Gilligan's Island

ClassyCo

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I watched four episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND last night, all from that first B&W season. The first two I watched are two episodes that I'm very familiar with, while the latter two were somewhat new to me.

I'll discuss them in order they aired originally.

I watched the episode called "The Big Gold Strike" (November 28, 1964), the ninth episode of the first season. It centers around Gilligan and Mr. Howell finding a gold mine on the island, a gold mine that Mr. Howell decides to claim as his own. He smuggles Gilligan into mining the gold mine at night while the other castaways are asleep. Mr. Howell convinces Gilligan that if the other castaways find out about the gold mine they will become greedy and therefore unbearable. It doesn't take long before the Skipper, the Professor, Ginger, and Mary Ann find out about the gold mine, however, and they naturally want their cut. Mr. Howell refuses to give anything from "his" gold mine, and therefore everyone starts charging him for their services: the Professor charges for candles, while Ginger and Mary Ann charge the Howells for their supper and serving them. Meanwhile, the Skipper, the Professor, and Gilligan have been preparing a rubber life raft that Ginger and Mary Ann caught in the lagoon. It was the exact life raft that had been lost during the wrecking of the S.S. Minnow. In the end, the life raft sinks and it's because everyone, excluding Gilligan, had taken gold aboard the small raft. It was apparently destroyed beyond repair and everyone looses their gold. This episode offers one of the few instances where Gilligan wasn't a cause of the castaways not getting rescued.

The next episode I watched was "So Sorry, My Island Now" (January 9, 1965), the fifteenth episode of the first season. This episode is actually one of my favorite episodes of the entire three-season-run. Gilligan thinks that Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Ginger, Mary Ann, and the Professor have been eaten by a sea serpent, leaving he and the Skipper as the sole survivors. It isn't long before Gilligan and the Skipper learn that a Japanese soldier (guest star Vito Scotti) has landed on the island and that he has captured the other five castaways believing that WWII is still underway. The soldier believes that Mr. Howell is the leader of this little army, and he tries to get information out of him. Ginger tries to woo the soldier into releasing them, but he ultimately sees through her phony advances and refuses to let them go free. In the end, it is Gilligan that sneaks the soldier's gun and keys away from him, therefore freeing all the castaways. The solider flees from the island thereafter. This has always been a very funny episode to me. Vito Scotti does a very good job as the Japanese soldier, even though his performance would probably be considered racist by today's standards. He appears another few times throughout the rest of the series, but as different characters. "So Sorry, My Island Now" is easily one of my top five GILLIGAN'S ISLAND episodes.

I am very familiar with those two episodes. I've watched them many times before. Often when I get a unction to watch GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and I want to see something from that first B&W season, I'll watch one or both of these episodes to kick-start my little marathon.

I also watched the episode called "Physical Fatness" (May 8, 1965), the thirty-second episode of the first season. The plot basically concerns Skipper's efforts to loose weight and Gilligan's efforts to gain weight -- both so they can enter the navy once they've been rescued from the island. Meanwhile, the Professor has made a phosphorescent dye marker that will hopefully help the castaways get rescued. The mixture is so bright that sailors and pilots could easily view in both day and night. In the end, Gilligan drinks the dye and becomes the island's spotlight to attract rescuers. I honestly don't think I've ever watched this specific episode before last night. There was nothing that happened that brought back any memories whatsoever. I found the episode quite funny and enjoyable. I've always liked the episodes where the Professor mixes up crazy tonics and other what-nots with everyday island material to get the castaways rescued. The creativity this show employs is incredible. A total suspense of one's belief in logic is necessary for you not to find it silly. Of course, it is all quite silly, but GILLIGAN'S ISLAND never pretended to be anything else.

The last episode I watched was "Goodbye, Old Paint" (May 22, 1965), the thirty-fourth episode of the first season. Alexandre Gregor Dubov (guest star Harold J. Stone), a snobbish and reclusive artist, is found as having been living on the opposite side of the island. He lets it be known that he brought a transmitter with him to the island so he could phone a ship whenever he wishes to leave. He refuses to let any of the castaways to use it for their own rescue, but eventually agrees to allow their use of it for favors of food and a more comfortable place to sleep. Mr. Howell tries to come up with ideas to convince Dubov to call for a rescue. The first plan is unsuccessful, but the second, consisting of Gilligan masquerading as an artist, gets under Dubov's skin and he flees the island and leaves a unusable transmitter behind. Dubov leaves a note inside the unusable transmitter saying he has floated to another island and he's never seen nor heard from again. There was little about this episode that brought back any memory: While I didn't recognize Harold J. Stone in his guest gig as Dubov, I did vaguely remember seeing the scenes of Ginger and the Skipper posing for their portraits. This was a very funny episode and I enjoyed it thoroughly.​
 

darkshadows38

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i haven't watched this in years or the tv films that are also a lot of fun too. i do not know the episodes well enough to say i don't remember this or that.
 

DallasFanForever

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I watched four episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND last night, all from that first B&W season. The first two I watched are two episodes that I'm very familiar with, while the latter two were somewhat new to me.
Great post about these episodes @Caproni!! That definitely brought back some memories as I haven’t seen any of these episodes in quite awhile.

I think one of the first episodes I think of is The Pigeon from 1967. But to me, this episode is more about that big spider in the cave. That thing gave me the creeps as a kid and literally scared the living tar out of me. Of course when I see that episode now I laugh at it because obviously the spider is so fake, but watching that as a kid I would turn the other way thinking poor Gilligan was about to get killed.
 

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When I'm in the mood to watch GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, it's pretty much always episodes from the color seasons. The only B&W episode I tend to watch is "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk", the Christmas episode from the first season. I have a large collection of holiday-themed sitcom episodes arranged in a playlist, which I watch throughout December.

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ClassyCo

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When I'm in the mood to watch GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, it's pretty much always episodes from the color seasons. The only B&W episode I tend to watch is "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk", the Christmas episode from the first season. I have a large collection of holiday-themed sitcom episodes arranged in a playlist, which I watch throughout December.
I'd like to see the B&W episodes get a good colorization.

I actually like your idea of watching the Christmas-themed episodes of these old shows during December. I need to look into that myself.​
 

Snarky Oracle!

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As much as I like the mood of the 1964 first seasons of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and BEWITCHED, both shows were breezier and more pleasant in their color incarnations than the other too-loud sitcoms of the late-'60s.
 

ClassyCo

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As much as I like the mood of the 1964 first seasons of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND and BEWITCHED, both shows were breezier and more pleasant in their color incarnations than the other too-loud sitcoms of the late-'60s.
GILLIGAN'S ISLAND was really made to be in color. The colors on the island provided a scenery that seemed a little too "escapist" to be in B&W. That's why I'd be alright if someone did a good remaster and colorized the 36 B&W episodes of the show.​
 

DallasFanForever

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GILLIGAN'S ISLAND was really made to be in color. The colors on the island provided a scenery that seemed a little too "escapist" to be in B&W. That's why I'd be alright if someone did a good remaster and colorized the 36 B&W episodes of the show.​
I tend to agree. To me the episodes in color are much more enjoyable because I think the show is really meant to be in color. Seeing the scenery of the island in black and white just isn’t the same for me. I watch those episodes feeling something is missing.
 

Crimson

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I'm ambivalent to the idea of the first season being colorized well, but putting color on it wouldn't make it feel closer to seasons two and three. The later seasons have a different vibe than the first. Personally, I don't like the tone of that first season; I find it vaguely disconcerting and out-of-sync. Color would be a superficial change.
 

Seaviewer

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The first season has been colorised.
All 36 episodes of the first season were filmed in black and white and were later colorized for syndication. The show's second and third seasons (62 episodes) and the three television film sequels (aired between 1978 and 1982) were filmed in color. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan's_Island
I gave my impressions of the two animated series in another thread. New Adventures is a good, albeit juvenile, continuation, while Planet is probably best thought of as a dream (the show was big on dreams) had by Gilligan while bored running the resort which by then been established in the live-action movies.
 

Chris2

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And those colorizations were done 30 years ago and are awful. MeTV showed the B&Ws when they first acquired the show, and then about a year ago starting triumphantly proclaiming they had the color versions now. Ugh.
 

Miss Texas 1967

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Watched the movies for the first time. The first wasn't bad but my goodness by the time the third rolled around it was awful.
 

DallasFanForever

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Watched the movies for the first time. The first wasn't bad but my goodness by the time the third rolled around it was awful.
The first one was watchable, at least to see what happened to them after all those years and see them finally get rescued. And the bitter irony of them ending up back there is a good ending.

But those other two movies are just brutal.
 

Miss Texas 1967

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The first one was watchable, at least to see what happened to them after all those years and see them finally get rescued. And the bitter irony of them ending up back there is a good ending.

But those other two movies are just brutal.
They also sort of ruined the entire point of the show. Seven people on an island is interesting, visitors coming and going (without them) is interesting, a Love Boat style plot already has a show, it's called the Love Boat lol. Gilligan's Island those movies were not. Also the third movie was just horrifically awful in plot. Like cartoonishly bad. The show was offbeat and absurd at times but evil master and robot was just too much.

I also think the characters suffered from not being together. It makes sense that they'd all go back to having their own lives but then why are we following them? They also gave so little substance to the characters. Mary Ann and Ginger in the second and third movies had almost nothing to do. Tina Louise was missed too, she played Ginger with a little something extra that the replacements didn't have.
 

DallasFanForever

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Also the third movie was just horrifically awful in plot. Like cartoonishly bad. The show was offbeat and absurd at times but evil master and robot was just too much
I try to pretend this movie doesn’t exist, nor the one before it. I love the Globetrotters. I saw them in person as a kid, but I have no idea til this day what they were doing on Gilligan’s Island.

Tina Louise was missed too, she played Ginger with a little something extra that the replacements didn't have.
There’s only one Ginger. I was a teenager watching one of these reunion movies one time back in the 80s and I had no clue it wasn’t Tina Louise. I just assumed it HAD to be her. And the whole movie I’m asking myself why doesn’t this girl look like Ginger? Why isn’t this girl acting the way Ginger acts? If I knew it wasn’t the real Ginger I wouldn’t have watched.
 
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