Gilligan's Island

Show generally

Question: Why did the Howells, Ginger and Mary Ann have so many changes of clothes with them? It was only a three hour tour.

Answer: Bob Denver answered this when he was on a talk show hosted by Pat Sajak. He said they were going to write into an episode where the castaways found all these clothes, but it got too complicated, so he said, they decided, "who cares, it's only a TV show," and forgot about it. So the writers and actors even asked this, they just never bothered to address it.

Answer: I've been binge watching it, and a couple of times trunks with costumes have washed ashore, and in one episode the professor figured out how to make thread for weaving cloth.

Answer: It was a running gag about how out of touch with reality they are, because they are so rich, that they think they need to bring an extensive wardrobe with them everywhere they go.

Phixius

Erika Tiffany Smith to the Rescue - S2-E15

Question: I'm very confused about the ending. During an interview, the interviewer says that the Navy are unable to find the castaways because Erika's log book is written in English translated from Hungarian. If her log book was translated from Hungarian to English, then how could the Navy be unable to use it to find the island and rescue everybody? She left out latitude and longitude but, there must have been something in the log book to give an idea of where the island was.

Answer: Hungarian-to-English translation aside, Erika's log-book entries were utterly meaningless. When the radio interviewer expresses confusion, Erika even reads entries from the log: "You take a left at a big, beautiful, pink tropical flower, then pull over and park," and "After the storm, we backed up and made a U-turn," etc. Her directions were scatterbrained, to put it nicely. Additionally, Erika's yacht was forced to leave the island during a tropical storm, and they lost their bearings for several days before the Navy found them. Given that Erika was such a scatterbrain, we might also assume that she didn't hire the most competent yacht crew, either.

Charles Austin Miller

Voodoo - S3-E5

Question: In this episode, as the Professor is put into a trance, in the background, there seems to be a radio or television transmission tower that can be seen over the roof of the hut. It's blurry, but doesn't seem to be a standard palm tree. Is this a mistake, or set error, or my imagination?

Movie Nut

Chosen answer: It looks like a mistake to me I see it when the Professor is put into a trance, but it is not there later.

Bowling255

Answer: Probably because Gilligan has a history of getting things wrong more often than being right. The others, rightly or wrongly, tend to automatically dismiss him.

raywest

Chosen answer: Since there is no way any of them could have opened the curtain I would say it is a mistake.

Bowling255

I think it's the monkey! Maybe they cut them out of that episode and forgot about the curtain part.

Answer: While the Skipper did state he was a Navy cook in one episode, other pieces of information were given in other episodes which offer conflicting information regarding his back-story. This excerpt from the Wikipedia article about The Skipper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skipper) summarizes it best: "Little was ever learned about his past, but in several episodes he mentions variously having several ships blown out from under him, and his veteran's status, implying that he'd served in World War II. One episode indicates the Skipper was a veteran of the Battle of Guadalcanal. In another episode he gets amnesia, and thinks he's on a covert mission behind enemy lines, mistaking the others to be Japanese soldiers, including Ginger, whom he mistakenly believes to be a ventriloquist. He claims to be the CO of the 177th Infantry Regiment, which is a U.S. Army regiment, but whether that actually happened or was just a wish-fulfilling fantasy is open to debate, for later on in the series he says that he was simply a cook. In one episode he claimed to have been a Navy Bandmaster and in another he claims to have been the best card player in the US Navy." There are inconsistencies in the back-stories of most characters on "Gilligan's Island," even including whether "Gilligan" is the eponymous character's first or last name. This suggests that plot consistency wasn't foremost on the minds of the show's writers and creators (I mean, why would the Howell's bring suitcases full of money on a three-hour Hawaiian tour?), who instead focused on zany misadventures and missed rescue opportunities.

Michael Albert

Show generally

Question: 1) Why was the grounded Minnow moved from the shoreline to the lagoon in color seasons? With holes like it had in the sides, it should have sunk at sea! 2) A friend says he counts four people on the stern area in the color version as the Minnow puts to sea. I really cannot say for sure but is that a goof or a shadow or something else? 3) Is the third season music SLIGHTLY different from the season two? Some on Youtube claim it is. Only proof they show sounds like someone played with an audio equalizer / compressor and made it more pronounced.

Answer: 1) The answer to the moving of the Minnow probably has no profound significance except for aesthetic. They were re-doing the opening in color, and it looks like they had a different model of the Minnow and placed it in a different setting. This is more a "continuity error" than a decision of any import in the minds of the creators, I'm guessing. 2) I see five people on the stern. But even if my eyes are playing tricks on me, someone could have easily been below deck. 3) The music does have a somewhat different quality between season two and season three. The differences are subtle. I agree with you that it probably wasn't actually re-recorded, but instead, was just remastered a bit. Also note, for reasons unknown to me, in the season three opening, the pictures of Mary Ann and the Professor (rest in peace, Russell Johnson), are reversed, compared to season two.

Michael Albert

Show generally

Question: I know there is a good reason but, if the castaways could build huts, bicycle powered generators and fix the radio, why couldn't they fix the boat?

Answer: There's no absolute answer to this, but: 1) The hole in the boat was big enough that they couldn't patch it sufficiently well to float it. All the rafts, huts and other constructions on the island, were flimsy enough that wind and rain got through most of them reasonably easily. 2) None of them were qualified to build or repair boats, so it would have been risky to even try going out with a patch they made. 3) It's a silly 60's sitcom - making sense was never a big concern of producers at the time!

DavidRTurner

Show generally

Question: All through the show MaryAnn makes coconut cream pies for everyone. Where does she get the eggs, milk, wheat flour...every ingredient but the coconut?

Answer: It's never explained how she gets the ingredients. There may be substitute ingredients someone on a tropical island could possibly use, like eggs from island birds, wild sorghum as a substitute flour and sweetener, wild goats milk (such creatures are common enough thanks to sailors of previous centuries), citrus fruit for flavor, etc.

raywest

The Sound of Quacking - S1-E8

Visible crew/equipment: During the dream sequence, when Gilligan starts a showdown with Mr. Howell and the Professor, someone's face appears in the window in the background for a second, and it's none of the castaways - someone in the filming crew most likely.

More mistakes in Gilligan's Island

Eunice Wentworth "Lovey" Howell: Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't know where to shop.

More quotes from Gilligan's Island
More trivia for Gilligan's Island

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.