Can you imagine "Gilliagan's Island" with the following actors?

-- Carroll O'Connor as the Skipper
(Producers felt he wasn't likeable enough.)

-- Jerry Van Dyke as Gilligan
(They wanted him. HE turned them down in favor of My Mother the Car!)

-- Jayne Mansfield as the Movie Star
(She turned them down.)

-- Raquel Welch as Mary Ann
(She lost out to Dawn Wells. It was for the best.)

Sure you all know the tour was only supposed to be three hours, and you probably know that MaryAnn was a farm girl from Kansas, and if you’re really a fan you might even know that The Skipper’s real name was Jonas Grumby. Well, I’ve gone deep into the dark internet (ok, not really, just Googled some stuff) and found some really fun facts that you might not know about everyone’s favorite group of coconut loving castaways.

The ship, The S.S. Minnow, was actually named after FCC Commissioner Newton Minow who was responsible for the famous dubbing of TV as “a vast wasteland.” Show creator Sherwood Schwartz obviously wasn’t a big fan of Commissioner Minow or his opinions.

Some pretty famous people were in the running for the castaways:

• Carroll “Archie Bunker” O’Connor was up for the part of (can you guess?)… The Skipper.

• Dick’s little brother, Jerry Van Dyke was Schwartz’ first choice to play Gilligan. Jerry passed on the role, thinking the show would never catch on, and instead went on to the TV classic My Mother The Car, which was canceled after one season.

• We nearly got Raquel Welch as Mary Ann. I’m wondering what the BFF dynamic would have been if Raquel had to try to be the plain Jane to Tina Louise’s Ginger.

• Speaking of that dynamic, Jayne Mansfield actually turned down the role of Ginger. Jayne and Raquel stranded on a deserted island with three single guys. The Professor probably would have put even less effort into getting them saved. (Really? A coconut radio, no problem, but a rescue beacon is simply out of your wheelhouse?).

• And finally, speaking of The Professor, Dabney Coleman lost out on the job to Russell Johnson. Dabney went on to co-star in dozens of hit movies over the decades, while it seems like Russell co-starred in at least 43 Gilligan’s Island movie sequels.

If you watch the opening shot of the titles closely, you’ll notice that as the Minnow leaves port in Hawaii, there are several flags flying at half-mast behind it. That’s because this shot was filmed on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

According to Sherwood Schwartz, Gilligan’s first name was Willy.

And just to make you love everyone’s favorite Little Buddy a little more, Bob Denver was the one who, um, ‘convinced’ studio execs to re-score the theme song and add the lyrics “the Professor and Mary Ann” to the end in the second season by threatening to disallow the use of his name in the titles if they didn’t. You go, Gilligan!!

One actress who could have been Ginger was Francine York, a perpetual "guest actress" along the lines of Nancy Kovack, Susan Oliver, or Arlene Martel. York had sort of lived Ginger's life, with a lot of B-movies mixed in with television slots. There were many actresses doing guest shots on Westerns, action/adventure shows, sitcoms, then sliding over to smaller roles in movies. I'm not sure if a regular spot on a sitcom would be a step up for some of them.

Susan Oliver is the only one who could be considered as hot or hotter than Tina Louise. Tina was too skinny for me but she was very pretty in the face. Even prettier than most actresses today.

Which actresses is clearly prettier than Tina Louise? I can't think of any.

Can you imagine "Gilliagan's Island" with the following actors?

-- Carroll O'Connor as the Skipper
(Producers felt he wasn't likeable enough.)

-- Jerry Van Dyke as Gilligan
(They wanted him. HE turned them down in favor of My Mother the Car!)

-- Jayne Mansfield as the Movie Star
(She turned them down.)

-- Raquel Welch as Mary Ann
(She lost out to Dawn Wells. It was for the best.)

Do you know why Jayne Mansfield turned them down??