For three seasons, seven people couldn’t escape a deserted island. The Professor could build practically anything out of bamboo, coconuts, and whatever else washed ashore, but repairing a boat? Forget it.
By 1982, he’d apparently figured out rocket science because somebody decided that stranding seven people on a deserted island wasn’t ridiculous enough, so why not send them into outer space to keep the adventure going.
The Professor actually builds a spaceship, stuffs everybody inside, and blasts off from the island. And not surprisingly, they crash-land on another planet.
THEY’RE STRANDED AGAIN. ONLY THIS TIME IT’S IN SPACE!
Mind-boggling, right?
Three Rescues, Two Cartoons, and One Very Confused Timeline
The original Gilligan’s Island ended in 1967, but the castaways weren’t finished tormenting one another.
First came Filmation’s The New Adventures of Gilligan in 1974, followed by three live-action reunion movies: Rescue from Gilligan’s Island (1978), The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island (1979), and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (1981). I still laugh thinking about that last one. The Harlem Globetrotters were everywhere back then, including Scooby-Doo.
The castaways had already been rescued in the movies — more than once, mind you — but none of that stopped Filmation from launching Gilligan’s Planet on CBS on September 18, 1982.
And here’s the kicker. According to Film Threat’s history of the cartoon, Gilligan’s Island creator Sherwood Schwartz met with Filmation in 1982 to develop the new setting. The 13-episode series essentially put everybody back on the island long enough to send them somewhere even harder to escape.
With Star Wars having turned space adventures into a cultural obsession, I suppose somebody figured Gilligan deserved a piece of the action, too. Maybe they were hoping Han Solo would show up and save the day.
Instead, they got Bumper, a tiny green dinosaur-looking alien who resembles a miniature Dino from The Flintstones.
At least they kept most of the original voices. Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Russell Johnson, Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer all returned.
But not Tina Louise as Ginger for either animated series. Her relationship with Gilligan’s Island had been complicated from the beginning, including concerns that playing the glamorous but ditzy movie star would leave her typecast.
But here’s the funny part: despite Ginger being the supposed Hollywood bombshell, audiences often preferred Mary Ann, the Kansas farm girl played by Dawn Wells. And when Gilligan’s Planet came along, Wells didn’t just return as Mary Ann. She voiced Ginger, too.
So much for the movie star getting top billing.
Even more mind-blowing, future animation heavyweights Paul Dini and Tom Ruegger were among the show’s writers. Dini would go on to write for Batman: The Animated Series, which featured Luke Skywalker himself (Mark Hamill) as the voice of the Joker. Ruegger, meanwhile, helped bring us Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs.
Everybody has to start somewhere. Even on Gilligan’s planet.
Why, Yes, There’s a Radio Shack in Outer Space. Why Wouldn’t There Be?
The spaceship itself looks like something assembled in a backyard, and the Skipper steers it with a wooden steering wheel because of course the spaceship is made out of palm tree wood. They’ve even packed bananas. So, somehow, we’re supposed to accept all of this as perfectly logical.
Once they’ve landed, everyone settles into an alien landscape with several houses that look like they belong in Bedrock. Nobody seems particularly worried about oxygen or space helmets, either. They’re perfectly comfortable having meals outdoors, taking walks, and generally living exactly as they did on the island.
But the real masterpiece of lunacy comes in an episode called “Space Pirates.”
Gilligan discovers a pile of mysterious junk beside a lake, including old computers, reel-to-reel tape recorders, cassette players, stereos, miniature televisions, and a Rubik’s Cube. There’s even a robot dog that looks like it wandered over from The Jetsons.
The Professor identifies the equipment as highly sophisticated technology from an advanced civilization, and, clearly, that civilization had a Radio Shack.
Now, my first question was how the hell a Rubik’s Cube ended up on an alien planet when Gilligan had supposedly been isolated from civilization since the 1960s. How would he even know what one was? But the writers were ready for me.
The Professor examines the cube, declares it far too sophisticated to be an ordinary puzzle, and starts twisting it. When he gets one side completely red, the mushroom Bumper was sitting on grows like Jack’s beanstalk. Why? Because it’s an enlargement ray!
And who left all that advanced technology beside the lake? Space pirates, of course.
Somewhere, George Lucas was probably missing an opportunity.
Ms. Frizzle, We Have a Problem
Could any of this get any funnier? Of course it could.
Twelve years later, The Magic School Bus premiered with “Gets Lost in Space” on September 10, 1994. In that very first episode, Ms. Frizzle takes her students into space, where Arnold removes his helmet on Pluto to prove a point to his obnoxious cousin Janet. What happens? His head promptly freezes into a block of ice.
Meanwhile, Gilligan and company are wandering around an alien planet without helmets, enjoying the scenery.
Forget the Magic School Bus. The Professor was doing field trips into space before Ms. Frizzle got her teaching credentials!
Now, I’m not suggesting the creators of The Magic School Bus watched Gilligan’s Planet and thought, “We need this, but with children and a school bus.” But I’m not ruling it out, either.
The real tragedy is that despite encountering aliens, space pirates, and even another spaceship, Gilligan’s crew remains stranded when the short-lived cartoon series ends.
Too bad Ms. Frizzle hadn’t seen Gilligan’s Planet. She might have made the Magic School Bus’s first field trip a rescue mission. And maybe Liz, her little green lizard, could’ve met a long-lost relative. Bumper certainly looks like he has family somewhere in the solar system.
And knowing Ms. Frizzle, she would’ve gotten all seven castaways home before the school bell rang.
