Word: gilligans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After a couple of decades in relative obscurity, Schwartz, 78, has suddenly resurfaced. He co-produced the current box-office hit The Brady Bunch Movie and has already started work on a sequel. He is in the midst of writing a big-screen version of Gilligan's Island. (No cast yet, but Schwartz has his wish list: Martin Short as Gilligan, John Goodman as the Skipper and Michelle Pfeiffer or Geena Davis as the improbably maquillaged starlet Ginger.) What's more, Schwartz is teaming with Ted Turner to create a chain of Gilligan-inspired amusement arcades. Among the attractions: Gilligan...
...grew up in Brooklyn and has a master's degree in biochemistry, wrote for such early TV comedies as The Red Skelton Show and Ozzie and Harriet before creating his two biggest hits. Since then he has overseen a cottage industry-producing cartoon shows and TV movies based on Gilligan and the Bradys. He also has produced the occasional TV pilot, like 1982's Scamps, starring Gilligan himself, Bob Denver, as an unemployed television writer...
...modern, sparsely appointed Beverly Hills home, Schwartz keeps balsa-wood replicas of all the Gilligan's Island characters, as well as leather-bound volumes of scripts for both his fabled sitcoms. Schwartz has always been his shows' most earnest defender. When comedy writer Merrill Markoe once asked him why the theme songs for Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch lay out their premises so explicitly ("Here's the story/ Of a lovely lady ."), he replied, "Because puzzled people cannot laugh...
Schwartz remembers CBS chairman William Paley turning pale as Schwartz called Gilligan's Island a "social microcosm" when he pitched the idea for the show. Schwartz still calls it that. "I knew that by assembling seven different people and forcing them to live together, the show would have great philosophical implications," he says. "On a much larger scale this happens all the time. Eventually, the Israelis are going to have to learn to live with the Arabs. We have one world, and Gilligan's Island was my way of saying that." Gilligan and the Skipper as Arafat and Rabin...
COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOFEST SIGHT GAG Gilligan the punch line [headshot of Bob Denver as Gilligan...