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Gilligan's Planet - Wikipedia

  • ️Sat Sep 18 1982

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Gilligan's Planet

Title card

Created bySherwood Schwartz
Directed byHal Sutherland
Voices ofBob Denver
Alan Hale Jr.
Russell Johnson
Jim Backus
Natalie Schafer
Dawn Wells
Lou Scheimer
Country of originUnited States
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes13 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producerLou Scheimer
CinematographyR.W. Pope
EditorsJoe Gall
George Mahana
Running time22 minutes
Production companiesFilmation
MGM/UA Television
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseSeptember 18 –
December 11, 1982

Gilligan's Planet is an American Saturday morning animated series produced by Filmation and MGM/UA Television which aired during the 1982–1983 season on CBS. It was the second animated spin-off of the sitcom Gilligan's Island (the first being The New Adventures of Gilligan).[1]

Gilligan's Planet was the last cartoon series that Filmation produced for Saturday mornings; afterwards, they transitioned from Saturday mornings to producing cartoons exclusively for syndication.[2] It was also the first Filmation series to feature the Lou Scheimer "signature" credit (as opposed to the rotating Lou Scheimer/Norm Prescott "wheel" credit which had been used since 1969). In addition, it was one of the last 1980s Saturday morning cartoons to be fitted with an adult laugh track, as the popularity of the practice had subsided.

Gilligan's Planet featured all of the original actors but one; Tina Louise, who has consistently refused to participate in any Gilligan's Island-related material since the series ended, again declined to reprise her role as Ginger Grant,[3] who again was portrayed as a platinum blonde (as was the case in The New Adventures) instead of Louise's red hair. Dawn Wells, who had been unavailable during the production of The New Adventures of Gilligan, returned to the franchise, voicing both her own character (Mary Ann Summers) and Ginger.[4] Gilligan's Planet would also be the final time that Backus and Hale would portray their respective characters, Mr Howell and the Skipper before their deaths in 1989 and 1990 respectively.

Gilligan's Planet is a spin-off of The New Adventures of Gilligan, based on the premise that the Professor had managed to build an operational interplanetary spaceship to get the castaways of the original series off the island. True to the castaways' perpetual bad luck, they rocketed off into space and crash-landed on an unknown planet that supported human life. In many ways, the planet was like the island, but with a strangely colored and cratered surface with more land to get around. The rocket was severely damaged in the crash; thus, the castaways were still stranded and the Professor resumed his attempts to repair their only way home.

Overall, Gilligan's Planet re-presented the source material of the original live-action series with space and alien themes. Encounters with headhunters and other shipwrecked people instead became encounters with alien creatures. A new character named Bumper was added, who appeared as a reptilian alien pet/sidekick for Gilligan and company.

The theme song from The New Adventures of Gilligan was recycled, with new narration to explain the new show's premise. Sherwood Schwartz, who had hands-on involvement in the New Adventures series, was not as heavily involved in Gilligan's Planet. Two of the show's primary writers, Tom Ruegger and Paul Dini, would emerge at Warner Bros. Animation in the 1990s.

This is one of the few Filmation series not currently owned by successor Universal Television/Classic Media. It is instead owned by Warner Bros. Television Studios through Turner Entertainment Co. as it is a part of the pre-May 1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library.

On July 22, 2014, Warner Archive released Gilligan's Planet: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Warner Archive Collection. This was a manufacture-on-demand release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[5] The DVD set has since been made available via Amazon.

  1. ^ Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 425–426. ISBN 978-1538103739.
  2. ^ Scheimer, Lou (2015). Creating the Filmation Generation (2nd ed.). TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 194–195. ISBN 978-1-60549-044-1.
  3. ^ Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 583–584. ISBN 978-1476665993.
  4. ^ Hyatt, Wesley (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. Watson-Guptill Publications. p. 185. ISBN 978-0823083152. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  5. ^ "OFF THE ISLAND AT LAST! Warner Archive Launches 'The Complete Series' on DVD". Archived from the original on 2014-07-25.