Original subtitles

Just sit right back

and you'll hear a tale

an improbable tale of a classic sitcom.

It is the longest running shipwreck in television history.

How did a series no network wanted to air

become one of the most recognizable

TV shows in the world?

The head of CBS didn't like the idea particularly.

My dad had his own creative vision

for what the show would be like.

There wasn't a lot of love for it.

There was a lot of why you can't do that.

"Gilligan's Island",

the story of seven, shipwrecked castaways.

It was unlike anything else that was on TV.

We the audience, don't know what to root for

because if they get rescued, the show's over.

We take you beyond the island

back to the very beginning.

No one wanted to buy the show. They hated it.

From the complicated casting.

Dad thought Jerry Van Dyke could be

the perfect person for Gilligan.

Raquel Welch, he thought she was a little too sexy for the part.

To the original cast members

who never made it to air.

He had to call them up and say that

they were gonna be replaced.

Learn how "Gilligan's Island"

became an instant hit, if not a critical darling.

If you ever last more than six weeks,

that's the first prophecy.

One of the worst shows ever on television.

During one of the most tumultuous times

in American history.

There was Vietnam, protesting. There was the Cold War.

The president had been shot.

There was backstage drama.

Bob Denver and Tina Louise, uh, were not close.

She was a little bit aloof from the other castaways.

There were network battles.

One of the vice presidents of CBS thought

it would liven up the show

if they put a dinosaur on the island.

The network censors weren't always too thrilled

about her cleavage.

Learn how an abrupt end to the series

was both a blessing and a curse to the castaways.

I think all of us suffered

from what you might call type casting.

Join us as we take you on a one-hour tour

of one of the most unlikely, enduring phenomenons ever made.

It has been rerun more than any other show including "Lucy".

"Gilligan's Island" is a national treasure.

In 1974, legendary television creator,

Sherwood Schwartz is on a mission to sell

a TV reunion film of one of his most famous series,

"Gilligan's Island".

Sherwood Schwartz was, I think, one of the most

persistent men in television.

He knew that we loved "Gilligan's Island".

And he never stopped trying to give us more.

After the series surprise cancellation

seven years earlier, Schwartz is convinced

the fans remain eager to learn what became

of the seven castaways of the S.S. Minnow.

Dad wanted to get them off the island eventually.

And felt that the people who loved the castaways

would like to see them be rescued.

But the major networks think the pitch

is dead in the water.

So we created this idea called "Rescue from Gilligan's Island",

and it was turned down everywhere.

The letter from CBS says, not only do I not want to see this,

I can't believe anybody else would tune in.

So it was rejected.

It would take Sherwood Schwartz four years

of pitching his TV movie

before he would receive a green light from NBC.

Dad believed that there would be a big audience

who had grown up or lived with these characters

who would tune in to see them get rescued.

And he was so right.

In the fall of 1978,

NBC airs "Rescue From Gilligan's Island".

And for the network, it's a risk that pays off

when more than half of all American households

tune in to watch the castaways get rescued.

The highest-rated movie of the year,

everybody wanted to see what happened to those people.

Welcome home, castaways.

You can tell by the enormous crowd that the country

is delighted that you've finally been rescued.

Well, we're delighted to be back.

Yeah, yeah, I'm great.

That first TV movie gave us, clearly gave us what we wanted

and Sherwood was right because it had stellar ratings.

And that launched, of course the appetite for a second TV movie,

and then a third.

We got to see them share their island with the world

by turning it into a resort.

The show's creator's persistence pays off,

but for Schwartz it was certainly not the first time

his shipwreck sitcom had been rejected.

By the early 1960s, television sets are a staple

in most American homes.

And as US involvement in Vietnam grows,

families are looking to hold on to simpler times

from days gone by.

The TV landscape in the 60s for comedy

was the traditional, family comedy.

There was "Leave it to Beaver", "The Dick Van Dyke Show".

It was the last vestige of 50s conservatism being stretched.

And one of the people responsible for many

of the jokes that keep viewers tuning in week after week

is then writer, Sherwood Schwartz.

Sherwood Schwartz had been a comedy writer since the days

of Bob Hope on television.

Sherwood started contributing and writing as a freelancer.

And it became his career.

Dad had been very successful having written

"My Favorite Martian" and "Red Skeleton",

and "I Married Joan" and a lot of shows.

In the summer of 1963,

Schwartz is fresh off winning an Emmy

as the writer on the long-running series,

the "Red Skeleton" show

and is finally ready for some of his own ideas

to take center stage.

My dad believed very strongly that humans on this planet

need to work together and learn to live together in peace.

And he was trying to figure out someway of saying that,

that would entertain people but get his point across.

He said he wanted to create a world, a microcosm

of different types of humanity

and show how they're forced to get along with each other.

The inspiration for Schwartz's series

is one that he's been carrying around for quite sometime.

He was at a class at NYU and they had an assignment about

if you could take one thing to an island, what would you take?

Schwartz soon realizes that his one-time

college assignment provides just the right setting

for his microcosmic scenario.

And he woke up in the middle of the night one time and said,

a deserted island. That's it, a deserted island.

They can't get, then|re shipwrecked.

They can't get away from each other.

And he, he poked my mom when, who was sleeping next to him

and he said, honey, honey, a deserted island.

My mom said, go back to sleep.

Over the next several months,

Schwartz conjures up various scenarios

for how a group of people

could end up stranded together on a deserted island

until he finally settles on a premise.

Seven stranded castaways on an uncharted island

and are every week trying to get the attention

of civilization, so that they can be rescued.

As the premise takes shape,

so too do the castaways who would inhabit it.

When dad would create a show or write anything,

he wants to create characters that are far removed

from each other.

And it makes if very easy for the audience to understand.

So each of these people would have different attitudes

about whatever they were talking about.

The characters were intended to represent

segments of society,

male versus female, rich versus poor,

maybe more educated versus less.

But this being the 60s, there was no thought

to ethnic diversity, gender diversity.

These were not times when people thought that way.

With a finished script,

Schwartz begins the arduous task

of shopping his idea around to the major studios of the time.

Sherwood Schwartz was trying to sell "Gilligan's Island"

to the networks based on the idea that this is a microcosm

of American society.

And the network reaction was like just blank looks

like what does the word microcosm even mean?

And no one wanted to buy the show.

There wasn't a lot of love for it.

There was a lot of, why you can't do that.

My dad had his own creative vision

for what the show would be like.

And he um, he had to try to sell that to executives

who don't necessarily share your own, your vision.

But the ever-persistent Schwartz

stands by his idea and he takes his pitch back to CBS

to try and sell the series one more time.

The head of CBS didn't like the idea particularly.

And in fact, when dad presented it, he said,

and they've got these seven people that's on the island.

And he said, what about the next week?

Well, that's the show. It's gonna be on this island.

And he said, no, no.

In a sit-down interview with Connie Martinson,

Sherwood Schwartz recalls his meeting with the head of CBS.

He wanted it to be uh, Gilligan's Travels.

And he wanted the first episode to consist

of what my idea for the whole series was.

The next week, the ship has been fixed,

the little boat has been fixed.

And they're off on a different adventure.

That's when your battles begin with the network.

Yeah.

Because what he was really suggesting was a different show.

Even the executives that do like Schwartz's concept

think he should push the premise even further.

At one point, one of the vice presidents of CBS

thought it would liven up the show

if they put a dinosaur on the island.

And I think that was a little bit too far for my dad.

I don't think that he agreed with that.

Despite their hesitation,

CBS gives Schwartz's pilot the green light.

And armed with an approved filming budget,

Schwartz can now begin his search

for the perfect cast of castaways

starting with the first mate of the ill-fated charter boat.

It's the, it's the naive character

It's, it's a type that's been played since ancient theater

of the bumbling fool.

And unfortunately his bumbling nature

often sabotages what could be a rescue until he ruins it.

Schwartz knows that he wants to center the show

around the hapless mate, so first order of business

is to settle on the character's name,

which would also inform the show's title.

Sherwood Schwartz was just flipping through the Los Angeles

telephone book for names and he hit upon Gilligan.

And he told me that he could've picked a funny name

like Mulligan.

It could've been like Mulligan's Mire, and he said,

but he wanted a name that was less comedic in itself,

but still sounded a little comedic, but didn't,

wasn't trying to like hit you over the head.

Now Schwartz just needs the right actor

to play the titular Gilligan.

Dad had done a pilot for a different show

and he became familiar with Jerry Van Dyke.

And so he thought Jerry Van Dyke would be the perfect person for

Gilligan and had the same agent.

And then Jerry Van Dyke was presented two shows.

And one was "Gilligan's Island" and one was "My Mother the Car".

And the agent who was my dad's agent said take

"My Mother the Car". And that was how.

I think dad fired the agent after that.

With Jerry Van Dyke out of the mix,

attention turns towards another established comedic TV actor.

I was a major fan of "Dobie Gillis".

And I knew Maynard, which is Bob Denver.

Let's try another approach.

Can you fight dirty? - Maynard, try to be helpful.

- Okay, call off the fight. - What? And lose face?

Either way that's what's gonna happen.

I repeat, call off the fight.

And dad didn't know who Bob Denver was and I said, take him.

He's great. That's the guy you gotta get.

I met with Sherwood Schwartz, the producer, writer and um,

he was telling me about "Gilligan's Island" and I said,

could you give me some premises?

And he said, well, a surfer rides in on a giant tidal wave,

lands on the island. I went, what?

I said, well, how do you get him off the island?

And he says, a reverse tidal wave takes him back to Hawaii,

knocks himself out and he can't remember where he was.

And he told me a few premises and I started laughing,

and I said, I want to do it very much.

Joining the first mate as the boat's captain

who was known simply as The Skipper.

The Skipper is an experienced sailor, but even he did not

expect this squall that came up outside of Honolulu

where they left and which got them stranded.

Uh, and he and Gilligan have a comic rapport

that is the heart of the series.

It's very "Laurel and Hardy" in terms of their physical types,

the skinny one and the fat one.

But there's such love between them.

They treat each other like father and son.

But finding just the right actor to play off

Bob Denver's, Gilligan proves particularly difficult.

My dad always thought that The Skipper was going to be

his biggest challenge in casting.

And it turned out to be true.

Pretty much any big guy in Hollywood had come in

and auditioned for that role.

And he couldn't find anybody.

I mean, I know Carroll O'Connor came in.

I don't know who else. There were several others.

A frustrated Schwartz feels as though

he may never find his perfect Skipper.

Until one evening when a chance encounter changes everything.

He went out to dinner with my mother.

And he looked over on the other side of the restaurant.

There was Alan Hale.

And he was eating and dad said, that's him.

That's The Skipper.

A star of the big screen as well as the small,

Alan Hale, Jr. is mostly known for his supporting turns

in westerns as well as for his countless guest spots

in a wide range of popular TV programs.

And so he went home and he called the casting person

and said, I want to bring Alan Hale into read

for The Skipper 'cause he has that quality.

With the boat crew fully onboard,

it was time to book the first two passengers.

The passengers being

Mr. and Mrs. Thurston and Lovey Howell.

And they are the archetypal, snobbish rich people.

And they represent, particularly Mr. Howell represents greed.

For Sherwood Schwartz

there is only one actor who could play

the role of Mr. Howell.

Dad and Jim Backus had a long-time relationship.

They had worked together on the radio, so dad had him

in mind for this part. And Jim trusted dad.

And therefore he got the part of Mr. Howell.

But Jim Backus was very, very popular worldwide

at that time as the voice of Mr. Magoo

in the animated cartoons.

And also, uh, Jim Backus had been a movie star

and had starred as James Dean's father in the movie,

"Rebel Without a Cause".

What are you?

And so he was like a really huge name to bring

to "Gilligan's Island".

For the role of Lovey Howell, Thurston's

better half, veteran star of stage and screen,

Natalie Schafer is immediately brought up

as an ideal candidate.

The casting of Mrs. Howell, uh, I think,

was a more usual route.

I think that there was an executive there

that knew her and suggested her.

Natalie Schafer had done a lot of work on Broadway.

You can see her in a lot of old movies.

She was very gifted.

Another refusal for president and Mrs. Van Buren.

In the original, pilot episode,

some of the now iconic characters look a bit different.

The role of Mary Ann is initially named Bunny

and is played by Nancy McCarthy.

The original Professor is played by John Gabriel.

And Ginger is originally portrayed

as a more brassy, sarcastic type by Kit Smythe.

So it was Ginger, Mary Ann and the Professor

who were three different actors at that time.

The cast is assembled

and they are ready to start filming the pilot,

but a national tragedy threatens to derail everything.

In late 1963, production is about to begin

on the pilot episode of "Gilligan's Island".

The Hawaiian island of Kauai is chosen as the shooting location.

For the cast assembled, there are still a few more tasks

for Schwartz to complete before filming can commence,

including naming one of the show's most crucial characters,

the charter boat.

The S.S. Minnow got its name from um, Newton Minnow.

Newton Minnow was the chairman of the FCC

and he was famously quoted as saying

that television was a vast wasteland.

And Sherwood believed that Nelson Minnow through the FCC

had shipwrecked network television.

And dad in his sense of humor

thought he'd give a wink to that and named the boat the Minnow.

The four days of filming are filled

with script rewrites, sunburned actors

and sand-covered equipment.

But nothing prepares the cast and crew

for what transpires on the last day of filming.

And they're on the beach filming it,

and somebody came running up and said that

President Kennedy had been assassinated.

They were told that the president

had been shot and killed.

And it was very difficult for them to continue working

that day, but they did have a schedule.

Despite the unimaginable tragedy unfolding

in the country, production resumes after

a national day of mourning.

And if you look at the pilot film of that original pilot when

they're sailing on the boat out,

you'll see that the flag is at half staff there.

And that was because of that.

With principle photography now complete,

Sherwood Schwartz oversees the edit of the pilot

and soon presents a rough version to CBS.

There's just one problem.

They hated it.

It is a devastating blow to learn

that his new pilot, "Gilligan's Island"

would not be moving forward at CBS,

but Schwartz refuses to go down without a fight.

He finds out exactly what it is the powers that be

didn't enjoy about the pilot and comes up with a plan.

And so dad said, can I have the film?

And they said, yes.

And so he went and paid somebody, an editor

to cut it the way he wanted it to go.

In the original version of the pilot,

we meet the castaways as they're all boarding the S.S. Minnow

at the marina.

But in this recut version, the series opens

with the characters already shipwrecked.

The construction of the show changed

and so inherently the show changed.

After a major retooling of the episode,

Schwartz delivers a new version of the pilot to the studio.

And reaction to this revised pilot is significantly better,

except for three very specific concerns.

So the original three actors,

the Professor, Ginger and Mary Ann were John Gabriel,

Kit Smythe and Nancy McCarthy.

Usually it's the network decides that they're not working.

And three actors got replaced.

And that's always a hard thing to do.

I know that it actually pained my dad a lot

to have to tell those actors. You know, he loved them.

And he had to call them up and say that

they were gonna be replaced.

Once again Schwartz finds himself going through the

casting process to find just the right actors to play the newer

versions of the three castaways starting with the Professor.

The Professor on "Gilligan's Island"

made everything sound like it could be possible.

I mean, he took the most absurd kind of inventions and

made you believe that it made total sense that, that coconut

would make those batteries last.

Sometimes his inventions worked, sometimes they don't.

Of course, there's the perennial question of, if he can do all

that, why can't he fix a hole on a boat?

Don't think about it.

To find the right person to convincingly deliver

all of the Professor's complicated dialogue,

Schwartz looks to well-known actor, Russell Johnson.

Russell Johnson uh, had reached 40 years of age.

And at that age at that time period,

that's usually when you got your own sitcom.

And it hadn't happened for him, so he took this role.

Actually this opportunity came back to me three times.

The first two times I said no because there were other things

that I thought I was going to do, which didn't work out.

The third time my agent called me and said uh,

that they were going to recast. - Oh.

You know the Professor and the two girls.

And uh, I said, okay, well, I'll take a shot at it.

As for the role of Bunny, the secretary,

the part is completely rewritten to become Mary Ann,

a wholesome farm girl.

Mary Ann Summers is for some reason taking a cruise

from Honolulu alone

wearing a little gingham shirt and short shorts.

Don't think about it, but she is the innocent.

And she's the girl next door.

The role of Mary Ann quickly becomes

a highly-sought after role in Hollywood.

I know that dad brought in Racquel Welch

for the part of Mary Ann. And I think um,

he thought she was a little too sexy for the part.

Imagine Racquel Welch on that island with...

That would be quite a show.

After a thorough search a young, up and coming

actress and former Ms. America contestant

comes in for a screen test.

Dawn Wells who was Ms. Nevada and had been like

in the beauty contest.

And she was about 22, 23 years old.

Dawn was you know everybody's view of wholesome

and she really was.

You know, when you're doing any series, you want to tap

into how people really are.

And Dawn was not very much removed from Mary Ann.

And I auditioned for about a week, 250 women,

girls coming back and forth.

They kept telling me I had the role and yet they kept having me

come back tomorrow to audition with somebody else,

and no contracts were signed.

So you know how tenuous that position is.

And I think on a Thursday afternoon this gorgeous girl

came in and this gorgeous figure to test for Mary Ann.

I thought well, that's it. But she didn't get it.

More challenging to recast

is the role of Ginger, the movie star.

Ginger Grant is an actress who really was starting to hit it

big in Hollywood when for some reason

she got on that doomed S.S. Minnow.

And so her storyline, her arc throughout the series

is that she wants to get back to Hollywood

before her star cools and reclaim her throne.

The team offers the role of Ginger to famous blonde

bombshell and real-life movie star, Jane Mansfield

who turns it down.

The casting team then begins to court rising theater and

film star, Tina Louise.

Tina Louise had probably one of the more promising

film careers among everybody in the cast.

May we introduce, if you please, a young lady

named Tina Louise.

She's a star of movies and of TV.

Very beautiful as you can see.

When they had uh, Tina Louise come in to play Ginger,

she had a sexuality, but an innocence and a wide-eyed

kind of just uh, feminity.

So they rewrote the Ginger character for Tina Louise.

There's just one problem.

Tina Louise is apparently under the impression that

she signed on to do a very different show.

Now Tina was doing Broadway and she was a movie star.

And whoever went to her and told her about the show,

unfortunately described it in a way to get her to do the show.

They said it was, it's about this movie star

that gets marooned on an island with six other people.

Well, that sounded, hey, it's about me.

I'll do the show, so she signs on to do the show

and suddenly she's getting the scripts

and it's not about Ginger. It's not Ginger's island.

And then uh, she went to dad and they had a meeting.

And dad said he didn't know who told her that, but he said,

didn't it give you a hint when it was "Gilligan's Island"?

After the pilot is reshot and re-edited

with its new cast members, Sherwood Schwartz meets

the studio bosses at CBS to learn whether or not

this new version would set sail.

As it turns out, then CBS president, Jim Aubrey

still has a few concerns.

So in a meeting with Mr. Aubrey,

he said how are we going to explain these seven people

on the island every week? People are gonna tune in.

And dad said well, there would be a song.

So dad realized he had to write the song.

Especially with a show like "Gilligan's Island" where people

might be turning in for the first time

and they missed the original pilot.

And they go, why are these people stuck on this island?

And it sets it off where here's our premise and you got a chance

to meet the characters before you launch into the show.

George Wile wrote the music. It became a sea shanty.

And it's the "Gilligan's Island" song

that you know today.

♪ The mate was a mighty sailing man ♪

♪ The skipper brave and sure

♪ Five passengers set sail that day ♪

♪ For a three hour tour,

♪ a three hour tour.

It tells the whole story.

It gives you the tone, the setting, the persona.

It's brilliant.

And it does it in a tune that'll never leave your head.

The revised pilot of "Gilligan's Island"

is then screened for test audiences.

And it tested through the roof.

And in fact, Mr. Aubrey, when he called up my dad to tell him

that he was putting the show on the air, he said, Sherwood,

I still hate your [bleep] show, but I'm putting it on the air.

"Gilligan's Island" premieres on September 26, 1964

to solid ratings and enthusiastic audience response.

The critics, however, are less than impressed.

It was basically called,

the worst show in the history of television.

People loved it. The critics hated it.

They could not have been further apart.

They basically lambasted it. What did they think?

Piece of junk. Never be more than six weeks.

Never last more than six weeks was the first prophecy.

One of the worst shows ever on television.

I guess, they're kind of eating their words now a little bit.

Dad, he had a great sense of humor about that.

He said, I do shows for the people.

I don't care about the critics.

And the people continue to tune in

week after week propelling "Gilligan's Island"

into the top 20 shows of the year.

And as things in the real world get darker,

the need for Schwartz's escape from reality

only becomes more critical.

In the fall of 1964,

the show about seven marooned castaways

continues to defy the odds by consistently winning

its Saturday evening timeslot.

It was the show for the whole family.

You felt good at the end of an episode of "Gilligan's Island".

It just captures your imagination.

And then you picture yourself.

What would you do if you were living on this island?

You know, and you can imagine yourself you know.

They're building these huts and sleeping in a hammock.

And uh having coconut cream pies.

And so I think it's just got a lot of allure and magnetism

to kids of all ages.

We the audience, don't know what to root for

because if they get rescued, the show's over.

And as the country continues to navigate

great unrest.

For many, "Gilligan's Island" is a perfect escape.

There was Vietnam. There was protesting.

There was the Cold War.

And then you have castaways stuck on a desert island.

And it made no sense. It was escapism.

When you think of the tension that was going on in America

in the 1960s, why would they want to go back?

Being marooned on a desert island sounds great.

I would love one now.

The early 1960s is also a time of conservative

censorship rules for network television.

Tina Louise has this amazing body

and she was very proud of it.

And so she should've been, but the network censors

weren't always too thrilled about her cleavage.

And on the other hand, you had Dawn Wells

who had a belly button like most people do.

And the network censors weren't very happy about that either.

We weren't allowed to show my navel.

When I had my little short shorts, we had to have a little

point up to cover my navel.

Also at that time period of course, you know even

on the "Dick Van Dyke Show" there's two separate beds

that Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore sleep in.

On "Gilligan's Island" even Mr. and Mrs. Howell

sleep in separate cots on the island.

Behind the scenes, the cast enjoys working

on the series and bringing their wacky characters to life.

The cast, all of them were so warm and friendly, and nice

that it was hard to find a group of people

that was more of a family than these seven castaways.

But just like with any family,

it isn't always smooth sailing.

Bob Denver and Tina Louise uh, were not close.

They were, they admired their talents,

but they were just not close.

Sometimes I would notice that Tina uh, Ginger

was off by herself with a parasol.

She was a little bit aloof from the other castaways.

There's nothing acrimonious about it,

but she was a little aloof.

But overall, the seven actors each enjoy

their time on set from the youngest...

Dawn loved being Mary Ann. She absolutely adored it.

To the possible oldest.

Natalie Schafer, Mrs. Howell,

nobody knew how old Natalie was.

She never told anybody her age, never told anybody her age.

And she was married to Louis Calhern,

a pretty important Shakespearean actor.

And he was dying.

He was in the hospital dying and he said,

would you please tell me your age?

And he, she said, never.

And then he died.

She did her own stunts.

Natalie was the one character of all of them

that absolutely insisted on doing her own stunts.

It was a lot of fun. It was great.

It was great to go to work.

Yeah, we had different episodes that you know,

we'd just be finishing one and we'd be sitting there

on a Friday and say, well, this is the silliest thing

we've ever done.

And some crew member'd say, did you read next week's?

As Gilligan's inaugural season continues,

the popularity of the series, lovingly dubbed

TV's best, worst show by critics only grows.

In fact, some viewers feel such a strong connection

to the stranded seven, the line between TV and

reality becomes a bit blurred.

It's very humorous by today's standards that viewers believed,

actually believed that there were seven castaways

stranded on an island.

And they wrote letters and sent telegrams to the US Coast Guard.

As "Gilligan's Island"

prepares for its second season,

several changes are made to the popular sitcom

starting with the rest.

So in the theme song to "Gilligan's Island"

for the first season, it was...

♪ With Gilligan The Skipper, too ♪

♪ The millionaire and his wife ♪

♪ The movie star And the rest ♪

We unfortunately left out the Professor and Mary Ann.

The Professor and Mary Ann.

They were kind of like less important characters

when they first created the show.

And in fact, Dawn and Russell would always

refer to each other as the rest. You know?

Everybody said to me, all the fans said, you can't,

how can you leave them back there you know and all that?

So I went to CBS and I said, you know you've gotta bring 'em

up front with the rest of us.

And they said, no, they have contracts.

That's read-in credits.

And I said, well, I have a contract

that reads first billing. And they said, yes.

And I said that means I can go anywhere.

And they said yes.

And I said I want to be in back with the rest.

- Oh, did you do that? - And they went... What?

I said, yeah it can say, you know Gilligan last.

I can choose my billing.

And they went, oh, we'll move them up.

- I didn't know- - Well, why not?

I mean, it was silly. - That was so nice.

By the time the show's second season premieres

in the fall of 1965,

many American homes have switched to a color television.

So accordingly, "Gilligan's Island"

also makes the switch.

Times changed.

All of a sudden, everybody had color TVs.

And they were switching to color broadcasting.

Fortunately for fans,

in the show's second season

the castaways still don't appear any closer

to leaving the island.

So instead a crew of guest stars come to them.

For its second season, "Gilligan's Island"

moves from Saturday nights to Thursday nights.

A move which doesn't seem to affect its ratings.

Dad was always very proud of the ratings.

Then it was moved from Tuesday night to Saturday night,

whatever was you know, but it was still doing well.

As the show's success continues,

guest stars join the castaways in the sun and the sand.

One of the things I love the most about "Gilligan's Island"

and one of the things that at the same time

is the most ridiculous about "Gilligan's Island"

is the number of guest stars they had.

There's such a great time-capsule element

to finding some really great comic performers.

Or people just who were famous for being famous

like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

You know Professor, I never met anyone like you.

You see the crazy ways that they end up on the island

and then end up leaving the island

without rescuing the castaways.

Don Rickles shows up as a kidnapper who keeps kidnapping

the various castaways on an island.

I'd give anything to be like you.

Big, strong, good looking and honest.

Kurt Russell shows up as a Jungle Boy.

Come here, Jungle Boy.

Uncle Thurston Howell the Third would like to leave you a

little something in his will.

And every Gilligan fan has their

all-time favorite episode.

A favorite episode of fans is called the friendly physician

in which a mad scientist shows up on the island

played by Vito Scotti, a famous character actor.

And he's got these booths, so he puts the castaways

in different booths. And he changes their bodies.

One of my favorite episodes, The Mosquito's episode.

Four musicians basically modeled after The Beatles

show up on "Gilligan's Island"

and they're called The Mosquitos.

It's kind of a dig at The Beatles.

Their names are Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving.

♪ He's a loser Call him anything you choose ♪

And the castaways decide to form rock and roll bands

to inspire The Mosquitos to bring them back to civilization.

So the men form a band called The Gnats, which is awful.

And the three women form a band called The Honeybees.

They're The Honeybees and they're great.

And they're in these little outfits that they look,

Ginger has never looked sexier than she did in that.

♪ I can picture a moon star Like a golfer into par ♪

Again, why were these things, costumes in their trunks

when they took a three-hour tour.

I don't know, but it's, it's, there are t-shirts of it.

There are pictures of it. It's, that's a fan favorite.

After an equally successful season two,

a third season is green lit and premieres in the fall of 1966.

Despite moving to a trickier Monday evening lineup,

the show continues to win its time slot.

Reassuring the Gilligan team that the castaways

would be sticking around for at least another year.

And dad made all the calls to everybody and said,

we've been picked up for the fourth year.

And everybody was very excited about it, you know?

People buy houses and things.

And everybody's getting ready for a fourth season

and then there was the wife of one of the executives at CBS.

Her favorite show was "Gunsmoke".

And there was not a place in the schedule

to put "Gunsmoke",

but they couldn't move Gilligan anywhere else.

And so now the executive said, where's "Gunsmoke"?

Where's "Gunsmoke"? Like they didn't know.

And they said, oh, it's right here

and they erased "Gilligan's Island".

And that was the end of the show.

Because the original series had been canceled

so suddenly and unceremoniously, there was no finale.

And with no closure for the series,

legions of disappointed fans are left to wonder

what became of their favorite castaways.

Do you know what? Dad was very uh, practical

about things and I know the hard part for him

was to tell all the actors

that they weren't gonna be working again.

It was very difficult.

After the unexpected conclusion of the hit show,

the seven castaways all attempt to move on from the island

with varying degrees of success.

When any series goes off, if it's a very successful series,

the people on it, that's how people are known.

And they don't get cast so easily.

Right after uh, the show was dropped in '67,

we all in a sense suffered a kind of, of type casting

of being put in a box by people.

And it took a while to get out of it.

There was also a stigma back then

to being a TV actor versus a film actor.

They were very separate career paths for an actor.

Today, you can do anything.

Back then if you were a TV actor,

you barely got a chance to do film.

If you were a film actor and you did TV, you were slumming.

You would probably never be able to do film again.

By the early 1970s, "Gilligan's Island" has been off

primetime for several years, but it has since been introduced

to a whole new audience in day time.

"Gilligan's Island" became popular in reruns.

And they start, you know, they start syndicating it

because they can make more money in syndication

just like they do today.

And "Gilligan's Island" was just so popular

that it just like spread like wildfire.

Well, I think sometimes family introduces the new ones

to shows that they love.

There was something magic about every single episode

that people could watch them over and over again.

And it was unlike anything else that was on TV.

And the show's popularity in syndication

only continues to grow as it is shown in more

than three dozen countries and dubbed in multiple languages.

"Gilligan's Island" is typical of a lot of shows

that my generation grew up with where they were over and done

with long before I was born, but they were on TV

five days a week and probably for two hours a day.

And "Gilligan's Island" was that show.

I'd come home from school. "Gilligan's Island" is on.

It has been rerun more than any other show including "Lucy"

because there were far less episodes.

So it just keeps turning over and over, and over like that.

The resurgence in the show's popularity

even lead to several animated spinoffs

with most of the original cast reprising their roles.

You got a cartoon, a Saturday-morning cartoon

version of "Gilligan's Island".

You've got "Gilligan's Planet", yet another cartoon version

set further afield.

But a new generation of viewers means a whole new

group of frustrated fans who were left pining for answers

about the fate of their favorite castaways.

But luckily, they would not have to wait for answers much longer.

In 1967, "Gilligan's Island"

is abruptly canceled after wrapping up its third season

leaving its cast, crew and fans stranded.

But over the next several years after an unexpected

resurgence in popularity through syndication,

one major question endures.

More and more had seen it.

And the big question became, do they never get off the island?

Are they still there?

You think about it.

"Gilligan's Island" was like purgatory.

It's people stuck on an island trying to get off every week

and there's no happy ending to the show.

It just ends.

It was the stuff that little, innocent nightmares are made of.

- NARRATOR: But in 1978, fans would finally get the answers

they've been seeking for more than a decade.

I know that dad originally wanted an episode where

he could rescue them, but as the show had been yanked

off the air so unceremoniously,

the castaways were stuck there for many years.

And that's why he decided to do "Rescue From Gilligan's Island".

The two-hour TV movie is green lit by NBC

on one condition, Sherwood Schwartz reassemble

the original cast to once again portray the iconic roles.

We had to get all the cast back together, which is very

difficult because the cast knows that they have the parts.

You know when you're trying to cast somebody,

there's a negotiating kind of a thing,

but these people knew they had the parts

and they did very well.

Including the same kind of number for Tina,

but by that point she had kind of had it with the show.

And so she decided not to join.

They couldn't get Tina Louise to be on the show,

so they had to cast somebody else.

Judith Baldwin played the role of Ginger Grant,

which is unfortunate because it's such an iconic role.

Despite only getting six of the seven

original cast members, NBC schedules the television

event to air in the fall of 1978.

Dad wanted to get these castaways rescued

and believed that there would be a big audience.

And he was so right.

"Rescue From Gilligan's Island"

is one of the highest-rated TV movies of all time.

Hooray, we're saved.

Thanks to Gilligan.

And in the film, the castaways are finally

rescued after the Coast Guard spots the seven on a raft

and returns them to civilization.

It was, it was very kind of satisfying,

but it was also sort of subtle

because once they get off the island

they find really having a hard time of adjusting

after they'd gotten so used to just being themselves,

knowing each other and nobody else.

And through a number of typical "Gilligan's Island"

kind of things, they end up shipwrecking

on the same, exact island again.

So after the reunion movie was such a hit in the ratings,

Sherwood was able to convince them to you know

to make more reunion movies. They made a movie called,

"The Castaways of Gilligan's Island".

And then the "Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island".

Although six decades later,

"Gilligan's Island" remains as popular as ever.

Nick at Night, TV Land, all those kinds of places

had these shows on reruns, so "Gilligan's Island" gets

another big boost, people watching it on cable.

"Gilligan's Island" was not meant to be shown in the 1980s,

but it was still there.

It was not meant to be shown in the 1990s.

It is still there.

And it lives through syndication.

It lives through reruns.

And I think "Gilligan's Island"

is a national treasure.

I think Sherwood Schwartz truly succeeded in creating

his microcosm, a long-lasting microcosm despite the networks,

despite everything.

It's a microcosm that has legs that will last forever.

And to this day, fans of all ages continue

to debate some of the eternal "Gilligan's Island" questions.

This was a three-hour tour.

All of a sudden there's a volcano on the island.

How come we never saw that before?

They were only an hour and a half away from mainland.

Why do they have money with them?

That doesn't make any sense.

So like was there a conspiracy on the island?

Like was Gilligan out to sabotage every rescue attempt?

How could nobody have found them?

How could the Coast Guard have not found them?

Why can't they fix the boat?

The Professor can't patch a hole in a boat?

Of course, is the eternal question,

Ginger or Mary Ann?

"Gilligan's Island" has become sort of

a part of the American folklore.

It's the longest running shipwreck in television history.

It's still in reruns worldwide.

I mean, it's, you can go everywhere on the planet

and people know what "Gilligan's Island" is.

I think it's timeless for one thing.

I mean, I think you have no idea when it was shot.

Also, I think everybody has a fantasy of wanting

to be marooned.

And with my experience this last 30 years with listening to fans,

it was the family.

I would kid dad about the fact that it seems,

his shows seemed to be addictive.

And I said, I finally figured it out.

You put something in the film that made it addictive,

that people would have to keep watching.