Inside Gilligan's Island: A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making Of A Television Classic - Softcover

Schwartz, Sherwood

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312104820 ISBN 13: 9780312104825

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1994

Synopsis

Join the creator of Gilligan's Island for a three-hour tour!

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful show,
That started as just one man's dream,
A long, long time ago.

That man was a mightily wily guy,
With smarts enough for eight.
If the brass upstairs let him be,
The program would be great.
The program would be great.

The meddlesome executives
Blew up a mighty storm,
If not for the courage of the fearless man,
The program would be lost.
The program would be lost.

The show's preserved in the leaves of this
Terrific kooky book.
With anecdotes, synopses too,
Rare photographs and drawings.
The whole story
And lots, lots more
Are here Inside Gilligan's Island!

Find out: Where the Howells got all those clothes!
Learn: Did Gilligan and the Skipper ever get hurt when the coconuts hit them on the head?
Discover: What was "Lovey's" real name?
Imagine: What kind of a pet the studio almost gave Gilligan!
Sing: The original lyrics to the theme song!

About this title

About the Author:

Sherwood Schwartz created and produced both Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch. He lives with his family in Beverly Hills, California, where he is at work on a number of projects, including an off-Broadway musical of Gilligan's Island.

From Booklist:

Schwartz defends the intellectual content of Gilligan's Island (his brainchild, after all) by pointing to serious themes in the show's scripts. "The philosophic aspects were subliminal, buried in the broad comedy," he admits, "but they were there." Well . . . maybe, but Gilligan's ultimate value is entertainment. As Schwartz points out, even though most critics hated the sitcom, the viewing audience loved it. (No stranger to critical rejection and audience approbation, Schwartz went on to create The Brady Bunch, which like Gilligan lives on in reruns and is far more culturally significant than its creator intended.) Herein, we learn as much about Schwartz and his view of what TV can and should do as about the struggle to bring Gilligan to some network's schedule. Along the way, Schwartz describes dealing with network brass, relates how tentative cancellation of Gunsmoke may have led to that of Gilligan (odd as it seems, Gilligan was on only three seasons; what with all those reruns, it sure seems it originally ran for much longer), and makes the case for gentle, funny entertainment. Mike Tribby

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0312104820
• ISBN 13: 9780312104825
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352