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It should be stated up front that Sherwood Schwartz’s “Gilligan’s Island” was not the least bit educational. Its tone was cartoonish and slapstick, set in a fantasy world where the fineries of wilderness survival were never a real concern. The seven stranded castaways were always clean, well-fed, and healthy, never the least bit concerned about where they might get fresh water or additional supplies. Indeed, they seemed to be repeatedly blessed by Providence, as new supplies — and even brief human companions — would regularly wash up on shore. The series never got into, say, local botany or the necessity of desalination. The characters were all comedic boobs (Russell Johnson’s the Professor notwithstanding) and never had anything intelligent to say. 

If anything, “Gilligan’s Island” only served as a bizarre theological and philosophical treatise. The characters, for instance, resembled Commedia dell’arte archetypes. Schwartz himself said that the series can be taken as a utopian text, depicting a microcosm of America as it should ideally function. But these are critical theories that can be extrapolated from the premise, not straightforward educational content that was written into the show. 

In Russell Johnson’s autobiography “Here on Gilligan’s Isle,” Schwartz provided a foreword, and he boldly claimed that “Gilligan’s Island” actually was an educational program. Not only that, he claimed that his series was a better teacher than anyone working at a high school. Indeed, Schwartz noted (without evidence) that local science classes had been shown “Gilligan’s Island” scenes of the Professor inventing and constructing objects from the local resources, and that the students learned about certain scientific principles better than if a teacher had told them. A confident claim, to say the least, especially about a series that wasn’t based in reality.

Sherwood Schwartz related that Russell Johnson asked him to make the Professor’s dialogue as realistic as he could. Johnson wasn’t always familiar with the scientific processes involved with the Professor making a battery out of coconuts or about chemical compositions, so he trusted Schwartz (and the other “Gilligan’s Island” writers) to make sure all of the scientific principles and names of elements were sound. It didn’t matter if the dialogue was rich with polysyllabic scientific jargon; Johnson just didn’t want to sound like a fool. And, lo, he always had his lines memorized. 

This, Schwartz seemed to feel, increased the Professor’s credibility as a scientist. Which, in turn, led to the character being even more trusted and professorial than actual professors. As Schwartz wrote:

“The Professor’s influence can be illustrated by a learning test used on an educational channel in Philadelphia. A class was shown slips of the Professor’s experiments in various episodes of ‘Gilligan’s Island’; the way he recharged the radio batteries by using different metals and seawater, the way he made glue from sap, glass from sand, and so forth. Another class was taught the same information by a regular teacher. The students learned the information four times as well from the Professor. That’s because Russell Johnson, as an actor, made that information unforgettable.”

Poking around online, one cannot find any evidence of this “learning test” that Schwartz is alluding to. He might have been referring to something that actually happened, or he could have been manufacturing it; where did the “four times as well” stat come from? But even if he was making it all up, it was all to serve as a compliment to Johnson. Which the actor no doubt appreciated. 

Schwartz also admitted, though, that he once took advantage of Russell Johnson’s acting talents and trustworthiness while playing the Professor. Schwartz recalled offering to make the Professor’s dialogue simpler and less technical so that Johnson would have an easier time memorizing and pronouncing his lines, but Johnson — a consummate professional — simply replied by saying, “I’m an actor. It’s my job to speak the lines as written.” 

Schwartz, as a result, decided to play a prank on Johnson. He went to his typewriter and started to type out a huge block of dialogue for Johnson that was nothing but scientific nonsense, full of hard-to-pronounce gobbledygook. It was, by Schwartz’s recollection, a half page. He expected Johnson to arrive on set the following day, completely flummoxed and unable to speak all the nonsense he just written. 

Johnson, however, was better than Schwartz had assumed. Johnson not only nailed every word of Schwartz’s prank speech, but he delivered it naturally, with authority, and with complete professorial acumen. It turned out Johnson had caught wise to Schwartz’s little prank. “The laugh was on me,” Schwartz wrote, “Russell suspected my intentions and had worked on the speech half the night just to prove to me he could say anything that was written.” 

I’m not sure if I believe Schwartz’s claims about his TV series being a better teacher than an actual teacher (by a factor of four, no less), but I do believe that Russell Johnson was a hard-working professional who nailed a half-page of jargon. That sort of story cannot be exaggerated. That’s just good acting. Johnson had trouble adjusting to his fame back in the day, but he was always on point.