Gilligan's Island

::For the NES video game, see Gilligan's Island (video game).

Spin-offs

The success of Gilligan's Island spawned a number of spin-offs:

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• Dusty's Trail, another Sherwood Schwartz production, put similar characters on a wagon train heading west. Bob Denver starred as Dusty (Gilligan's counterpart), but the other characters (wagon master, rich couple, saloon girl, school marm, and engineer) were played by a different cast. Only 26 episodes were aired in 1973 and 1974.
• The New Adventures of Gilligan was a successful animated remake that aired from 1974 to 1977. The voices were done by the original cast except for Ginger and Mary Ann, voiced by Jane Webb. An additional character was Stubby the Monkey, voiced by Lou Sheimer.
• In a successful 1978 made-for-TV movie, Rescue From Gilligan's Island, the castaways did successfully leave the island, but they had difficulty reintegrating into society. During a reunion cruise at the first Christmas after their rescue, fate intervened and the group found themselves marooned on the exact same island. It starred the original cast except for Tina Louise, who refused to participate and was replaced as Ginger by Judith Baldwin (who seemed much too young for the role, compared to the other actors). The plot of the movie involved Soviet agents seeking a memory disc from a spy satellite that landed on the island and facilitated their rescue.
• In a 1979 sequel, The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, they were rescued once again, and the Howells converted the island into a getaway resort, with the other five castaways as "silent partners". (Ginger was again played by Judith Baldwin).
• In still another sequel, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981), some villains (played by Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who also appeared together on ' and ') try to take over the island to gain access to a valuable but unknown substance. They are thwarted by the timely intervention of the Harlem Globetrotters. Jim Backus only appeared at the very end of the episode, arriving back on the island. David Ruprecht gave a lacklustre performance as Thurston Howell IV, trying to imitate the mannerisms Backus brought to his role.
• Gilligan's Planet was an animated science fiction version starring the voices of the Gilligan's Island cast except for Tina Louise (Dawn Wells played the voices of both Mary Ann and Ginger). They escape from the island by building a spaceship, and get shipwrecked on a distant planet. Only 12 episodes aired in 1982. In one episode, they travel to an island, get shipwrecked there, and Gilligan observes, "First we were standed on an island, then we were stranded on a planet, and now we're stranded on an island on a planet."
• Gilligan's Island: Underneath the Grass Skirt (1999)
• Gilligan's Island: The E! True Hollywood Story (2000), a backstage history of the show, featuring interviews with some of the stars or their widows.
• Surviving Gilligan's Island: The Incredibly True Story of the Longest Three Hour Tour in History (2001) was a docudrama where Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson reminisce about the show.
• On November 30, 2004, the TBS network launched a reality series entitled The Real Gilligan's Island which placed two groups of people on an island, leaving them to fend for themselves a la Survivor — the catch being that each islander matched a character type established in the original series (a klutz, a sea captain, a movie star, a millionaire's wife, etc.). While heavily marketed by TBS, the show turned out to be a flop with a very "Survivor"-like feel, but little of the Survivor success. A second season began June 8, 2005 with two-hour episodes for four weeks. TBS announced in July, 2005 that a third season of the show would not be produced.
• ALF featured an episode where Alf, yearning for the castaways' simple life, dreams about being on the island with the Skipper, Gilligan, the Professor and Mary Ann. The Professor has built a TV set (out of bamboo and other miscellany), where they watch a TV show based on the life of the Tanners.