Summer Fun: Remembering Gilligan’s Island

Concerned Citizens

Shortly after Gilligan’s Island premiered, the U.S. Coast Guard actually received telegrams from citizens who claimed they saw American citizens stranded on an island in the Pacific Ocean. These telegrams urged the Coast Guard to come to the castaways’ rescue, but the Coast Guard merely forwarded these odd messages to producer Sherwood Schwartz. Schwartz himself was baffled that there were viewers out there who believed that the cast was actually stranded and didn’t realize that it was just a TV show.