6 ‘Gilligan’s Island’ Facts That Are More Fun Than a Coconut Radio
If you came of age watching Gilligan’s Island reruns every day, it might come as a shock to find out that the series only aired for three seasons. But while it was in production only briefly, the show made a yacht-sized dent in popular culture — over 60 years after the first episode premiered, we’re still thinking about the show’s charmingly silly plots, the Skipper’s constant frustration with his “little buddy” and whether you’d rather date or be Mary Ann or Ginger.
But even if you’re such a fan that you have your own coconut radio at home, you may not know these six facts about the show. Read on — it’s more fun than going on a three-hour tour that ends up lasting three years, we promise.
1 The pilot didn’t air on TV until 1992
Though the first series episode of Gilligan’s Island, “Two on a Raft,” which aired on Sept. 26, 1964, is often referred to as the pilot, the show did actually have a proper pilot — one which didn’t see the light of day for nearly three decades.
The reason? Well, only four of the castaways featured in the pilot made it to the actual series — Ginger and the Professor were played by other actors, while Mary Ann didn’t exist at all; instead, the crew included a blond airhead named Bunny. The details of their characters were also different: The Professor was a high school teacher, while Ginger was a sexy secretary who worked in an office with Bunny, rather than a glamorous movie star who had no connection to the other folks marooned on the island.
The producers considered the pilot episode a rough draft and stored it away in the studio’s archives. It might have remained there forever had an employee of the cable station TBS not read about its existence in a book on Gilligan’s Island. As luck would have it, TBS’ parent company, Turner Entertainment, had recently purchased the film library of MGM/United Artists … which just so happened to contain the original, never-aired pilot.
TBS created a special event to screen the pilot in 1992, with a video introduction from Bob Denver — who admitted that even he had never seen the pilot! The special was followed by a screening of Rescue From Gilligan’s Island.
2 The pilot was filmed the same day that JFK was shot
The final day of work on the pilot was Nov. 22, 1963, one of the most infamous days in 20th century history. As the pilot was being filmed in Hawaii, it took a moment for the news to reach the cast, who crowded around the radio between takes for more information on the death of President Kennedy.
Though the cast didn’t comment on this strange experience, there is a small sign that it occurred, hidden within the Season 1 opening credits (which utilize footage from the pilot). At around 20 seconds into the opening sequence, as the SS Minnow leaves port, an American flag can be seen flying at half-mast in the background.
3 The Skipper’s real name is … Jonas?
Dark Sky Films
In the wacky world of Gilligan’s Island, it’s easy to accept that some people, like Thurston Howell III, are frequently called by their full names, while others, like the Skipper and the Professor, are never even called by their first names. But if you saw the first aired episode, you witnessed one of the only moments when the Skipper’s full name was revealed: Jonas Grumby. It’s mentioned in two radio news reports in the first season — one, in the first episode reporting on the loss of the Minnow and its passengers, and later, in one faulting the Skipper for the Minnow‘s wreck.
The Professor’s real name, Roy Hinkley, is also mentioned in these radio reports, but comes up one additional time, in a conversation with Mr. Howell. These mentions were the last anyone ever heard the name “Jonas Grumby,” however (honestly, that might have been for the best).
4 The lagoon became a parking lot
Richard R. Hewett/TV Guide/Courtesy Everett Collection
Though the Gilligan’s lagoon is one of the most iconic settings in classic TV history, you definitely can’t ever visit it in person — after 30 years of it being used for other shows, including St. Elsewhere and Evening Shade, in 1995, it was paved over to increase the employee parking area at the CBS Studio Center. “They’ve paved over a lot of memories, as far as I’m concerned,” Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, told The Los Angeles Times at the time.
5 Ginger only participated in one reunion sequel … on Roseanne
Tina Louise, who played Marilyn-esque movie star Ginger, was famously the sole hold-out during the show’s multiple reunions. The role of Ginger was played by Judith Baldwin in 1978’s Rescue From Gilligan’s Island and 1979’s The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island, and by Constance Forslund in 1981’s The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island.
However, Louise did participate in one cast reunion … it just wasn’t one of the sequel films. Instead, she appeared in a reunion on a 1995 episode of Roseanne, which reunited the living cast members in a dream sequence reminiscent of the ones that frequently popped up on Gilligan’s. In it, Louise plays Roseanne, while Denver (in clip-on earrings!) plays her sister, Jackie. Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, appears as Roseanne’s ne’er-do-well son-in-law Mark, while Wells portrays Roseanne’s sassy teen daughter, Darlene (there’s also a cameo by then-79-year-old series creator Sherwood Schwartz). As Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer had all died, this was the first full reunion of all living Gilligan’s Island cast members.
The surviving islanders reunited again in 2004 to be honored by TV Land with a special award. It was to be the last reunion of this group, as Denver passed away the following year, on Sept. 2, 2005.
6 It inspired a literary novel
Ron Thal/TV Guide/Courtesy Everett Collection
Many classic TV shows have spun off their own novelizations, like Mork & Mindy, Flipper and Happy Days. However, Gilligan’s Island inspired a very different kind of novel — Gilligan’s Wake, a 2003 novel by film critic Tom Carson (the title is a play on Finnegan’s Wake, the classic James Joyce novel published in 1939).
Rather than adapt the plot of the show, Gilligan’s Wake uses the plot and characters as a jumping-off point for seven intertwined tales, each told by one of the castaways about their life before the island — stories filled with cameos by modern celebrities, major news events and some fairly shocking twists. In the book, the Skipper talks about a frightening encounter during his service in the Pacific Theater of World War II, Lovey Howell recalls her doomed love life during her time as a young Jazz Age flapper, and the Professor is revealed as the morally bankrupt creator of a sinister experiment that stranded a group of civilians on a desert island.
Reality is called into question frequently in each story, making the book less an expansion of the series aimed at fans and more an experimental mashup that examines how viewers relate to TV characters and make them part of our inner lives. “The irony … is that I never had any special attachment to the show,” author Carson said in an interview with Wisconsin public radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge. “What fascinates me is that even if you never cared about Gilligan’s Island, those seven familiar characters are just branded into your brain anyway. They’re familiar to you.”
As far as we know, Gilligan’s Wake is the only major literary novel to be based on a classic TV show … though that might not be true forever. Lassie and Brady Bunch fans, take out your pens and start writing!
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