As beloved as “Gilligan’s Island” (which had one of the greatest theme songs of all time) was during its 1964 to 1967 run, and as ubiquitous as it became in syndication, the show went through significant trouble when it first started. Dissatisfied with the pilot, CBS refused to air it. When it did finally make it to air, the critics were far from impressed.
To be sure, “Gilligan’s Island” was charming nonsense — a 98 episode-long farce that embraced its absurdity and mined it for broad comedy that proved popular with mass audiences. It also featured one of the most endearingly dumb TV characters ever in Bob Denver’s Gilligan, but much like the show itself, there was an undeniable charm to his silliness. However, trying to sell that silliness proved difficult, with creator Sherwood Schwartz telling the Archive of American Television (via Entertainment Weekly) that his agent thought he had lost it when he pitched the series. “Sherwood, you’re out of your f*****’ mind,” came the response to Schwartz’s pitch. “Who the hell is gonna watch the same goddamn seven people on the same goddamn island every week?” As it turns out, a lot of people.
Speaking to the Muncie Evening Press (via MeTV), Schwartz revealed that the “Gilligan’s Island” pilot was tested with three separate audiences. “The people on the street liked it. They couldn’t be wrong,” Schwartz explained. “I had the conviction it would be a hit. How? It’s my business to know what people want.”
Sherwood Schwartz knew Gilligan’s Island was going to be a hit
Still, nobody who starred in “Gilligan’s Island” was ever unaware of the show’s standing with critics. The cast generally seemed to take it in their stride, even if they were caught off-guard initially. For Alan Hale Jr., who played the Skipper, the negativity ultimately served as fuel. “Sure, we were shattered by those first reviews,” he recalled (via MeTV). “Who wouldn’t be? We just resolved to try harder.”
In an interview with the Television Academy, Mary Ann actor Dawn Wells recalled how the network relayed the news of poor reviews. “They’d come in, and they’d say, ‘The New York Times hated us,’ or ‘The Hollywood Reporter thought we were absolutely dreadful.’ Yet, when the ratings came out, the show would “be in the Top 10.” As it happens, The Hollywood Reporter’s initial review of “Gilligan’s Island” wasn’t all that negative, with the outlet describing the first episode as “a sampling of nautical nonsense that promised gags, gals, guffaws.” But it wasn’t just Wells who remembered the show getting slaughtered in the press.
In a different Television Academy interview, Russell Johnson, who played the Professor, recalled, “They [meaning, TV critics] hated us. We were the bottom of the barrel; couldn’t get any worse than who we were.” Johnson, who famously struggled with being typecast in the years following “Gilligan’s Island” took a while to come around to embracing the series, but even while the show was taking a critical drubbing during its initial run, he viewed it as a job — and one which he worked hard at. “We’re working. You do the best you can. You’re not trying to make a bad show, you know.”
