Gilligan’s Island – The Complete Third Season

Gilligan’s Island
The Complete Third Season
3-Dvd set
30 Episodes plus extras
Warner Home Video 2005

(Sung to the theme from Gilligan’s Island)
Just sit right back and you’ll read my take
My take on this 3-disc set
That starts off with an episode and ends with a special show
Bob Denver, he played Gilligan
The show lasted three years
The 30 shows in this box set
Are really quite good
Are really quite good

The set starts off with “Up At Bat”
And ends with “The Goddess”
The commentary by producer Schwartz
Is really quite neat
Is really quite neat

Phil Silver stars in show number four
It’s the best of the bunch
With “Bang! Bang! Bang!”
And “Show Girl” too
“The Invasion”
And “Voodoo”
“Topsy-Turvy”
“The Kidnapper” and “Take A Dare”
All on Gilligan’s Island.

It may be hard to believe that Gilligan’s Island is forty years old, especially when you see how crisp every episode is on The Complete Third Season. There is nary a spec of dust anywhere in any show. The thirty shows in this 3 double-sided Dvd set also go a long way to explain why this sitcom has never really left the air. This was a very funny and entertaining series and being able to watch an episode or two at your own leisure is just great.

Season Three, also the last season because some executive decided this show had to make room for another one to take a run at Gunsmoke, featured a lot of dream sequences and other excuses to get Ginger, Mary Ann, the Professor, the Skipper, the Howells, and Gilligan into different settings and characters. For example, The Producer has them playing Hamlet A Go-go while The Invasion features Bob Denver playing Agent 014 (he is twice as smart as 007). There is also a lot of comic escape such as when the castaways find a plastic substance they can mold into useful every day tools that, unfortunately, explode.

Another reason Gilligan’s Island is still entertaining is not only because the shows were funny but they often included many sight gags and running jokes that kept viewers entertained. True, a modern audience might be uncomfortable at the very cliché “natives” that sometimes showed up from a neighboring island, but all in all this is good clean fun.

The only flaw with The Complete Third Season is in the box set itself. Disc 3 Side B is supposed to have a documentary on the show where some professor named Robert J. Thompson, tries to sell this show as some great cultural icon. Unfortunately, there is no side B on disc 3. The special feature in question is on side A of that disc.

Other extras include one episode with commentary by creator and producer Sherwood Schwartz and an introduction by Schwartz for the third season. By the way, if you look behind Schwartz you will see he kept the dolls used in the Voodoo episode.

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