It was the lighthearted castaway comedy America fell in love with—but the off-screen story was anything but breezy. Gilligan’s Island: The Unknown Story uncovers the real tension between cast members, battles with the network, and how a show once dismissed as silly became a pop culture classic.
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00:00In 1974, legendary television creator Sherwood Schwartz is on a mission to sell a TV reunion film of one of his most famous series, Gilligan's Island.
00:12Sherwood Schwartz was, I think, one of the most persistent men in television. He knew that we loved Gilligan's Island and he never stopped trying to give us more.
00:21After the series' surprise cancellation seven years earlier, Schwartz is convinced that fans remain eager to learn what became of the seven castaways of the SS Minnow.
00:33Dad wanted to get them off the island eventually and felt that the people who loved the castaways would like to see them be rescued.
00:42But the major networks think the pitch is dead in the water.
00:46And so we created this idea called Rescue from Gilligan's Island. And it was turned down everywhere.
00:53The letter from CBS says, not only do I not want to see this, I can't believe anybody else would tune in.
00:59So it was rejected.
01:01It would take Sherwood Schwartz four years of pitching his TV movie before he would receive a green light from NBC.
01:07Dad believed that there would be a big audience who had grown up or lived with these characters who would tune in to see them get rescued. And he was so right.
01:19In the fall of 1978, NBC airs Rescue from Gilligan's Island. And for the network, it's a risk that pays off when more than half of all American households tune in to watch the castaways get rescued.
