Gilligan's Island

An Industrial History of Gilligan’s Island

20 Gilligan’s Island Were None” (season 3, episode 81, December 5, 1966) features Gilligan as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and “Up at Bat” (season 3, episode 69, September 12, 1966) involves Gilligan dreaming he is Dracula after having been bitten by what he believes to be a vampire bat. In this book, I will explore the unique way in which Gilligan’s Island constructed American identity as especially performative and malleable. An Industrial History of Gilligan’s Island Gilligan’s Island is the archetype of the 1960s telefilm sitcom. Shot almost exclusively on a soundstage in Los Angeles, the show from its first broadcast suffered the scorn of critics everywhere . The reviewer for the L.A. Times argued, “Gilligan’s Island The Professor desperately tries to fix the radio, the castaways’ only link to the mainland, in “Goodnight Sweet Skipper” (10/17/64) 01 Metz text.indd 20 1/20/12 12:00 PM 21 An Industrial History of Gillligan’s Island is a show that should never have reached the airwaves, this season or any other” (qtd. in Bathroom Reader’s Institute 38). The San Francisco Chronicle notice was even more blunt: “It is difficult to believe that this show was written, directed, and produced by adults. It marks a new low in the networks’ estimation of public intelligence” (qtd. in Bathroom Reader’s Institute 38). At first glance, the ending of “Gilligan Goes Gung-Ho”—in which Sheriff Gilligan locks all the castaways into a cave for minor offenses, thus making it impossible for them to signal a passing search plane—seems to provide perfect evidence for the reductive narrative of which the show is so often accused: yet again, Gilligan does something stupid, and yet again, the castaways are improbably stuck on the island, “as primitive as can be.” Yet Gilligan’s Island is a far more complicated text than the attacks on its formulaic reductionism would indicate. Clearly an example of television in the era of “the vast wasteland,” Gilligan ’s Island is also an intelligent response to such a critique of television’s childish imbecility. The era from which the show emerges is named, of course, after John F . Kennedy’s FCC commissioner Newton Minow’s 1961 speech at the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual conference challenging owners of affiliated stations to watch their programming for just one day without going mad at its inanity. Gilligan’s Island most famously in its naming of the castaways’ wrecked boat, the SS Minnow, provided Sherwood Schwartz with a vessel for arguing against the FCC commissioner’s elitism, the extra n in the boat version of the commissioner’s name perhaps identifying him most directly as a smelly fish. Schwartz has many times expressed his anger at Minow’s elitist policies, most frequently in his book, Inside Gilligan’s Island (xv, 5). Gilligan’s Island proposes that popular culture might just be the correct vehicle for social analysis (as Schwartz argued by pitching the show to CBS head William Paley as a “social microcosm”). Shakespeare scholar Paul Cantor analyzes the re01 Metz text.indd 21 1/20/12 12:00 PM 22 Gilligan’s Island ductionism of Gilligan’s Island quite differently than the show’s contemporary newspaper critics: “When one adds up all the characters who come to the island from mainland civilization, it becomes clear that the castaways are better off where they are. Neither too primitive nor too corrupted by modern civilization, they are free to lead a virtuous democratic existence on their island” (Gilligan Unbound 22). When one goes back to look at the Gilligan’s Island pilot, one can see the logic of the original critics’ arguments. In the pilot accepted by CBS Television, which Schwartz disavows because it was edited out of his control, more time is spent on the preparations for the voyage, since the network refused to allow the use of Schwartz’s theme song for the production of the pilot. Instead, a Caribbean singer narrates the shipwreck story in a different song. Also, the characters are less defined, with Bunny (Nancy McCarthy, who would be replaced by Dawn Wells playing Mary Ann) and Ginger (Kit Smythe) both similarly ditzy secretaries. The comedy of the pilot (which was not aired until TBS showed it on October 16, 1992, with an introduction by Bob Denver) is flat at best. The episode features some gags on which the...