Sit Right Back and Take Our ‘Gilligan’s Island’ Quiz

Denver starred as Dobie Gillis’ best friend, the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which ran from 1959 to 1963.

For a deserted island, it sure got a lot of visitors. A pair of Russian cosmonauts crash-landed on the island during the Season 2 episode “Nyet, Nyet — Not Yet.” That season also saw the arrival of an exiled Latin American despot in “The Little Dictator.” In Season 3’s “The Producer,” a Hollywood bigwig (played by TV pioneer Phil Silvers) was stranded just long enough to insult Ginger’s acting ability and steal an idea for a play.

Former Miss Nevada Dawn Wells played Mary Ann Summers and was a fan favorite. “Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann, got five times the fan mail than everybody else,” Lloyd J. Schwartz, Sherwood’s son, said in a March 2022 interview with Fox News, explaining that fans identified with the girl-next-door character.

Lovey (played by Natalie Schafer) was actually named Eunice Wentworth Howell. In Season 2, viewers learn her full name when the castaways hear a radio report revealing the minister who married the rich couple was a fraud.

The castaways thought they got rescued in Season 2’s “The Friendly Physician,” but in reality, they were lured to another island where they were used as subjects in an experiment. They never successfully made it back to civilization before the show was canceled at the end of Season 3. However, they did find their way home in the 1978 reunion TV movie Rescue from Gilligan’s Island.