The New Adventures of Gilligan was an animated series created by Filmation. It ran from 1974 to 1977 on the American Broadcasting Company. It was a spin-off of the popular 1960s comedy series Gilligan's Island, and in flavor was somewhere between a Spiritual Successor and an animated remake of the series,. The biggest difference was the inclusion of a friendly, intelligent island monkey named Stubby.
As with the original live-action series, the plot was simple: The Skipper of the S.S. Minnow and his first mate, Gilligan, had been rented for a tour by five guests: a wealthy married couple, a famous actress, a high school science professor, and an ordinary farm girl. However, a terrible storm washed them off course and left them stranded on an island, forcing them to survive and hope to someday be rescued.
It was followed in 1982 by a spin-off sequel series, Gilligans Planet.
This series included examples of:
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Because Tina Louise chose not to return to voice the animated version of her character Ginger Grant, wanting to distance herself from the role, Filmation changed the cartoon version of Ginger from a redhead to a platinum blonde.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Many of the episodes concluded with an "educational tag" where Skipper and Gilligan would talk about whatever lesson they had learned that day.
- Fantastic Racism: When an interplanetary geological sampling robot launched from Cape Kennedy crashes on the island, everybody becomes convinced it's actually an alien invader, and react to it with varying degrees of hostility and disgust. This is spelled out for them when the Professor returns and clarifies things, and the other castaways realize what bigoted fools they are — especially as the robot could have saved them!
- Poor Communication Kills:
- In "The Olympiad", the castaways fly into a panic after the Professor tells them the island is going to sink. It's not until the episode's end that he finally clarifies it was going to sink 25,000 years from now.
- The episode "Their Own Image" is kickstarted when the Skipper misunderstands a conversation and believes Mary Ann is in love with Gilligan.
- In "The Movie Makers", none of the castaways pay attention to Stubby's efforts to direct them to a film that contains instructions on building a rescue boat until it's too late.
- Mundane Utility: In "Super Gilligan", after Gilligan is granted superpowers by a mysterious plant, the best use the castaways can think of for his new powers is to teach the Skipper a lesson in not being so bossy, as opposed to using them to get them all back home.
