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The filming of the pilot for ''Gilligan's Island'' sounds like a real-life disaster
This sounds so much worse than a three-hour tour...
They say that all good things come to those who work for it. If that's true, the pilot of Gilligan's Island should be considered one of the best things ever created, given just how much the cast and crew suffered throughout the making of it.
According to an interview with The Buffalo News, series star Bob Denver gave viewers a peak behind the curtain at the very long and dismal journey that was the road to Gilligan's Island. According to Denver, the original cast looked very different than what we know it to be today. Namely, actors like Tina Louise, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson hadn't been cast yet, and wouldn't be until network executives demanded that certain actors be replaced after viewing the original pilot for the series.
But the issues didn't end once the cast was complete, and production came to a halt around the end of filming. Denver stated, "It was discovered the show was short by two minutes. By this time, we'd had four different directors, and I don't know how many times Sherwood [Schwartz] had rewritten the reshot scene.
But for Denver, one of the wildest moments that occurred while shooting the pilot was when the crew had to spend ages shooting a scene that didn't even end up remaining in the pilot past the editing process.
Denver said, "Somebody decided there should be a scene showing the S.S. Minnow sinking after we had tried to relaunch it." But while Gilligan's Island is set oceanside, the actor revealed, "Even Navy frogmen wouldn't work in the surf at the location we'd picked."
After all of that hard work and energy, the original pilot for Gilligan's Island was actually scrapped, with much of the material shot for the pilot instead used later in the series as flashback scenes. It's possible that after all those mishaps, the creative powers that be felt that the pilot wasn't strong enough to introduce an audience to the series. However, all we have are our speculations, as even Gilligan himself can't deliver an answer to us.
Denver stated, "It was decided not to use the pilot for our first show. Don't ask me why."
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Even with my meager Paint.net I've done wonders with the above image of Gilligan - and my program has many limitations!