
very Pennsylvania. Davy Crockett. Yeah, uh, one of the heroes
of the American Southwest, wasn't he at the Alamo? I don't.
I don't know, but the coonskin hate Okay, sure we

(01:08:37):
do have raccoons. So you were saying, oh, I was
just trying to think of anything interesting at this George
Wild guy uh had done. He was musical director of
the Flip Wilson Hour m musical director. He was director
in arrangements of the John Denver Christmas album with the Muppets,

(01:09:00):
Fat Rules. There we go Denver to Denver, second John
Denver reference, moving on, Let's yeah all right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
Sadly for the Wellingtons, their version of the theme tune
was booted for seasons two and three when Schwartz used
a group called the Eligibles, but the Wellington's got a
featured rule on an episode of Gilligan's Island called Don't
Bug the Mosquitos, where they portrayed a beatle parody group
called the Mosquitoes. In another bit of Gilligan's Island's sixties

(01:09:31):
pop crossover, Maryanne's singing voice on the show was dubbed
by none other.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Than Jackie DeShannon.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Put a little love in your heart what the world
needs now whenever you walk into the room, favorite of
my dear friend DJJBJ.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Come on you jerking the Shenon's great. Yeah, I know,
I know her name. Good for her, I guess, I
mean they probably This was like during the glory days
of residuals like these people did not work again, No,
we'll talk about me. This was right before. Oh, I
guess I was talking about anyone that had a hand

(01:10:05):
in the theme song. But that was also before those
changes went in. Presumably hmm, maybe yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Part of the reason Sherwood Schwartz changed the theme tune
for the later seasons is because he wanted to include
the Professor and Mary Anne in the lyrics. Famously, the
early version of a theme ended with and the rest
after the movie Star, and this was a truly hilarious move,
considering it was a show with seven people and they

(01:10:31):
had already shouted out five. Just put the other two
in there. Cut it for time, Cut it for time.
The actors who played the Professor and Marianne had a
sense of humor about this, though, and they would often
sign correspondence to one another as the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Rest, which I think is cute. The first season opening
credits are all over the place thanks to absurd negotiations
by the actors agents, who wanted to earn their ten
percent and stroke their clients for egos. As a result,
the opening credits to the first season of Gilligan's Island

(01:11:05):
are copy editor's nightmare. Bob Denver comes up first with
starring Bob Denver makes sense. Alan Hale follows with no starring,
just Alan Hale in his picture. Jim Beckis is next
with also starring and it lists his character. He's the
only one who has his character listed so far.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Natalie Shaeffer is next with no starring and no character name,
and finally it ends on and also starring Tina Louise
as Ginger. So the hierarchy seems to go Jim Beckis
and Tina Louise since they are both starring and have
their character names listed in the opening credits. Bob Denver,
who's starring but doesn't have his character name listed, and
then Alan Hale and Natalie Shaeffer, who at least get

(01:11:46):
their names on the screen, but poor Don Wells and
Russell Johnson, who played Marianne and the Professor, get nothing.
They lose good Day. This didn't sit well with Dear
Sweet Bob Denver. The show is renewed for a second season.
He asked the producers to add the Professor and mary
Anne to the opening credits.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Unfortunately, the producers cited a clause in Tina Louise's contract,
which said that no one would follow her name in
the credits.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Oh that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Bob Denver countered by referring to a clause in his
own contract which stated that he could have his name
placed anywhere on the credits he wanted, and he threatened
to have his name moved to last place, which would
be absurd for a star of the show, especially a
show named after his character. So, following a new agreement
with Tina Louise, a revised theme song was recorded, with

(01:12:40):
Johnson and Wells taking the rightful place in the opening
montage The Professor and Mary Anne, which skins so much better.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
And the rest that's such.

Speaker 4 (01:12:50):
A weird.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
Is that the debut of that phrase? I don't know
where I even picked it up? Yeah, and the rest? Yeah, man,
what movie were we talking about? Was it Paul Newman
and Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman and somebody else where?
They like, is it Tyrang Inferno or one of those?
But yes, yeah, where they jockeyed that someone's name would

(01:13:15):
come up first, but the other guy's name would come
up even though it came up second, would be come
come up high higher? Yes, they were like offsetting it
that way.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
And I think on the poster two they were at
like a certain angle, like one was angled up and
one was angled down.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Yeah, it's so funny. What a what a weird era
to put so much emphasis on this stuff. I mean,
you guys are all gonna die penniless, not if you
invested wisely, but alone. We'll talk about that. Actually, the
only person on the show that it actually was smart.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
About thinking ahead and getting residuals how to start a
go funding towards the end of her life.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Now I'm saying, it's sad I'm caring so much about
your names. I don't know. I take a note from
who is It Bones McCoy, the guy from Star Trek
who was like like didn't really act again and would
just like go to fan conventions and pay all of
his bills from like the fan circuit. Yeah, maybe I'm
making that up. I don't know. Star Trek sucks. I

(01:14:12):
tried to watch Wrath of Khan the other night. I
was just like, what do people see in this? Honestly interesting,
I'm sort of surprised to hear you say that. Oh my god,
it's the action scenes in that movie are like, you know,
composited spaceship shooting a protoscoped beam of light and then
they just shake around an interior shot like how the

(01:14:33):
fuck did people think this was interesting? Pro Maltimont does
like half of his acting behind like a console, like
it's just not good fight, don't man, I don't know.
I'm never gonna get Star Trek. Do you care about
start other than like sort of the kitchy shatner. I
grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
My dad in a very uncharacteristic move, is a big
he sound a big treky, but he loves Star Trek.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
That would make a track, Yeah, I guess, But.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
He watched Next Generation a lot as a kid, so
I have fun memory.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
The Next Generation is a good show. I mean that's
supposed to be the much better on Yeah. Yeah, but
again it was one of those things where I started
watching it during the pandemic and I was I reached
out to front of the pod David Long, and I
was like, man, I don't get it, and he gave
me that classic like yeah, you just got to wait
till like season three before it gets good. Not there
are only three seasons of Star Trek. Oh no went

(01:15:30):
oh oh? I thought you meant original, but yeah, he
was like, yeah, you know, it's it doesn't really pick
up until like the third season. He's like, and as
that's like the consensus for the show, where people be like,
it will be like the most unutterably silly dog that
humiliates you to like sit in front of it and
actually take it in as like media and then like
profoundly moving meditations on the human spirit. Thanks, don't have

(01:15:55):
the patience for that. Man, We're all dying. Hope we're
talking about speaking of dying. The pilot No, bear with
me here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
The Pilot was filmed in late November nineteen sixty three
on the Hawaiian Islands.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Oh, I know what is happening.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
They planned the film dun dundun No the sixties began, No,
when the sixties began.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
They've been a topical song. Times they are a changing. Yeah,
on the eve of destruction. Yeah, no, sixty five, but
I'll give it to you, sixty three would have been
blown in the wind. Yeah. Times they are a change,
and that might have been sixty four.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
They planned the film the ss Minos setting off on
it's from his three hour tour on the morning of
November twenty second nineteen sixty three from Honolulu Harbor, but
the shoot was interrupted by news of President Kennedy's assassination.
Rip JFK. You would have loved Gilligan's Islands. He never
got to see islands. It's that awful. A friend of

(01:17:00):
mine was just talking about how and it was something
that I do and I didn't know anyone else did,
but he mentioned it the other day.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
How like I measure when I hear the various historical
figures or was in relation to the Kennedy I was
just like, oh, like Joseph Mangle died in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Joseph Mengele presumably was aware of Greece, Like that's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
Like it is, Yeah, things like that. The other one
where it was like, uh, Coca cola was already a
thing when Dracula came out, So in theory, Dracula could
have enjoyed a coke. I love stuff like that. It's yeah,
that's great. Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
So, as Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as president,
it was announced that all military installations, including Honolulu Harbor,
will be closed for the next two days for a
period of mourning. So filming of the Gilligan's Island Pilot
was delayed by several days as a result, and in
the opening credits, as the SS Minow cruises the harbor,
an American flag can be seen flying half masts in

(01:18:01):
the background, a mute tribute to a national tragedy.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Yeah, Ni discruction with her Barry maguire, Whatever happened to
that guy? You interviewed him? Probably right, No, but I
would have that seems like, yeah, it seems like a
youth thing. I was just talking to Tony today about
how I interviewed John Sebastian from The Love and Spoonful
and I emailed them asking for an interview, and he

(01:18:26):
called me within three minutes and was like, you wanted
an interview here I am, And I was like, yeah,
I didn't. I didn't mean now He's like, I'm just
sitting at home staring and nothing, and so.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
I had no questions. So I just talked to him
for like an hour and then and then he just.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
Kind of wandered off. That's so funny. My favorite tidbit recently, actually,
the only like celebrity interview I've done really recently was
John Anderson of Yes was here, like so he's writing
a musical based on the life of Mark Chigal because
in one of these bizarre things that only happens in

(01:19:01):
like the bygone era, he was, I believe, introduced to
Mark Chagall by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones, and
they just became like famous friends and like they hit
it off like a house on fire, whatever that phrase is.
And John Anderson began, in between periods of working on
Yes stuff, he was just writing a musical about Mark

(01:19:23):
Chagall and his life. And one of the early workshops
that he did for it recently was at the school
that I worked for, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music,
and yeah, but it was crazy that I got to
interview him and I was like, you're like, you're John Anderson,
but he was just like he has the most hilariously
high voice, which makes sense when you hear him sing,

(01:19:45):
but like not everyone with a high voice has a
high speaking voice. But he got on the phone and
I actually thought it was like a lady assistant because
he was like, hello, is this Alex. I was like, oh,
this is great, and then we were just talking about
like what we we're doing during the day, where I
was like, yeah, this is just a great man. I'm
just sitting at home. I just had lunch. Now I'm
talking to John Anderson of Yes, and he was like,

(01:20:07):
as well, I was just watching Lord of the Rings. Well,
I was on the treadmill that stars, sorry, stars sometimes
really are just like us and in the most hilariously
mundane ways. It was like extended cut. Uh yeah, good times. Okay.

(01:20:28):
So CBS executives were not bowled over by Gilligan's pilot,
but it did well enough to score well with three
different sets of test audiences, the elderly, the insane, and children. However,
this convinced the Brass to include the show in a
fall nineteen sixty four lineup, but they wanted some changes made.
First of all, they wanted to replace the three cast

(01:20:50):
members who had tested the lowest with audiences once again,
the audiences being chimpanzees, dogs being kept from panicking by
the TV you staying on while their owners were work,
and hobos warming up in bus stations. I can give
you more more groups than three going. I can do
that again. I'll splice those in. Yeah, just loop it in.

(01:21:13):
John Gabriel, who played the high school science teacher Kit
Smythe who played Ginger as a secretary that feels like
a Star Wars villain nickname. You imagine Shatner biting into
that phrase. Kit Smythe and Nancy McCarthy, who played Bunny,
the other secretary. Schwartz battled with CBS President Jim Aubrey,
who didn't like the idea that the Castaways would be

(01:21:35):
stranded permanently aka the entire premise of the show. Has
anyone positive Gilligan's island as the Bardo? Have they? I
don't know, like they did Groundhog Day being the Bardo?
That's interesting anyway. Eventually, Aubrey and Schwartz struck a deal.

(01:21:55):
If the ratings started to tank, Gilligan and company would
get rescued in a craven, ploy for ratings, and continue
their exploits on the mainland. Today we call that pulling
a second season of Twin Peaks. Oh or after mash
Your references are little dated, Jordan, just some notes for you,
as we could cute interminable second season. Have we ended

(01:22:19):
the first? Are we dead? Who's to say? Anyway? The
CBS president would eventually create his own show based on
the premises of a family who operated a tropical Marina.
It was called The Baileys of Balbo, and it lasted
only a single season before it was canceled. Schwartz had
to face down another CBS executive named Hunt Stromberg Junior,

(01:22:42):
who hunted humans in his spare time with that name,
and he felt strongly that they should have a pet
dinosaur to the cast. You know what this needs? Yeah, man,
I love this country. We just get what we deserve.
This man had more power than God at one point.
Probably he probably had women killed, disappeared, certainly hookers who

(01:23:06):
got pregnant via his stars. And this is just what
he did. He'd take, he took meetings, he chained, smoked,
he drank, and he said, like not a dinosaur. Ugh,
amazed country, Amazing century the twentieth. In his book Inside
Gilligan's Island, Surewood Schwartz were called watching the show's pilot

(01:23:27):
episode with Stromberg while they were being pilated, and when
they got to the part where Gilligan climbs a tree
to survey the island in search of resources or signs
of life, Stromberg excitedly suggested that Gilligan should find a dinosaur,
which he could then walk around on a leash and
treat like a pet. Just picture it. Stromberg reportedly said,
it's our answer to mister ed As with most ideas

(01:23:50):
that come from your boss. Schwartz did his best to
humor him and pretend that they were actually considering the
idea of putting a dinosaur in the show. They even
made inquiries to Disney, who had just developed a technique
seamlessly placed animated figures into live action footage. Was this
Song of the South era? Or would have been?

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
I was like twenty years earlier? It wasn't it like
forty seven, forty eight?

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Well that was we talked about this because it was
Mary Poppins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Ultimately,
this proved to be the saving grace for Schwartz and Coast,
since the budget projections were way too high to utilize
this new technology for CBS, and CBS would then hold
on to the whole dinosaur bit for the nineteen eighties
cartoon series Gilligan's Planet. Why the not it right in

(01:24:36):
Cocaine by then, so it came back around.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
You know, how do you feel about that? Would you
look at dinosaur on Gilligan's Island?

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
I would absolutely for a treat. Wow, Yes for me
as a treat, the dinosaur could be like maybe maybe
only Gilligan could see it. I like the zoo ghost. Yes.
But then in that way he could be like Gazoo.
He could be like a ghost of a dinosaur that
died on the island, and he would only talk to
Gilligan and say things like why do they come to

(01:25:03):
me to die? Gilligan, won't you stop the screams? So
I don't know, is Gilligan son of Sam and the
dinosaur is the neighbor's dog father is telling me to
do this? Yeah, he's the only one I didn't really
buy as a CIA plant like Bob dever Oh son
of Sam. Yeah, burkwoitz. But they may have he may

(01:25:25):
have been a patsy. That's the other prevalent theory among
among burkeheads. As we call ourselves son of sami Ax,
I'm coining that. I'm gonna start the California chapter of
the Son of samy Ax.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Son of sam Anias you know, your idea is good too,
son of Semania.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
If you guys want to vote McCoy, get us on
to Twitter. I'm at Alex underscore Higel. I don't know what,
Jordan is off the top of my head. He can
punch it. But just tell us what do you prefer?
Son of Sam maniacs or son of Sami as it's cleaner,
mine's cleaner. Anyway, h Jordan, what were you talking about again?

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
We're talking about the lore of Gilligan's Islands. That's what
we're talking about. First and foremost, we have to talk
about the three hour tour, now, Zoolander Voice, Why a
three hour tour? In other words, what was the reason
that those five passengers set sail that day with a
skipper and Gilligan. Apparently they were headed for a remote,
club med style resort in Hawaii, which was owned by

(01:26:33):
the Howls Consortium.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
They were in humans, the Howls. We're going to go
for a month. Mary Anne won the trip on a
radio station Sweepsteakes. She was apparently hoping to meet a
rich man during her two weeks stay. I've seen that
the professor was going to be speaking at a convention,
or he was taking some time to unwind before writing
a book entitled Fun with Ferns and Ginger.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
I think was booked at the resort as a singer
slash performer no, No, those are tours.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
Those are one way destinations, a leisurely cruise out to
get to the resort. I think that was the idea. Well, okay,
I don't know. Torm to me implies a circuit, a
closed loop, if you will. But that explains why they
all have the suitcases of stuff. That's true, you know, Yeah,
all right, we'll work on this. Okay, we can fix this.

(01:27:25):
I can fix him.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
In the world of the show, the titular island, Gilligan's
Island is said to be roughly two hundred and fifty
miles south of Hawaii.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
No what other island Jordan? Was That a necessary clarification, But.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
In real life, the island shown in the opening and
closing credits of the show is Coconut Island, a small
outcropping in Canae Bay on the northeast shore of a Wahu, Hawaii.
But we all know Gilligan's Island wasn't possible without some
movie magic. The set was located on CBS's studio City lot,
where an outdoor lagoon had been built. I've seen some

(01:28:00):
sources say that this was the same set used for
the creature from the Black Lagoon, but I don't think
that's true. I thought that was in Universal, but I
would like to believe that. I mean, that makes more sense.
Versail was had the money until Yeah, yeah, I was.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
Why do I think some of that was shot in Florida?

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
Pretre and backlagoon? Yeah, that's funny you said that. I
thought so too.

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):
It was second unit where the under all the underwater
shots were done in Florida. Why Springs, Florida? Does it
say where the lagoon set was on? Water? Scenes were
filmed at Park Lake on the Universal backlot. Okay, so
Lovelock Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
Producers initially tried filming Gilligan's Island on location in Malibu,
at least for some scenes, but encountered problems due to
the fog rolling in off the sea, so they moved
to a studio lot. But filming at Studio City Campbell
its own unique challenges. The proximity to the Ventura Freeway
Venture Highway meant that they had to stop filming at

(01:28:57):
rush hour due to traffic.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Sounds. Was that Eagles? Was that song? That was America? Oh?
Produced by George Martin Beatles producers. I'm sure I was
a great song. America is kind of great. I just
know the horse song. That's kind of one of the
least good songs. I hate that song. Yeah, but they've
got some goods it has. It has one of the

(01:29:19):
most unforgivably stupid lyrical conceits. The heat was hot. Well,
there's a lot another to add another to that list. No,
I always hated when he says, uh, he's like cataloging
things in the desert, and he says the rocks and
trees and things and things. Yeah. Well, also the horse
with no name, I mean, yeah, you could have just

(01:29:41):
named it. Yeah, yeah, why did you let it go
through that whole period? You you're in the desert, you
know what much else to do? Just the most meandering
plotting like feet like that song feels turgid, like wandering
in the desert. Yeah, all right, I guess they have that.
That's kind of clever. Meta concept is that it feels

(01:30:02):
like being dehydrated in the desert and your body shutting down.

Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
It feels like lactic acid building up in your calves.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:09):
Front of the Pod Lactic Acid making TMI debut to.

Speaker 1 (01:30:14):
First debut the show, folks, let's hear it for lactic Now.
I have to keep this whole bit.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
I was thinking of ways to cut her out of it,
but I can't now any of.

Speaker 1 (01:30:27):
You the Pod America. It will just let you choose
which one can't go wrong. During the winter months of
filming on the studio back lot, the water temperature and
the Gilligan's Island Lagoon would plummet to around forty degrees,
which is not far off from Titanic temperatures, requiring Bob

(01:30:47):
Denver to wear a wetsuit beneath his Gilligan costume. Tragically,
and this I am genuinely sad about. Fans can no
longer visit the Gilligan's Island Lagoon because in nineteen ninety
five it was paved over and turned into an employee
parking lot. Literally the Joni Mitchell saw, yes, the paved paradise, and.

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
I think it was parking garage actually, but for our purposes,
we're gonna go with parking lot.

Speaker 4 (01:31:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
Canonically, uh, Hilariously, the US Coast Guard received numerous letters
purported to be from fans of Gilligan's Island wondering why
they weren't doing anything to help those seven nice castaways
they saw on TV. Oh, apparently they thought Gilligan's Island
was a documentary, a documentary that was being broadcast by

(01:31:38):
I don't know on an astonishingly regular basis. Yes, God,
this country man the leaps for that what a ah
man just makes me. It makes me think of that
Carlin quote, like, think a how stupid the average person is,
and then realize that statistically half of them are dumber
than that. So illuminating. I thought this was just like

(01:31:59):
an apoc full story, but I've seen numerous of course
I believe it. Yes, yes, According to the military themed
blog We Are the Mighty, Gilligan's Island producer Sherwood Schwartz
got a message from the Coastguard, followed by a series
of telegrams submitted by Good Samaritans who wanted a rescue
team sent out to save the SS Mino castaways at once.

(01:32:22):
The blog tracked down an example of one of these telegrams, saying,
for several weeks now we have seen American citizens stranded
on some Pacific island.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
We spend millions in foreign aid. Why not send one
US destroyer to rescue those poor people before they starved
to death? Schwartz said in an interview for the Archive
of American television.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Now, who did they think was.

Speaker 2 (01:32:43):
Laughing at what was happening to these people and the
whole crowd? Where do they think the music came from?
And the commercials srewd. Schwartz would go on to say
that these viewers were quote delusional.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
And also, while I have you, what's to be done
about this terrible planet of the apes I've been hearing about,
we landed on that before our own moon. I know
the timeline doesn't work, but we just did it last week,
so I'm just it does work. It does work. Nineteen
sixty eight was when the moon was sixty nine. Yeah, okay, okay,
how fucking dumb? Oh my god? Simple folk? Or I know,

(01:33:18):
what's the line from Blazing Saddles, you know, the common
people saw to the Earth? You know, morons. I maybe
it was a prank, but I sort of don't think so, dude.
I guarantee you there's somebody you know in the sixties
who was like, saw this and was like, they wouldn't
lie to me on the TV. Those folks have got

(01:33:39):
to be really out there. Ah, what were we talking about?

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
We're talking about the most important part of the show.
Heigel getting off the islands. Yet, why couldn't the crew
escape from the island or achieve completion? Who are they
thinking of? Were they lying back and thinking of England?

Speaker 1 (01:34:01):
Apparently? Oh it was to a Victoria, right, not one
of the Elizabeths. I'm pretty sure. Yes, yeah, you know.
Obviously they had an absurd amount of supplies with them,
considering they were merely on a three hour tour. Maryan
and Ginger, for example, never wore the same clothes twice.
The Professor had an expansive library, and the Howls had

(01:34:21):
all their crap. Numerous in universe reasons have been sighted,
and it all has to do with the group's own incompetence.
Blame most often falls on the Professor, as has been
off sighted by Hackey stand ups for centuries. He could
build a phone out of coconuts, but he couldn't fix
a hole in the damn boat. This isn't strictly true, however,
There was an episode where they attempted to use a

(01:34:42):
glue that Gilligan had accidentally discovered that came from tree sap.
Although strong, the glue turned out to be very very temporary,
and when it gave out, the boat fell totally to
pieces it's another episode where he made his own nails
shattered upon being hit by a hammer. Professor appeared to
be unfamiliar with navigation by sale or star positions, which
would have been extremely useful determining their position. Blame also

(01:35:05):
falls on Skipper, who is nowhere near as aggressive as
he could have been sexually or physically.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
You mean in skippering, Yeah, and skippering the skippering of herb.

Speaker 1 (01:35:15):
It is now to Skipper language is malleable. That's jazz baby.
It's been incited that the island needed to be roughly
within five hundred miles of Hawaii, or else the castaways
would have died of thirst by the time the crippled
minnow drifted there. That's roughly three to ten days of
sailing time if a raft had been constructed with a sail.

(01:35:35):
Yet this was only done once, and it failed almost immediately.
Had Skipper been a better sailor and navigator, they would
have been rescued relatively quickly, and they also met an
unusually high number of people on the island who would
have failed to notify the authorities of their location. These
people are often referred to as sociopaths in online forums,
and of course there's Gilligan, who simply seemed too stupid

(01:35:55):
to be held accountable for his pups. As one anonymous
forum poster notes on Quora, Uh, had Gilligan died or
been quote eliminated, the group likely would have escaped or
been rescued in short order. You think they would have
drawn straws to see who had to kill Gilligan, or
they all take tens choking him so the blame would

(01:36:16):
be distributed equally. Or they all have crude coconut rigged firearms.
Oh yeah, I was gonna say one of them is
given a blank. Yeah, you know, I like that. I
like that a lot. As you meditate on that, We'll
be right back with more too much information after these messages. Wow, oh,

(01:36:44):
now we're going.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
Now, we're going to one of my favorite sections of
the show that we have not gotten to do anywhere
near as much as I thought we would have.

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
Heigel's fan thory corner. We should have done with apes,
postulating wildly about apes, not the movies, just the apes,
just my theories about them and where they're going, Where
they're going? Why are they we so busy? What do
they have to do? I don't like it. There's been

(01:37:14):
a persistent rumor four years that each of the seven
castaways on Gilligan's Island represents one of the seven deadly sins.
This theory takes an even darker turn, polsulating that the
castaways actually died in the storm at the heart of
their episode, and that the island is actually a hellish
afterlife where they're do to live out eternity for their sins.
That harkens back to antiquity with Dante. Each you know,

(01:37:35):
level of hell is a different sin. But unlike the minnow,
this theory actually holds water. Just rip that out of
the typewriter and read it over to myself and said, God,
I'm good. You've done it. A run dog, you've done

(01:37:55):
it again. Uh Islands. Did you have to trim your
humored how your husy and nails down to even reach
the phone and dial my number? We've spoken on the
phone twice, three times, you know, pushing ten.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Year friendship usually when bad things are happening.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Because someone mailed my the set of keys to my
apartment to an undisclosed location in Brooklyn. Those keys were
never found. By the way, those keys were never found.
We bring Robert Stack making his trademark three steps towards
the camera and pause and is like, update, those keys
were never found. If you were a loved one, Okay,

(01:38:41):
you know where to the spare set of Jordan's keys are. Please, fine,
please give them back to him. It's really alarming to
me that there's someone is just trying every house, at
every home in the borough to see anyway the professor's
guilty of pride. Mister Howell was greed. Ginger is lust,
which hey Marianne representing envy because she yearns for Ginger's

(01:39:02):
looks and lifestyle. The Skipper is supposedly at once at
both gluttonous and wrathful. Poor missus Howell doesn't have a
sin dedicated to her. I presume that she's grandfathered in
with her husband. Gilligan is, according to this theory, satan
because he satan. I don't know where I went walking
with that, uh church lady, Yeah, or the satan because

(01:39:24):
he constantly foils the group's plans for rescue and he's
always dressed in a red He is shockingly Sherwood Schwartz
nice alliteration. Bud wait a little buddy. Jordan is physically
larger than man. He frightens me sometimes shockingly. Sherwood Shorts
went a long way towards confirming this theory. According to NPR,

(01:39:47):
he admitted that the seven Deadly Sins aspect is true
and did factor into his creations with characters. Jerry's still
out on the whole Satan thing, though, saw Move noted
the similarities between the Gilligan's Islands character and the nineteen
thirty nine film Five Came Back starring Lucille Ball. The
characters in that film include a wayward pilot co pilot,

(01:40:07):
a botanist in his wife, a sultry woman with a
shady past, and a rich playboy and his homespun wife.
This was just a plagiarism accusation. There's nothing related to
Satan in there. I don't think there's anything related to Satan.
No bummer, you know earlier speaking of death, Yes, yes,
you know earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
I laughed at the idea of missus Howell quote doing
her own stunts. But there were actually more risks involved
during this production than I would have assumed. Case in point,
the time Alan Hale aka the Skipper, fell out of
a coconut tree on set and broke his arm hilariously
or sadly, I can't tell, which he didn't tell anyone
about it for fear of holding up the shoot.

Speaker 1 (01:40:47):
In the book.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
Inside Gilligan's Island, Sherwood, Schwartz recalled talking to Hale the
season one rap party, where the jolly actor made some
offhand comment about being relieved that the shooting was complete
because now we could take.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
Care of his arm. When Schwartz asked what was wrong
with his.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Arm, Hale nonchantly replied, oh, I broke it a few
weeks ago. He went on to explain that three weeks
prior he had missed the crash pads when he fell
out of the coconut tree for a scene and smashed
his right arm on the stage, and he hadn't sought
medical treatment about it because he didn't want to disrupt
the filming schedule. And Schwartz was dumbfounded. How did you

(01:41:25):
manage to haul coconuts and lift Bob Denver with a
broken arm, because he was made of sterner stuff than
this generation, it wasn't easy.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
Hale replied, that's sad.

Speaker 2 (01:41:37):
Bob Denver had a scary moment of his own, involving
a lion sort of a sigfreed and dar en moment,
did he Jordan?

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
He did? In one scene, Gilligan was supposed to barricade
the door of the Howel's hut closed to escape from
a lion, and in a classic comedic twist, discovered that
the lion is actually inside with him. Although this was
all part of the plot, the lion wasn't supposed to
attack narrator voice. It did.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
It was very aggressive and roared towards a terrified Bob Denver. Fortunately,
the bed it was standing on split apart and its
trainer had time to tackle it before the lion could
eat the beloved sitcom star. Fortunately the lion was so
big that the bed that it was on broke, and.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
Then the trainer just came after it like before the
different generation, just like, hey, you gotta tackle this lion.
Now stubs out cigarette, toss his back rest of drink.
I killed his lion. I brought it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
But in another nod to a changing era, Gilligan's Island
went from black and white to color for its second season,
and with welcome guest stars like Don Rickles, Sakabor, Kurt Russell,
who I think played like a like a kid like
a federal child. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:42:57):
Richard Keel, who played Jaws in Moonbaker, one of the
Bond movies, Yeah, one of the big do you have Acromeglia,
He was in Happy Gil for being the Yeah, I
was gonna say that the guy guns don't kill people.
I killed people guy in from a Good Stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:43:15):
Mel Blank also had a guest role in Gilligan's Island,
and so did Phil Silvers Suchian Bilko himself. Bill Gilligan's
Island was never a critical success, never even earned an
Emmy nomination. It consistently notched the spot in the top
twenty five shows for its first two seasons, but by
the third season it struggled to break the top fifty,

(01:43:36):
even though it still had a thirty share, which is
old school network speak for thirty percent of all viewers.

Speaker 1 (01:43:41):
Tuning in at seven thirty pm on a Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):
The numbers were strong enough to earn the show a
fourth season, but in nineteen sixty seven, the show was
given the boot to make way for appropriately Enough gun Smoke.
According to Ben Costello's book Gun Smoke an American Institution,
CBS canceled Popular Western in early nineteen sixty seven after
twelve seasons, leaving an off the fall schedule. Hilariously, Alan

(01:44:07):
Hale Junior aka Skipper, was friends with Gunsmoke writer Paul
Savage and offered him a sympathies, saying that if any
CBS show should go it was quote that Turkey Gilligan's Island,
Alan Hale would come to regret saying this. Apparently CBS
had decided to get rid of Gunsmoke while network chairman
William S. Paley was on vacation.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
When Paley was back at his desk, he uncanceled Gun
Smoke because it was his wife, Babe Paley's favorite show.
There it is yep. It's like an Oppenheimer when the
guy's like, well, you know, when we're gonna bomb Japan,
just make sure it's not a sokka. The wife and
I him in there. It's a beautiful city, yep. Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:44:47):
He had to get creative with the scheduling, and in
order to find a spot for Gunsmoke to come back
in the fall nineteen sixty seven lineup, he.

Speaker 1 (01:44:55):
Had to cancel Gilligan's Island. That's where the acts fell.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
So after ninety eight episodes over the course of three seasons,
Gilligan's Island was over, and due to this abrupt end,
the series was given a cliffhanger ending with a castaway
still stranded on the island.

Speaker 1 (01:45:12):
Did you see like a boat approaching in the distance
or something? Or is it just no?

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
I think it was mid It was you know, it
was mid midstream. I thought they had another season to go,
But Sherwood Schwartz was undeterred. He kept on trucking with
the Brady Bunch in nineteen sixty nine, which proved to
be I'm pretty sure an even bigger success. But apparently
he felt the whole take a lot of diverse people
and stick them in a dangerous environment idea had not

(01:45:36):
been fully mined yet, and in nineteen seventy four he
premiered a show called Dusty Trail, which was basically Gilligan's
Island in the Old West. He even went so far
as to tap Bob Denver to play the lead in
the show, which chronicled the adventures of a wagon train
featuring a rich couple, a scientist, a farm girl, and

(01:45:58):
a bombshell.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Incredible yep, what a country.

Speaker 2 (01:46:04):
The show was a disaster and canceled after just a
single season.

Speaker 1 (01:46:08):
Wait it, got it, got it went to order. Uh huh, yep,
God damn dude. So he literally couldn't. I mean, what
was his pitch for that Gilligan's Island in the Old West. Yeah,
it's like the John Draper chalkboard meme, like Airbud, but
he's gay this time or whatever. Like he just walked
in and was like Gilligan's Island in the Old West,

(01:46:31):
and they're like, great, let's take it to pilot.

Speaker 2 (01:46:33):
I mean, people probably pitched shows on less using shows
that they didn't create, so at least in this case,
he was like, yeah, I made this show.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
I'm not going to sue you for it. I guess
that's fair. Yeah yeah, yeah, uh so.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
Uh Dusty Trail acts after a single season. But nevertheless,
Sherwood Schwartz persisted.

Speaker 1 (01:46:51):
Nipping off himself. That could you say that?

Speaker 2 (01:46:56):
He spun Gilligan's Island off into a cartoon series called
The New Event Ventures of Gilligan.

Speaker 1 (01:47:00):
In nineteen seventy four.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
At the time, it was very popular to do animated
versions of hit live action TV shows see The Brady
Kids and the Fawns and The Happy Days Gang, among
surely many others. The New Adventures of Gilligan lasted two
seasons until it was canceled in nineteen seventy five, but
a new animated series would take its place in nineteen
eighty two called Gilligan's Planet. I think we mentioned this

(01:47:26):
earlier where the dinosaur was a pet.

Speaker 1 (01:47:28):
Lasting a scant thirteen episodes, the series depicts the castaways
being a drift in space. The Professor builds a spaceship
for their attempt to get back to civilization, but the
ship crash lands on a planet very much like the
island they lived on, but of course it had more
land for them to move around on and dinosaurs and

(01:47:51):
aliens and creatures that they could interact with while the
Professor tried the repair of the rocket. It's like that
family guy bit Stephen King where he's like, it's a haunted,
haunted lamp, all right now, I think it's uh. I
think it's that's almost like a Twilight Zone. Pitch could
get off an island and they wake up and they're

(01:48:12):
in a new planet. Yeah, it's like, it's so so
they do the crane zoom out. They're like, it wasn't
It's not fair. It's not fair. There was time now ah,
that makes me sad. That's a crushing episode. Wow. Probably
that's the one I think about when I think about
Twilight Zone. That and the Bill Shatner Gremlin run.

Speaker 2 (01:48:33):
I think the one where the little kid who would
send people out to the cornfield with his mind?

Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
Did you do that as a child? But he's like,
start and fire, try just try doing that. Do you
remember that one? Right? It's really creepy. I don't think so. No,
wait a minute. The thing is like, I think twilet
Zone is so easily Mandela affected because so many things
have just taken the premise of one of those hundreds
of episodes and either become more famous or more of
a punchline.

Speaker 2 (01:48:59):
No, here we goes called It's a Good Life, and
it's from nineteen sixty one. Six year old Anthony Fremont
has godlike mental powers, including mind reading. He has isolated
his town of Peaksville, Ohio, from the rest of the universe.
He has blocked television signals and caused cars not to work.
He creates grotesque creatures, such as three headed gophers, which
he then kills. Everybody is under his rule, including his parents.

(01:49:22):
The people live in fear of Anthony constantly telling them
how he does everything good. Since he banishes anyone thinking
unhappy thoughts forever to a place that he calls quote
the cornfield. Having never experienced any form of discipline, he
does not understand that his actions are harmful. He's confused
when his father tells him that the neighbors are reluctant

(01:49:42):
to let their children play with him after he sents
several of his playmates to the cornfield. I did not
know that you would like that one. It's very scary. Yeah,
sounds horrible. I don't trust children that don't have godlike powers. Yeah,
check it out, all right, I will. We're getting some
places in this setith, So we really are?

Speaker 1 (01:50:01):
We sure are? Oh yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:50:03):
Before we move on, don Wells provided the voice both
of her character and Ginger, because, as we'll discuss, Tina
Luise didn't win anywhere near.

Speaker 1 (01:50:11):
This her vengeance complete. You don't have to choose between
the two of them, because now one is both. Yep.
It would have been cool if they'd been fused into
a hideous David Croneberg style monster from like cosmic rays
or something, and they crash and she's on the planet
like kill me. That would have been cool. So that

(01:50:32):
was the That would be the end of Gilligan's Island
as a television series. But we hear it, Tim, I
would be remiss if we hadn't mentioned. A trio made
for TV movies that are really something special started with
nineteen seventy eighth Rescue from Gilligan's Island, the first proper
continuation of the series that had ended a decade earlier.
After a long wait, fans were finally treated to what
they were waiting for. Chance for the Seven you wrote it,

(01:50:57):
I know, I'm sorry. A chance for the seven Astaways
to get off the island after being stranded for fifteen years.
This naturally drew a sizeable audience. Story begins when Gilligan
finds a small metallic disc, which he fashions into a necklace.
The Professor somehow determines that the disc is a remnant
from a spy satellite that exploded in the stratosphere above
the island and uses it to make a barometer, which

(01:51:17):
in turn allows him to forecast the weather. In doing so,
he determines that a massive storm is about to decimate
the island. The castaways build a series of huts for protection,
which they lash together before the Governor of Hawaii sent
in the National Guard to beat all of them topical humor.
When the tsunami hits, the huts are carried out to sea,
where they are discovered by a passing ship. They're rescued.

(01:51:40):
Gilligan is interviewed on TV. The makers of the Spy
satellite notice Gilligan's necklace and try to get it back
in various dastardly ways. It's all quite silly, but the
most insane part of the film is arguably the fact
that Gilligan and the Skipper want to open another boat
charter service. You think they would do something like a
kitty ranch or a petting zoo, something dlocked a fish farm.

(01:52:02):
Maybe they really want to stay close to the great
farm Cott Salmon these days. Uh, I don't think that's true.
I think you're supposed to get wild cup. Having done so,
the Skipper and Gilligan invite the original five passengers on
his new and improved SS Mino, and guess what happens, folks.
You'll never guess. One of the stowaways turns out to

(01:52:24):
be Joseph Mengela, alive at that time. As we've discussed
in nineteen seventy eight. You're right, he'd just come from
seeing Greece the Ultimate crossover episode, but he didn't get
to see Goodies. No, he did not leave the sea
Gouronies his loss. Uh boy, we're just stepping in at

(01:52:47):
this one. So Rescue from Gilligan's Island was followed a
year later in nineteen seventy five nineteen seventy nine with
the Castaways on Gilligan's Island, which picks up where the
prior made for TV movie, which left off, where you
really skip it because the Castaways are actually back on
Gilligan's Island. Yeah, surely not renamed by this point, right,
like it had they had discovered it had a name,

(01:53:08):
like it was called like Bloodshell Island or like.

Speaker 2 (01:53:14):
Well it was an uncharted desert isle. That's the whole
point I saw. I haven't been charted yet. Remember in
the in the theme uncharted desert.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
Three hours, close.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
Hour doing it three hour tour islands, it's like three
mile island.

Speaker 1 (01:53:31):
But ah, which happened that year? Right? I came out island.
I forget that. Yeah, you're right. Seventy nine, Yeah, wow,
making connections. The storm contaminated, It's all about connections. The
storm contaminated the water supplies on the island, so Gilligan
was that tasked with exploring the island in hopes of
finding a new source. Eventually he finds a w W

(01:53:53):
I I, the Big one era airplane hangar, complete with
planes apparently it had been hidden for years and underbrush
which had been blown away by the recent storm, along
with that insane Japanese soldier who never surrendered and still
like attacking people in the in the Pacific theater.

Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
Yeah, until probably around this time, or maybe it was
like the late sixties.

Speaker 1 (01:54:13):
That's a crossover. Yeah, damn, what was that guy's name? Japanese?

Speaker 2 (01:54:17):
We got to talk about cargo cults though.

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):
Hrou Onoda. He was in the Philippines. He killed thirty people.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
How many of those were after the war was over? Several,
if I recall, I mean enough of them. When did
he I don't know if he's surrendered, but when did
he leave the cave he was in?

Speaker 1 (01:54:35):
It was a cave right just broadly the jungle. Oh yeah,
nineteen seventy four. They could have pludged the timeline and
made it happen. Man, that would have been awesome. Thirty
years Gilligan's Island meets Hirou Onoda and then they're just
all brutally killed by this mentally insane guy hiding in
the jungle.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
I mean, that could have been an incredible twist, as
if they are going through the island and they stumble
on what they think is some kind of modern civilization
and then they realized that it's a cargo cult, one
of those cults that during tell us about cargo cults. Yes, well,
I'm doing this off the dome, so I'm not going
to get this perfect. But there were cultures on different
Pacific island nations where their first contact with technologically advanced,

(01:55:18):
you know, anyone who wasn't their own, you know, group
of people on the island was during the war when
these huge planes would fly in and drop supplies and
they would set up you know what we now think
of is like modern runways and modern army camps and stuff.
And then after the war they all left again, and
these cultures on these islands thought that, you know, these

(01:55:39):
these visitors were divine and all the things that they
brought were gifts from the divine. So to try to
kind of coax them back, they would build what looked
like modern airports with planes on the runways all out
of like straw and sticks and underbrush, and they would
kind of re enact what we would see people working
on runways do. They would have like those like ping

(01:56:01):
pong paddle looking things and kind of direct and they
would have a fake plane at the end of the runway,
and I think they would even have like one of
those radar tower things. It was really fascinating. You can
see videos of this online. And there's also a cargo
cult that that thought that Prince Philip was divine and
I don't actually really know why that was. And he
was like informed of them, and he like acknowledged their

(01:56:24):
existence by sending them like an autographed eight by ten
glossy and then and then like they they were so
touched that they they sent him like a I think
it was like a hog killing stick, and he was
like advised to pose for a photo with the stick,
just like like and so he sent a photo back
of him with the stick. Yeah, they thought the Prince
Philip was.

Speaker 1 (01:56:44):
Divine, and then they were very very distraught when he died,
as were we all. We all, yeah, all were cargo
cults and probably got that in there. Cargo cults, Yeah, absolutely,
cargo cults. But think about if the Gilligan's Island castaways
stumble on what they think is like on a ma
An army base or a Western army base or any
kind of arm base could have been a decoy cargo

(01:57:05):
cult like thing and they would have been slaughtered. Well,
oh no, I was gonna say. Then they discovered this
just a cargo cult and none of the stuff actually works,
and all the planes and stuff are made out of
like twigs coconuts. Again, yeah, that would have been a
great twist ending. I'm imagining like a Saw kind of
thing where they're like, you know, they meet like hehrou
onoda and it's a it's a brutal man against man

(01:57:32):
occasionally man against woman race for survival, and it's just horrific,
just really awful stuff. Would you like that? I would
if I turned your beloved cherish childhood thing into a
essentially a snuff film, is what I'm pitching. You would,
wouldn't you? You're six out of a bitch? Yeah, it

(01:57:53):
would be great. Is it in the public domain? Yet? Saw?
That was a joke. I know, either Saw nor Killigan's
Island have entered the public domain. How much of a
roub do you take me for one of those people
who thought it was a documentary? Yeah, Alex, the documentary
has lapsed into public domain. It's been one hundred years.

(01:58:15):
You're just living out your life at the farm. I'll
tell you again about the rabbits. Where were we? Oh? Yeah?
So he finds his World War two era thing and
it contains not a half crazed Japanese soldier. But they
fixed one of the planes apparently easier mechanically than fixing

(01:58:35):
a whole in a boat, and they escaped from the island,
which one of them flew you know, I don't know,
might have been the professor. Unfortunately, the plane develops engine
problems while in flight, so Gilligan is sent out with
a parachute to drop some cargo, and of course he
falls off the plane, landing back on the island. Again.
It's the Bardo. You can't escape unless you achieve nirvana.

(01:58:57):
The castoys decide that they have to go back and
get them, even though they're well aware that the plant
could never manage another takeoff, and God, they would just
wave to him in real life, maybe do some thanks. Immediately,
We finally got hed of that fucking guy, but immediately
after landing, the engine falls off. The group realized that
had they kept going, they would have certainly crashed into

(01:59:18):
the ocean. Thus Gilligan's accident saved their lives and he
is hailed as a hero. Blah blah blah. Fortune continues
to smile on the castaways. A navy captain spots their
aircraft on his radar. He pinpoints where they land. They're
taken back to civilization, and the island is charted on
a map so that no one will ever be stranded again.
Flash forward a year. The island has been transformed into
a tropical resort owned by the Howls, who employ their

(01:59:40):
fellow castaways as staff. But wow, as you put it,
what a metaphor for American capitalism. Someone transporting people back
to the site of their most lasting trauma and forcing
them to work for him, or pitching that he worked
for them and relive it every day of their life.
The Skipper and Gilligan provide the shuttle craft that takes
guests from the mainland to the resort and back again.

(02:00:02):
And the whole idea was that this was going to
be another backdoor pilot because it never ends. It was
like Fantasy Island meets love Boat, it meets Diehards Saw,
you know, and it just keeps going. You get an island,
and you get an island, just never ends, the whole idea. Yeah,
so they said it never materialize. Viewership numbers for this

(02:00:23):
were significantly less than the previous Gilligan centric made for
TV movie, which is a phrase that you can say
and mean it. Jordan shockingly.

Speaker 2 (02:00:35):
Oh, I can't believe he didn't take this one. There
was another made for TV movie that followed, and it
sounds like a bit that we'd make up. I'm referring to,
of course, nineteen eighty one's the Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island.
We're gonna add that to the sequel format rotation.

Speaker 1 (02:00:53):
Oh yeah, the Harlem Globetrotters meets the Deer Hunter. Yeah,
Harlem Globetrotters meets Schindler's List and Georgetowter's Harlem in it
would just be the Harlem globe Charters meet Oscar Schindler,
ah Man, good times.

Speaker 2 (02:01:09):
The Harlem Globetrotter's plane is forced to make an emergency
landing on what had formerly been the uncharted deserted island
known as Gilligan's Islands, when they are rescued by Gilligan
and the Skipper and taken to their place of work
at the Howell Resort, which is now run by Howel's
Sun Thirst and Howl the fourth played by supermarket sweep
post David Ruprecht. They said fans of the show up

(02:01:32):
in arms because the couple had previously been portrayed as childless.
This whole sun coming in thing was reportedly because Jim
Bacchus was in poor health, as we will discover. Upon
their arrival of the island, the Globetrotters agree to play
a game against the staff of the resort, who naturally
lose badly.

Speaker 1 (02:01:52):
He's using a friggin ladder. You bet against the Harlem Globetrotters,
seems as is everything.

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
There's a bad guy played by Martin Landau who wants
to buy the island because he discovers as a rare
or buried on it, and he nearly succeeds in purchasing
the Howells Island through various devious methods, but then for
some reason he agrees to not buy the island as
long as the Globetrotters can beat his basketball team, the
New Invincibles, who we learn that's a sick name though, Yeah,

(02:02:21):
who we learn are robots.

Speaker 1 (02:02:24):
I don't know what the Globetrotters know. I mean, in
a way, this is kind of the best sequel. Yes,
yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (02:02:31):
Is this still available? I would like to quote I
think it is. I would like to quote from the
Wikipedia directly. At first, it looks as though the Globetrotters
have met their match, but when Gilligan reminds them that
they haven't been doing their usual Globetrotter tricks, they begin
to score against the team and win.

Speaker 1 (02:02:50):
Guys, you guys aren't even using the latter.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
The bad guy, though, doesn't really care, because while everyone
was is he watching the basketball game he stole He
stole the Ore and loaded it onto his yacht. The
Professor then tells him that the Ore is very unstable
in his present form, much like a spos up, and
it blows up, destroying the bad Guy's yacht and leaving
him penniless. I'm dead and maybe dead, I don't know. Wow,

(02:03:19):
so incredible, I was, I was, I have goosebumps. I
was on tenter hooks. It's very good for the response
to the movie. I would like to quote the Wikipedia
entry once again, because it can't be improved upon. Sherwood
Schwartz was surprised and disappointed.

Speaker 1 (02:03:36):
That the ratings were not higher.

Speaker 2 (02:03:38):
He he lamented that he would never get the opportunity
to produce another spinoff special that he'd conceived, Murder on
Gilligan's Island, Yes, which would have involved a group of
famous detectives investigating the apparent murder of one of the castaways.
I think apparent being the operative word.

Speaker 1 (02:03:56):
There wouldn't even be it was. It was even like
a twist on on on, like like an Agatha Christi
thing where there's only one detective, would have been group
of detectives.

Speaker 2 (02:04:05):
Many and maybe it's they're all like famous detectives from
Maybe it's it's her Q Parole, Maybe it's the others. Yeah,
other it's it's who else, Elliott, I don't know who
are other famous detectives as.

Speaker 1 (02:04:17):
The guy for Elliott gould In Philip Marlowe actually could
be multiple Philip Marlow's. You could have bogie with c
GI these days, resurrect Humphrey Bogart and have him playing
alongside Elliott Gould's Philip Marlowe from Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. Now.
What this presupposes is that there are multiple timelines in
which uh, Gilligan's Island exists on a continue I'm sorry,

(02:04:41):
I didn't wasn't leading anywhere with that. My god was
short's kind of very lucky, and had like two good ideas.
And then he continued, sincerely, believing he'd done something or brilliant.
Such a fine line, isn't it, I mean to.

Speaker 2 (02:04:56):
Quote spinal tap, Such a fine line between clever and stupid.

Speaker 1 (02:05:00):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:05:01):
He also was very sad that he'd never got a
chance to move ahead on another idea for a Gilligan's
Island movie.

Speaker 1 (02:05:07):
There's no way you can improve on Gilligan's Island. The
Detectives this is pretty good. The castaways would learn that
a nuclear war had destroyed human civilization. Yes, zombies.

Speaker 2 (02:05:20):
Bob Dever, he would this is a quote from Bob Denver.
He would describe the premise. Thus, the seven of us
think the world is destroyed, and we get married. Gilligan
marries Maryanne, and they have a baby boy, the professor
Mary's Ginger, and they have a baby girl, and there's
like a blue Lagoon sequence where the kids grow up
and I would imagine sleep together. So when Gilligan's son

(02:05:41):
is twenty, he sails off to see whether the world
is really destroyed, and of course it isn't. They heard
it on the radio and Gilligan broke the radio just
before the disclaimer came on.

Speaker 1 (02:05:52):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:05:53):
So it plays the long con with some horrific slightly
at a boy, but still.

Speaker 1 (02:06:02):
Those kids would be inbred within a number of generations.

Speaker 2 (02:06:05):
Certainly in a way when you think about it, aren't
we all in bread? What's the really breeding?

Speaker 1 (02:06:11):
The friends we made along the way? Oh man, the
only thing left would have been Gilligan's Island with zombies.

Speaker 2 (02:06:19):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (02:06:20):
Yeah, what oh man? They maybe they maybe they turned
to cannibalism. It's too easy.

Speaker 5 (02:06:25):
It is.

Speaker 1 (02:06:26):
It is easy but fun, active and cinematic, and then
it turns into it even more horror thing where they're
breeding just to eat them. Not very cost effective, but
you get it's a pyramid scheme. You get kids to
have kids, and you eat those kids, and but you
retain a couple of pairs for you know, the bloodline,
because the purity is what's important here, Jordan. I admire

(02:06:47):
is purity. I just watched that the other night. Perfect
film Man, Alien or Aliens. That's the original Alien. Yeah,
it's much Honestly, I've come around to it being a
much scarier film, like even though you know, there's all
that claustrophobic action and stuff in Aliens, and there's like
more genuinely like horror kind of big sequences, and the

(02:07:07):
Alien looks better. That first one is just that's a
classic Ridley to Ridley, the Scott editing touch, because Tony
also kind of did that. But it's just breathless, amazing perfect.
Gilligan's Island Versus Alien. Oh no, dude, I've got it.
Gilligan's Island, Predator, Colin Gilligan's Island. Get Shane and Black

(02:07:30):
on the phone and Lloyd Schwartz, Oh yeah, we got
to pitch this today. We have to pitch this today. God,
that is a license to print money. We'll get the
nostalgia bait, We'll get the predators perennially hot. He's always
a hot package or them. We don't actually ever really know.
Maybe all we bring back in, you know, we bring

(02:07:52):
back in Schwarzenegger you just cart him on set for
a day. He calls Gilligan little buddy, and then the
predator disembowls him. Can you can you do?

Speaker 4 (02:08:00):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:08:01):
Schwarzenegger saying little buddy, little buddy, that's gonna be my
nude ringtone for you.

Speaker 2 (02:08:10):
Well, that's great. Let's let that marinate.

Speaker 1 (02:08:12):
This is why we need the pitching podcast is verbal copyright,
verbal copyright. That's the name of the show's verbal copyright. Right.
They really should have done Gilligan's Island meets Star Trek.
Come the fuck on.

Speaker 2 (02:08:25):
It's a little Swinstones meets the Jetsons, though.

Speaker 1 (02:08:28):
How dare you? How very dare you?

Speaker 5 (02:08:33):
Titanic Ahs Titanic one of those survivors swam a long
ass way, yeah, or they're just on an iceberg instead
of an island Gilligan's iceberg.

Speaker 1 (02:08:46):
Yeah, we're such good executives. We are killing this right now.
What are you talking about? Oh? Yes, more TV?

Speaker 2 (02:09:00):
Yeah, more TV reunions with the castaways, which are nowhere
near as interesting in these mainefit TV movies. There was
a nineteen eighty seven episode of ALF titled Somewhere Over
the rerun, which featured Alan Hale Junior the Skipper, Bob Denver, Gilligan,
Russell Johnson the Professor, and Don Wells as mary Anne,
all in character. There was also a nineteen ninety five

(02:09:22):
episode of Roseanne. I still don't understand why this occurred
that featured Gilligan's Island actors playing roles in the Roseanne sitcom.
I guess this is somewhat fitting because the two shows
were filmed on the same CBS soundstage. Bob Denver played Jackie,
Don Wells played Darlene, and they even managed to coax
a rare appearance from Tina Louise, presumably because.

Speaker 1 (02:09:46):
She was given the lead role of Roseanne. Aside from
the Roseanne cameo, Tina Louise only ever appeared but the
cast on two TV talk show reunions, once in nineteen
eighty two on The Good Morning America Show and another
time in nineteen eighty eight on The Late Show with
Ross Schaeffer, where the seven castaways were joined by Sherwood Schwartz,

(02:10:07):
and it was the last time the seven ever reunited
on television. Okay, so music changes, music goes to minor key.
Now we have to get serious. But I just wanted
to point out that there's a Gilligan's Island musical, so
by who some theory kids? Sounds awesome. Yeah, all right,
wrap it up, You're dying.

Speaker 2 (02:10:27):
Gilligan's Island experienced the resurgence when it was included in
a retro syndicated after school programming block for Ted Doerner's
Nascent TVs channel on the late eighties, and it was
given a further boost thanks to its inclusion on Nicked
Knight and TV Land throughout the nineties and early two thousands.
This led to a semi revival of the show during
the peak of the reality TV boom in two thousand

(02:10:48):
and four with the TVs series The Real Gilligans Island.
This survivor esque show featured a cast of contestants marooned
on an island and what I've seen referred to as
quote the Mexican Caribbean, a phrase I have never heard
before or since, and forced a complete challenges inspired by
the original sitcom. Naturally, each castaway was matched to the

(02:11:09):
character type from Gilligan's Island. There was a captain, an actress,
a millionaire's wife, and.

Speaker 1 (02:11:15):
A klutz.

Speaker 2 (02:11:17):
Though it was given the predictable marketing blitz by TVs.
The show was a flop and canceled in two thousand
and five after two seasons. Sadly, this would have been
the last Gilligan's Island themed event that Gilligan himself would
have witnessed in his lifetime. Bob Denver had an interesting
post Gilligan existence. He actually was somewhat relieved when the

(02:11:37):
show was canceled, presumably because he went straight from a
I even imagined demanding role on The Many Loves of
Dobie Gillis straight into Gilligan's Island. He told a reporter
that I've only had one day off in three years. Hilariously,
Once Gilligan's Island was canceled, he bought a sailboat, the
sight of which was often met with onlookers singing a

(02:11:58):
three hour at him, because of course that's the thing,
that's the thing. Yeah, he apparently didn't love that. I
don't know why I find this so interesting. Apparently replaced
Woody Allen in the Broadway production of Allen's play Played
Against Sam in nineteen seventy, and later in his life
he owned an oldies format radio station. Bob Denver was

(02:12:22):
married four times and arrested twice. For marijuana possession hell yeah,
which is sort of not surprising considering his iconic characters
were a beatnick and a klutz. The first incident occurred
in February nineteen seventy one, when drugs and drug paraphernalia
were found in his car, to which he pled no contest.

(02:12:43):
But the more bizarre instance took place in nineteen ninety
eight when he was arrested for marijuana delivered to his
home supposedly sent to him by Don Wells aka Marianne.

Speaker 1 (02:12:54):
Hell yah.

Speaker 2 (02:12:55):
He would refuse to rat Marianne out in court, however,
instead testifying that quote some crazy fan must have sent it,
he pleaded no contest and received six months probation.

Speaker 1 (02:13:05):
That's right, because Denver ain't no snitch. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:13:10):
Sadly, Bob Denver was a heavy smoker of all things,
and in two thousand and five he received cancer treatment
and the heart bypass. He died on September second of
two thousand and five at the age of seventy from complications.

Speaker 1 (02:13:23):
Following his throat cancer surgery. This is where it gets
a little weird.

Speaker 2 (02:13:28):
Apparently, Bob Denver and death are old friends, because.

Speaker 1 (02:13:31):
Way back in nineteen sixty one.

Speaker 2 (02:13:33):
In his pre Gilligan days, he was reported dead more
than thirty six times in more than thirty states, for
reasons that are totally beyond me. It became a common
prank to call a newspaper and ask, is it true
Bob Denver is dead? Purely done in an attempt to
annoy him. He was quoted at the time as saying,

(02:13:54):
at first it was spooky, then it seemed like a gag,
but when it kept up, it.

Speaker 1 (02:13:58):
Made me somewhat angry.

Speaker 2 (02:14:01):
Hilariously, weirdness continued even after Bob Denver died for real.
In September twenty twelve, Twitter exploded with the news of
his death when someone retweeted an MSNBC oh bit that
was seven years old. Because people don't read, they assumed
it was breaking news, and the tweet went viral, leading

(02:14:22):
some not especially cautious news outlets to post the not
technically inaccurate news that Bob Denver had died, except they
failed to note that he had died seven years earlier.

Speaker 1 (02:14:35):
Oh man, that's rich in a wrish text.

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):
It's a very gilligan esque end to Bob Denver's life.

Speaker 1 (02:14:43):
Oh hell yeah, good stuff. Bring it home from me.
Bab that's really good. Yes, the Skipper. Unlike certain numbers
of the Gilligan's Island cast, who will talk about Alan
Hale Junior had no problem in preasing his legacy. In
nineteen sixty seven episode of Batman, he plays a cook
at a diner named Gilligan, actually not his character name,
as keen eared, fans of the show picked up on.

(02:15:06):
In the seventies, he ran a restaurant just off Las
Sunset Strip called Alan Hale Junior's Lobster Barrels.

Speaker 2 (02:15:13):
Yeah, come on, that's funny, that is It's fine.

Speaker 1 (02:15:17):
I guess my first thought was immediately, well, how were
the cheddar biscuits? Each place setting was decorated with a
photo of the Skipper, and Haled himself would often drop
into his place in his own costume to greet diners.
After the place closed. He launched Alan Hale's Quality and
Leisure travel on agency that arranged four boat tours. In
the eighties, he revived his character once again for episodes

(02:15:39):
of the sixties TV show reboot The New Gidget, as
well as episodes of Growing Pains and the aforementioned episode
of alf even appeared in an ad for Canadian Car
dealership employing viewers to visit Ensign Chrysler Plymouth in Victoria.
Tell him the skippers said you so clearly. It didn't
take much for Alan Hale Junior to don his skipper costume.
As he would saynineteen eighty eight, Skipper has become my

(02:16:01):
alter ego. I'm one and the same. Now, Okay, Alan
Hale Junior had to die so the Skipper could live.

Speaker 2 (02:16:09):
Do you see there is no Alan Hill Jr. Only Skipper.

Speaker 1 (02:16:13):
Do you see my great becoming Thomas Harris reference for
you Killigan's Island meets Hannibal because he goes into hiding
on the resort that they found.

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
It is at the end of silence of the lamps.
He's walking off into.

Speaker 1 (02:16:30):
Yes, he's walking into Skillions the resort. Yes, that's good.
That's very verable contract Verbo trade rite trademark. Alan Hill
Junior admirably did a lot of work for charity, even
when he's being treated for cancer. The diagnosis he kept
so private that even his wife didn't know about for
a time until she figured it out on his own.
That is the most mid century mail. Yeah, I can imagine,

(02:16:54):
oh man, And this was the guy, of course who
had kept his broken arm a secret for weeks. He
frequently visited children's cancer warts to help cheer up the kids,
and when a child inquired about his own cancer related
weight loss, Hale told him he was going to be
playing Gilligan in a new Gilligan's Island show. There's a

(02:17:15):
famous story of him visiting a young terminally ill Gilligan's
Island fan in costume as he himself was dying, telling
him the skipper is here and everything is going to
be all right. Hal died in January nineteen ninety at
the age of sixty eight, and appropriately his ashes were
scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Now onto the professor, not

(02:17:36):
a ton that's interesting about him? Yeah, came on an
episode of New Heart. Is a hotel guest who gets
evicted from his room while watching an episode of Gilligan's Island,
and as he's dragged out, he protests, I want to
see how it ends, whereupon he is assured that the
castaways do not get off the island. Johnson also played
the sheriff in several episodes of season nine of Dallas,
but to Jordan, his most famous non Gilligan part is

(02:17:58):
his role in the fifty sci fi clas This Island Earth,
which has been parodied in the full length feature version
of Mystery Science Theater three thousand. Have you seen it?
It's good. No, jokes are a little better in the movie.
I think, well, they had more time with it. Probably not.
Russell Johnson also made the convention circuit thanks to the Mst.
Thu K appearance, where he regaled crowds with what else,

(02:18:19):
mostly stories from filming Gilligan's Island. He would later co
author a book titled Here on Gilligan's Isle, Here on
Gilligans Ah, that's that's the it's so weird calling it
that like a suddenly turned to ash in my mouth. Well,
the theme is Gilligan's Eye Here on Gilligan's USA Islands.

(02:18:40):
But who says that? Maybe there was a trademark. Maybe
somebody verbally trademarked Gilligan's Isle on the title MM could
have been like the whole Georgia Merrill Night A Living Dead,
Living Dead, where the one guy got the phrase living
dead and George Ramiro got the chronological thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah, Hollywood, uh yeah the book Yeah. I would

(02:19:04):
later co author book Heroin Gilligan's Eye, which offered behind
the scene anecdotes and the revelation that the professor's many
experiments were actually scientifically correct. Presumably, Johnson was a bit
of a tinkerer. He told a story about buying tools
that builders emporium one time, when the clerk stopped him
and asked, are you going to fix the radio? Cute?

(02:19:24):
He died of kidney failure in twenty fourteen at the
age of eighty nine. Less cute.

Speaker 2 (02:19:30):
Speaking of less cute, it's over to mister Howell to
quote Morrissey. He was the first of the Gang to die.

Speaker 1 (02:19:37):
Jordan, are you a surprised Smith's fan's smattering?

Speaker 2 (02:19:42):
Smattering, smattering?

Speaker 1 (02:19:44):
That was solo. That was a late solo. That was
like I want to say, like two thousand and seven
and eight. That was a solo. Morrissey, Yeah, first of
the gang to die. Name Damon, I guess, yeah a lot.
It's a good song anyway, all.

Speaker 2 (02:19:57):
Right, some of our British listeners. I think that was
a big hit. Anyway, we have British listeners.

Speaker 1 (02:20:03):
Yeah, my apologies both for being British and all of
the things I've said.

Speaker 2 (02:20:08):
Yes, our friend John Yeah, he went to he's a
big fan of our Titanic series.

Speaker 1 (02:20:12):
John oh right, Yeah, Hey John, Sorry, I said all
that stuff about the British constantly. All right, Jordan, take
it home. Yes. Jim bachis who played mister Howe.

Speaker 2 (02:20:23):
He suffered from Parkinson's disease in his later years, and
he was in very poor health throughout most of the eighties.
That was apparent in the Harlem Globetrotters abomination in nineteen
eighty two. In nineteen eighty seven, he had to be
bodily carried into Sherwood Schwartz's seventieth birthday party because he
could not manage the steps into Shrewood's house. Christ Around

(02:20:44):
the same time, he reunited with his former co star
Natalie Schaeffer in an advertisement for I Don't know why
this occurred Orval Reddenbacher's Popcorn, playing the Howls one final
time before passing away on July third, nineteen eighty nine.
Speaking of the Howls, Natalie Schaeffer she had a tough
time adjusting to life off the island. In a nineteen

(02:21:06):
eighty nine interview with The Saint Louis Dispatch, Schaeffer detailed
how the role limited her acting opportunities. She said, most
of the young executives and casting agents don't see passed
my role in Gilligan. I was on stage for years
before the show, and I can still do drama that
they don't see it that way. She died in nineteen
ninety one a breast cancer, at the age of I

(02:21:27):
think like ninety one.

Speaker 1 (02:21:28):
She had had a long life. Oh damn. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:21:32):
She was childless and left a significant portion of her
fortune to her favorite teacup poodle, with instructions that the
money be donated to the Motion Picture and Television hospital
after the dog's death. The hospital now has a Natalie
Schaeffer wing.

Speaker 1 (02:21:47):
Not the dog. They should have named it for the dog.
I'm sorry, that's obviously what they should have done.

Speaker 2 (02:21:58):
It's rumored that Natalie Shaeffer also left money to her
Gilligan's Island co star Don Wells aka Mary Anne, who
lived with and helped care for Natalie while she was
sick during her final days. Mary Anne, though Marianne, continues
to be the best, she cared for Natalie Schaeffer.

Speaker 1 (02:22:14):
She sent pot to Bob Denver.

Speaker 2 (02:22:16):
I would hope by his request, because if not, that
was a mean spirited prank that resulted in lawsuits. She
went golfing regularly with Alan Hale and was the only
cast member to attend this funeral service, upping her karmic
cred even more. She owned a company called Wishing Wells
her name is Don Wells, which made clothing for people
with disabilities. Oh so we love Marianne. She was set

(02:22:40):
to play the role of Nora in Disney's live action
movie Pete Dragon, but bowed out at the last minute
I'm not sure why, and was replaced with.

Speaker 1 (02:22:48):
Helen I Am Woman Ready.

Speaker 2 (02:22:51):
She also auditioned for the role of Lois Lane in
nineteen seventy eight Superman alongside Christopher Reeve, but lost out
to Margo Kidder.

Speaker 1 (02:22:59):
I could see her being really good in that. What
do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'll tell
you a part that Marianne did. Get the spokeswoman for
Idaho Potatoes. That's right, folks, Idaho Potatoes.

Speaker 2 (02:23:17):
She got the gig in two thousand and four and
performed for duties with great a plum over the years.
In fact, a publicity video released by the Idaho Potato
Commission featuring Wells demonstrating the perfect weight to appeal and
Idaho potato went viral, racking up ten million views on YouTube.
I can only assume there's some kind of fetish that

(02:23:38):
we are not aware of.

Speaker 1 (02:23:39):
Yeah, what's that's a Midwestern thing?

Speaker 2 (02:23:44):
Stone Wells, in addition to being extremely kind, was also
kind of brilliant when it came to business. The premiere
of Gilligo's Island took place just before syndication became a
common practice in sitcoms, and all the actors signed deals
that guaranteed them a certain number of money per original episode,
plus residual payment for the first five repeats of each episode,

(02:24:04):
because that was how it was done in the mid sixties,
since TV shows were usually only rerun as summer repeats
between seasons. But Don's husband at the time was a
talent agent, and he advised her to ask for an
amendment to her contract, promising her residuals in perpetuity. Producers
didn't care because I never assumed that the show would
be airing six years later, let alone sixty years later,

(02:24:27):
and as a result, Don Wells became the only cast
member to continue to earn money on the show throughout
her entire life. Sherwood Schwartz also did because he created
the show. Obviously, he earned an apparent ninety million dollars
from Gilligan's Island before his death in twenty eleven at
the age of ninety four. Ninety million from Gilligan's Island alone,
not to mention the Brady Bunchkin country. My god, Well

(02:24:52):
hold that thought, because there's there's some more uniquely American
twists in this. Unfortunately, what I imagine to be sizeable
residuals and her inheritance from Natalie Schaeffer were not enough
to shield Don Wells from the evils of the American
healthcare system. In twenty eighteen, a friend started a GoFundMe

(02:25:13):
page for her benefit to assist in healthcare payments after
she was reportedly quote desperate and quote lost everything in
her life savings due to an unexpected life saving surgery
and two month recovery period in a hospital.

Speaker 1 (02:25:27):
Christ See, that's what you got to keep acting, man,
because you get the SAG insurance. Oh yeah, yeah, yea yeah,
just enough to qualify. Yeah. According to Fox News, it
was a botched surgery to repair a broken knee. He
go fund me description detail that Wells had been struggling
financially since the two thousand and eight recession and needed
extra help in paying off her hospital bills and also

(02:25:48):
some additional IRS penalties. There it is Dawn, you scam.

Speaker 2 (02:25:54):
Thankfully, she earned nearly two hundred thousand dollars from the
crowdsourcing platform, which I feels only fair considering all the
joy she's given people over the years. Sadly, she died
on December thirtieth, twenty twenty of COVID nineteen. The week
prior to her death, she recorded a Happy New Year
video to release on the holiday, which fell a day

(02:26:17):
after her death. Ugh this leaves Tina Luise as the
sole surviving cast member of Gilligan's Island, which proves that the.

Speaker 1 (02:26:27):
Universe is a sense of humor.

Speaker 2 (02:26:29):
Because she famously hated the experience, believing that it ruined
her acting career and led to her forever being cast
as ginger analogs, Tina Louise attempted the shehad he comedic
image by playing darker roles, such as a heroin addict
in a nineteen seventy four episode of Kojak Nice and
a cruel corrections officer in the nineteen seventy six television
movie Nightmare. In Batham County, as Russell Johnson, the Professor

(02:26:54):
would say, she quote divorced herself from the show as
soon as it went off the air and refused to
participate in any of the reunion projects between two to
one off talk show appearances in the eighties. In that way,
she's like jan from Sherwood Schwartz's other smash, The Brady Bunch,
who also declined to participate in a lot of Reunion
TV spinoffs. And also, I think they played like a

(02:27:17):
teenage runaway or a hooker or something. Try to shad
her her Brady Bunch image anyway.

Speaker 1 (02:27:22):
Yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do, man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:27:25):
In Tina Louise's defense, she reportedly offered to appear in
nineteen seventy eighth Rescue from Gilligan's Island made for TV movie,
but the salary she demanded was considered too high. Don Wells,
as we mentioned earlier, voiced both Marianne and Ginger's characters
in the cartoon Gilligan's Planet, which may have been partially
responsible for the beef between them. They reportedly turned down

(02:27:47):
many requests to appear on TV together and also in
ad campaigns.

Speaker 1 (02:27:50):
Over the years.

Speaker 2 (02:27:52):
Reportedly because they never much cared for one another and
didn't speak for a long long time. The big exception
I've seen it was a nineties old Navy ad which
featured the pair reprising their roles as Marianne and Ginger
still stuck on the island.

Speaker 1 (02:28:07):
I wasn't able to find that though. I did find
some island based old Navy ads, but I couldn't find
that one on YouTube. You know, island based old navy
ads that old saw set on an island. Yeah, I
think I remember that commercial.

Speaker 2 (02:28:24):
Yeah, I think I kind of did too, but it
seems highly mandelible though, that's true.

Speaker 1 (02:28:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:28:30):
Tiner Louise's relations with series star Bob Denver were rumored
to be strained as well, but in two thousand and
five she wrote a brief, affectionate memorial to him.

Speaker 1 (02:28:39):
In the year end farewell issue of Entertainment Weekly, shortly
after his death.

Speaker 2 (02:28:44):
However, in December twenty twenty, I would assume shortly before
Don Wells dies, considering she died on the thirtieth, unless
they got it right under the wire on the thirty first.
Tina Louise deny that she ever resented the role of
Ginger Grant never true, she said, I love doing my part,
especially after they really started writing for my character.

Speaker 1 (02:29:05):
Originally Bill was a Marilyn Monroe type.

Speaker 2 (02:29:07):
A different director took over and really started to write
for my character. I really loved my character without naming her,
but you know, at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (02:29:16):
Why wouldn't she.

Speaker 2 (02:29:18):
It's a show that brought three generations by now sixty
years of fans, so much joy, and you know, considering
I think we've just hit exactly three hours.

Speaker 1 (02:29:29):
Oh, I think that's an appropriate place to end our
three hour tour of Gilligan's Islands. Nailed it, That's all
I always thinking other Gilligan's Island spin offs. Oh, where
you got Killigan's Island Escape from Beneath the Planet of
the Apes? Mm hmm, Gilligan's Island Cruise Control where they
get picked up by a cruise ship. Nice. Nice, nice.

(02:29:51):
Now you're cooking on Now you're cooking with gas. That's
all you need.

Speaker 2 (02:29:54):
I mean, I don't need anything, And that became the
Love Boat.

Speaker 1 (02:29:59):
Yeah. How deep does it go? Mike? Think goes all
the way to the top? Is that?

Speaker 2 (02:30:07):
The last chapter in Chaos the Charles Manson book. We
started talking about three hours ago.

Speaker 1 (02:30:11):
Twenty years, the next twenty years of our life, Buddy,
he's better strap in. You and I are going to
be seeing a lot of each other. Ah, this has
been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtogg.
We'll catch you next time. Too Much Information was a
production of iHeart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel

(02:30:34):
Brown and Jordan Runtogg.

Speaker 2 (02:30:36):
The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

Speaker 1 (02:30:39):
The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg
and Alex Heigel.

Speaker 2 (02:30:43):
With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

Speaker 1 (02:30:46):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe.

Speaker 4 (02:30:48):
And leave us a review.

Speaker 1 (02:30:49):
For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Black Member,
m D Clack, Satin and Ta

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