Gilligan's Island Creator Sherwood Schwartz Once Revealed His Pre-Cancellation Plans

When most television series generate will-they-or-won't-they tension, this nervous energy is usually centered on a friendly relationship threatening to blossom into romance, or an innocent romance threatening to head to the bedroom. This is something shows like "Cheers," "Frasier" and "Moonlighting" did to perfection.

"Gilligan's Island" had a completely different kind of will-they-or-won't-they going, one that involved the entire cast. Put bluntly: most episodes revolved around the possibility that the castaways — either via rescue or their own craft-constructing ingenuity — might finally get off that blasted island. And if they did get off that island, how would the show continue? After all, once they return to civilization, it's not like they're all going to move in together due to some kind of bizarre Stockholm Syndrome impulse (though I would totally watch that version of the show).

CBS abruptly canceled "Gilligan's Island" after its third season (to save "Gunsmoke" at William S. Palyey's wife's insistence), so we never got to see what an off-island season of the series might look like. Was such a twist ever in the offing? According to the show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz (who worked through unthinkable back pain to bring the show to the air), it could've happened, and he knew exactly how it would've played.

In an interview with the Muncie Evening Press (via MeTV), Schwartz revealed that had "a projected escape in the back of my mind." His escape, however, wasn't much of an escape. Indeed, he would've sent the seven castaways of the S.S. Minnow back to the island, just under slightly different circumstances.

As Schwartz told the Evening Press:

"Should they get rescued, or should the ratings go down, or should we feel we're getting into a rut ... then I'd turn the island into a resort hotel. Jim Backus would operate it because he's the rich man with the know-how. Gilligan and the Skipper would operate the boat to bring in the guests, and the rest of the cast would work at the hotel in various executive jobs."

So Schwartz's brilliant post-rescue plan was to turn "Gilligan's Island" into a workplace sitcom. I can't decide if that's daringly meta or the worst idea in the history of ideas. It does have some nice touches to it – most notably the option to either write Gilligan and Skipper out of the show via another shipwreck or spin them off into their own show. Then I guess it would've become "Howell's Island" (which would've kept Jim Backus from writing all of those amazing books). Would you have stuck around that chunk of land in the Pacific without the presence of the Skipper and his little buddy?