Adam West's Batman Series Snuck In A Subtle Gilligan's Island Easter Egg

The 1966 "Batman" TV series — one of the best TV shows of all time — wasn't shy about including shameless cameos. Early in the show's run, the producers invented an organic conceit that would allow famous people to literally poke their heads in for a moment to deliver a few lines of dialogue. While Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) were scaling the side of a building — something they did often — a celebrity guest would open a window to see who might be making noise on their outside wall. The series featured peek-ins from Sammy Davis, Jr., Jerry Lewis, Art Linkletter, Don Ho, and Dick Clark. 

Other notable stars also provided peek-ins, but many appeared in character, playing their roles from other hip TV shows at the time. Ted Cassidy, for instance, appeared as Lurch from "The Addams Family." Werner Klemperer had a cameo as Colonel Klink from "Hogan's Heroes." Perhaps most famously, Van Williams and Bruce Lee appeared as the Green Hornet and Kato from "The Green Hornet." "Batman" was sharply aware of its place in the pop culture firmament, and celebrities lined up to be in on the joke. 

By the show's third season, however, the peek-in cameos became less common as the show's ratings began to flag. Cameos started to slow, and they were no longer presented using the peek-in format. Instead, some recognizable actors would merely appear in bit parts or supporting roles. 

Case in point: in the episode "The Ogg and I" (November 2, 1967), Police Chief O'Hara (Stafford Repp) visited a diner, stalked by the villainous Egghead (Vincent Price). O'Hara orders food from the diner's owner, a jolly man played by celebrity guest Alan Hale from "Gilligan's Island." 

To add to the joke, Hale's character is named Gilligan.

As all TV fans know, Hale played the Skipper, Jonas Grumby, on "Gilligan's Island," Sherwood Schwartz's hit sitcom about seven castaways comedically stranded on a tropical island. By the time "The Ogg and I" aired, "Gilligan's Island" had been off the air for seven months, completing an amazingly successful run. Audiences everywhere would recognize Hale, and the makers of "Batman" knew it. Just to be cheeky, his character is called Gilligan repeatedly. 

In its third and final season, "Gilligan's Island" had dipped in popularity, but was still doing well enough, ratings wise; more people were watching "Gilligan's Island" than its main competitor, "The Monkees." CBS had promised Schwartz that "Island" would indeed be renewed for a fourth season. But then, some of the bigwigs at the studio threatened to cancel the long-running Western "Gunsmoke," and that caused fans to panic. The president of CBS was also a "Gunsmoke" fanboy, and he ordered that it be kept on the air. In order to do that, however, CBS rescheduled "Gunsmoke" right into the time slot previously reserved for "Gilligan's Island." Schwartz's show was booted unceremoniously from the air. 

"Batman" would experience a similar downslide in ratings in its third season. The inaugural season did gangbusters numbers, and was such a massive hit, the showrunners made a spinoff theatrical feature film almost right away. The third season was lackluster in comparison, and the showrunners introduced Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) to make the show more interesting. Competing network NBC offered to buy "Batman" and air a fourth season, but the offer came too late, as the crew had already torn down all the old "Batman" sets. Rather than rebuild, they washed their hands. 

Luckily, "Batman" can still be seen to this day, and remains the high-water mark of the entire Batman franchise.