This Gilligan's Island visitor was the voice and model for Captain Hook

"Wrongway Feldman" has a place in Disney history.

The Everett Collection

All manner of strange visitors was up on Gilligan's Island, from rock bands to Russian Cosmonauts. Magicians trunks, radioactive vegetables and Mars landers crash on the tropical speck in the ocean. There are mad scientists, meteors and ape-men. Have we ever considered that the castaways were stranded in Never Land?

There is indeed a connection between Gilligan's Island and Peter Pan. A particular pirate played one of the sitcom's most memorable guest stars.

Twice in season one, a famed aviator appeared on the island. In episode five, "Wrongway Feldman," we learn that the titular pilot was lost in the South Pacific in 1934. The gang helps Feldman, who still wears his leather helmet and scarf, to fix his plane, the Spirit of the Bronx. Five months later, Feldman returned, convinced that life in the remote tropics was preferable to civilization.

Veteran actor Hans Conried portrayed Wrongway Feldman. He had been working for decades, making memorable turns on radio, television and film. On I Love Lucy, he was Percy Livermore, the snooty tutor in "Lucy Hires an English Tutor." The Danny Thomas Show gave him a regular role as Uncle Tonoose. He worked with Orson Welles in theater and on film. But he is his more famous for his voice.

Conried was the voice behind Snidely Whiplash on The Bullwinkle Show. He was both the Grinch and the narrator in the holiday special Halloween Is Grinch Night. And, yes, he was indeed Captain Hook in Walt Disney's 1953 classic Peter Pan.

Well, he was not only the voice, he was also the model for the character. You can see a photo of him dressed in costume here. The animators must have loved his look. Conried also happened to be the reference model for King Stefan in Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Wrongway Feldman's mustache was a nice touch, a visual reference to his twirling toon facial hair seen on both Hook and Snidely Whiplash.

Peter Pan performers can be found elsewhere in Sixties television, you know. Even Tinkerbell ended up behind bar in Mayberry.

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7 Comments

daDoctah 52 months ago
Conried's association with Disney continued after Peter Pan. He played the riverboat gambler "Thimblerig" in the wildly popular "Davy Crockett" series a year or two later.
moax429 52 months ago
Conried also played Dr. Gitterman, Lucy's voice teacher, in the episode of "The Lucy Show" where the Danfield volunteer fire department enters a barbershop singing contest. Conried tells Lucy to chew her tongue and hum, then pretend to open up an umbrella and sing while she does it. Very funny, indeed.
HoosierKid 52 months ago
He also played Major Bonacelli on Hogan's Heroes. The Pizza Parlor--one of my favorite episodes! :)
vitil 52 months ago
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idkwut2use 52 months ago
I believe I may have something of a retroactive crush on this gentleman. XD He was everywhere! I was just telling my mom the other day that Percival "Tippy-Tippy Toe Through My Garden" Livermore AND Lucy's shady furniture buyer were both Captain Hook, yet somehow I'd never realized that. I knew he'd done the Grinch (in one of the best Halloween specials ever), and I caught him in something else recently...an episode of Love American Style, I think? Noticed him in The 5000 Fingers (wow, that movie) and in Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier (thanks Disney+), have always LOVED that Laverne & Shirley ep...and who knows where else I've seen/heard him...obviously Rocky & Bullwinkle, Gilligan, possibly Danny Thomas...there've been imitations of his voice in more recent cartoons too.
No wonder I always liked King Stefan so much. xD
Oh yeah, what tipped me off to the Captain Hook thing was the 1953 cartoon Ben and Me, when it was added to D+...his Thomas Jefferson in that was extremely Hook-like (and the titular Ben Franklin extremely Smee-like.) Good old Sterling Holloway starred as the mouse and it was adorable--so much like a visual combination of Cinderella, Peter Pan, The Great Mouse Detective, and An American Tail.
cperrynaples 52 months ago
Hans Conried was a great comic actor! He played the title role in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and he was a panelist on Take A Good Look with Ernie Kovacs!
UTZAAKE cperrynaples 52 months ago
He was a Baltimore native, too!
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