Gilligan's Island Only Got Made Because Of A Random Gas Station Attendant
I have yet to task a team of scientists with actually proving this theory, but I contend that there's a glitch in our universe that grants every person who hears the theme song to the 1964-1967 television comedy "Gilligan's Island," even if it's just a single time, with the unerring ability to recall the lyrics and tune of the song in their entirety from that moment until the moment they shuffle off this mortal coil. (If you're an ultra-rich person who happens to have stumbled into a "Brewster's Millions" scenario and are looking to provide grant money for a proper study into this phenomenon, hit me up.) The melody seems to have been scientifically engineered to stick in peoples' brains, and since the lyrics of the song explain the backstory and premise of the entire show, the idea of having tons of people wandering around with the whole thing stuck in their heads must have been very helpful to creator Sherwood Schwartz and broadcast network CBS.
But before "Gilligan's Island" ever made it on the air, before the network executives secretly added their own tweaks to the pilot behind Schwartz's back, even before Schwartz pitched the series to CBS, he pitched it to a random gas station attendant — and got an encouraging response.
The fate of Gilligan's Island was in the hands of someone totally outside the entertainment industry
In Paula Finn's 2018 book "Sitcom Writers Talk Shop: Behind the Scenes with Carl Reiner, Norman Lear, and Other Geniuses of TV Comedy," Finn interviewed producer and writer Dava Savel, who worked on shows like "Will & Grace" and "That's So Raven," and Savel recounted a story about how "Gilligan's Island" came to be:
Here's a funny story for you about a pilot. I knew Sherwood Schwartz for thirty years, and he once asked me, "You know how I sold Gilligan's Island?" I said, "How?" He said, "I wrote this song, and I'm on my way to the studio. I stop to get my gas filled, and I say to the gas station guy, 'Can I sing something to you, and you tell me if you're gonna watch this show?'" So he sings the whole thing, and the guy says, "That sounds like a good show to me." Sherwood goes, "That's what I thought!" So that's how he sold it.
If that gas station attendant had not been as receptive to Schwartz's song, who knows what could have happened? Maybe the writer/producer would have tweaked the lyrics at the last minute, altering the chemical perfection of the existing song to such a degree that the "Gilligan's Island" theme might have never become the perfect earworm we all know. Maybe Schwartz would have gotten dejected at the prospect of a regular TV watcher being disinterested in his idea and scrapped the pitch altogether. The possibilities are endless, but we're certainly glad things shook out the way they did. Talk about a fateful trip.
To learn the saga of the utterly chaotic, last-minute recording of the "Gilligan's Island" theme song, be sure to check out our article about that here.