GILLIGAN'S ISLAND - DVD SEASON & SERIES SETS (2004-2012) - Pros, Cons, Incongruities & Imponderables (1 Viewer)

[Desslar]

The old 1980s colorization looks bad compared to today's modern attempts like the more recent Lucy/Dick Van Dyke specials. The technique has improved. Plus now, the show can be seen in HD.

They didn't have a variety of colors to choose from back then. Plus its in standard definition. The colors lack vibrancy, and are dull compared to the other screen capture from the second season. Gilligan's shirt should

Hmm... Now I'm confused. I don't recall ever seeing black and white episodes in syndication, and just assumed that the first season was not part of the syndication package. But maybe it was, simply colorized.

I'd rather watch something less than perfect in color than something in black and white!

I was watching an episode of Space 1999 not too long ago, and the old black and white TV monitors and "communicators" really date the show. Heck, even Star Trek TOS used color monitors!


You know, it's funny, I actually prefer the muted colors! The other colors are obviously more accurate, but they really seem garish to me. Of course, that's typical for the 1960s - shows like Batman and Wild Wild West had vibrant colors - after all, that's what people wanted to see if they were watching a color show!
I guess my thought is, is the colorization more distracting than watching the show in B&W (which is very distracting to me as I'm not used to it)?
I would love to see shows like Gilligan, Wild Wild West, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, and Man From Uncle get a nice modern color treatment so that the first season of all these shows could be better integrated into reruns of the shows.

The Space 1999 blu ray release should have colored those monitors, the same way the Star Trek TOS re-release was visually enhanced.

Concerning older shows I'd love to see in color, Naked City and Route 66 are at the top of the list.

 

[LeoA]

Ironically, I always felt that this show worked best in black & white.

I've had a picture setting with color turned off through the years on multiple generations of televisions now, with Gilligan's Island one of the primary reasons. I always thought that the Gilligan's Island set looked much more convincing in b&w instead of in color.

 

[BobO'Link]

Hmm... Now I'm confused. I don't recall ever seeing black and white episodes in syndication, and just assumed that the first season was not part of the syndication package. But maybe it was, simply colorized.



The Space 1999 blu ray release should have colored those monitors, the same way the Star Trek TOS re-release was visually enhanced.

Concerning older shows I'd love to see in color, Naked City and Route 66 are at the top of the list.

Gilligan was syndicated with all seasons - even the BW S1, which was syndicated in BW. The TV station I worked for in the 70s/80s would not air the BW episodes during sweeps weeks under the supposition that people would tune out due to them being in BW and it would cost ratings points. I told them that was plain stupid and that anyone who would watch Gilligan would do so no matter which season was being shown, BW or color, and if they were doing that for sweeps then they should never air the BW episodes. Fell on deaf ears... I also had no idea someone had bothered to colorize Gilligan - but I'm not a fan of the process and wouldn't purchase colorized episodes anyway.

I *did* purchase the colorized seasons of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, thinking I'd just turn off the color on the set when watching them (watching a few in faux color was interesting but just not that good as, to me, it looks fake and the anomalies in the process stick out like sore thumbs). That turned out to be enough of a pain that I double-dipped on those seasons to get the BW ones instead.

 

[BobO'Link]

Ironically, I always felt that this show worked best in black & white.

I've had a picture setting with color turned off through the years on multiple generations of televisions now, with Gilligan's Island one of the primary reasons. I always thought that the Gilligan's Island set looked much more convincing in b&w instead of in color.

Like most of those early color shows it would have looked much better had they not used super-saturated colors. I get it as that's what people expected after dropping not so small amounts of money on purchasing that color TV - they wanted to get their money's worth. BUT - it somewhat dates most of the series that fell into that trap due to the "day glow" color schemes. Thankfully that trend only lasted a few years.

 

[ScottRE]

Ironically, I always felt that this show worked best in black & white.

I've had a picture setting with color turned off through the years on multiple generations of televisions now, with Gilligan's Island one of the primary reasons. I always thought that the Gilligan's Island set looked much more convincing in b&w instead of in color.

But it's Gilligan's Island....why should the island look convincing when nothing else was intended to be? Having said that, a lot more location work was done that first season than in the more studio and backlot bound final two years.

Some shows work better in color, for my money. They just pop and the premise almost demands it. Gilligan's Island was a live action cartoon and the color episodes have more energy. I feel the same about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, I Dream of Jeannie and The Wild Wild West. They really came alive and were more fun in color. However, I always watch their monochrome series in their native b&w. Colorization has never looked good. IDOJ looks terrible colorized. I hope they never tarnish the first season of Voyage with it. The first season was grim, dark and more series, befitting b&w. Same with Lost in Space. Colorization would ruin the grittier, less campy feel Lost in Space had that initial year. Jeez, imagine the first 3 seasons of The Fugitive colorized? Ugh. Only The Wild Wild West would, IMO, work if done right. The fantasy format was in place that first year, so it probably wouldn't feel as different as colorizing the slower, more somber first season Voyage episodes.

 

[Wiseguy]

I'd rather watch something less than perfect in color than something in black and white!

I was watching an episode of Space 1999 not too long ago, and the old black and white TV monitors and "communicators" really date the show. Heck, even Star Trek TOS used color monitors!


You know, it's funny, I actually prefer the muted colors! The other colors are obviously more accurate, but they really seem garish to me. Of course, that's typical for the 1960s - shows like Batman and Wild Wild West had vibrant colors - after all, that's what people wanted to see if they were watching a color show!
I guess my thought is, is the colorization more distracting than watching the show in B&W (which is very distracting to me as I'm not used to it)?
I would love to see shows like Gilligan, Wild Wild West, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, and Man From Uncle get a nice modern color treatment so that the first season of all these shows could be better integrated into reruns of the shows.

The Star Trek scenes were post-production process shots. In other words the actors were looking at blank screens. The Space: 1999 scenes were of real monitors. Keep in mind the series began filming two full years before being broadcast in the USA and England switched to color programming much later than the USA.

 

[ScottRE]

Gilligan was syndicated with all seasons - even the BW S1,

Yep confirmed. Even as kids we joked about "and the rest!" in those first season episodes, as Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson were relegated to the end credits that year due to contracts.

 

[ScottRE]

Thankfully, these are of the mistakenly inserting the episode prologues after the GI opening (Which include the two final aired Season 3 episodes!), rather than before, so at least the within episode scenes still make sense! These prologues are identifiable by the appearance of the "Gilligan's Island" title superimposed, which is my understanding should precede the usual opening credit sequence, rather than follow it.

CHEERS!

The final aired episode, "Gilligan the Goddess" doesn't have the "Gilligan's Island" title after the opening credits, so the prologue format was either abandoned for this episode or they originally aired a prologue without it.

Also, some weirdness as episode 29 "Bang! Bang! Bang" has the writer, producer and director credits directly after the superimposed title. Traditionally, those were after the main title song. So there's confusion as to where these teaser should actually fall in the episode.

 

[Wiseguy]

The final aired episode, "Gilligan the Goddess" doesn't have the "Gilligan's Island" title after the opening credits, so the prologue format was either abandoned for this episode or they originally aired a prologue without it.

Also, some weirdness as episode 29 "Bang! Bang! Bang" has the writer, producer and director credits directly after the superimposed title. Traditionally, those were after the main title song. So there's confusion as to where these teaser should actually fall in the episode.

The Goddess episode, though shown last, was only the second episode filmed that season, before the teasers were placed before the theme. When discussing production matters the production order Is more important than the arbitrary aired order (especially with series like Gilligan that displays the production number in the credits).

 

[ScottRE]

The Goddess episode, though shown last, was only the second episode filmed that season, before the teasers were placed before the theme. When discussing production matters the production order Is more important than the arbitrary aired order (especially with series like Gilligan that displays the production number in the credits).

Thanks, I didn't know the production order. I probably should have checked the end credits, they list production numbers that season. They must have hated that episode to hold it back for the season ending graveyard.

 

[Jeff*H]

Having watched Gilligan in daily rotation for the better part of 10 years on a Spokane channel through the mid 70s to the early 80s, I always liked having those Season 3 teasers before the opening title sequence. It always has irritated me that WB, Turner, or whomever moved the majority of those teasers to AFTER the opening title sequence when S3 was remastered for DVD release.

BTW, the Spokane channel (KXLY), Denver’s KWGN and the Superstation all ran the B&W season in steady rotation for as long as I can recall (our cable company had all those stations back in the day). It was only around 1986 that Turner bought the rights to the show and soon after had that first season colorized. (I recall TBS running the series off and on since around 1980).

 

[LouA]

Just wondering if we will eventually see a Blu-ray release for this series.

 

[Randy Korstick]

I can't watch any shows colorized. Modern or old Colorization it all looks too fake and artificial to me so I end up constantly looking at the colorization and can't concentrate on the show itself.

 

[Sam Favate]

I recently watched all 99 episodes of Gilligan on DVD and I thought the show looked great. The B&W episodes were clear and crisp and the vast majority of the color episodes (one or two were not great quality but the rest were vibrant). Those 60s color shows look terrific on DVD.

 

[MartinP.]

I don't mind it as a diversion to things I've seen over and over again once in awhile. Similarly, I've turned off the color and watched some of my favorite movies in b&w or listened to favorite movies in French, Spanish, Portuguese or whatever. It's just a different way to appreciate some things when you begin to take them for granted.

Also, a lot of people look for things just because it's in your head. Two examples from when I worked in home video stores as a buyer. Once a customer refused to pay for a rental because they didn't know the film was colorized. The film was Drums Along the Mohawk. They thought it looked colorized. Another time the store was playing the film Footloose and people in the store, including some clerks, were discussing the dance scene at the end with all the glitter raining down and someone said they thought that looked so fake and an optical effect or something. Most listening bought into it and started to agree with that. Almost on cue in walked a girl who was a regular customer to return something and she saw the movie playing. She said, "Oh you have Footloose on. I was an extra in that dance scene with all that glitter. They kept dropping it take after take and I couldn't get that glitter out of my hair for days." How many people do you know now that will say, "I hated all that fake looking CGI in that film." Is what they're looking at all fake or just how they're perceiving it? By the way, with computers, new films color is always being manipulated, isn't that colorization?

I had a friend once who worked on alot of movies with the art director and set deocorators. He would always notice many scenes in movies where people are in beds and the sheets on the bed were obviously new and just taken out of packages so that the square folds were visible which isn't the case if you've washed them. So I got into the habit of looking for that too, heh! More than you'd ever think. There was one movie where it took place in a yard with a sheet hanging off a clothesline that had those square folds! I'm basically wondering, do people who know something is colorized have that in their mind and so they look at it so closely they don't enjoy it. I remember Tommy Lasorda saying he never liked many baseball movies because he could always tell most of those actors weren't really baseball players. I remember a review from I read once of Gone with the Wind, written when it came out, where a reviewer wrote that a movie that long in color was bad for one's eyesight. No kidding. ?!?!?

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Colorization of black and white photography just never works right, even going back to the olden days of hand-tinting b&w stills. Short clips of films can get dern close to being passable if done with care, as in the case of some Doctor Who episodes that had small sections from recovered from b&w telecine film colored to match surrounding footage, but mostly you can't just slap color onto a grey scale image and expect any form of accuracy.

Oh, accuracy? What if, say, Night of the Living Dead were colorized "accurately"? All that brown chocolate syrup running down the screen wouldn't be very convincing as blood, would it?

Gilligan's Island, 1st season does not belong in a primary color world (or the colorized, purple ocean, purple sky mess that Tintoretto created in 1991)-- it is a densely saturated, monochromatic world of highlight and shadow magic, goofiness, imagination and retains a moody personality all its own. Even if it were re-colorized with more accurate, modern equipment what's next? Cgi actors? Deepfaked new episodes? Fake 3d?

Personally, I think fake 3d is the worst offender of the lot. I hate watching what looks like a flat picture projected an inch or two behind my tv screen as a lame attempt to add "depth". Never works, never will.

 

[Wiseguy]

Thanks, I didn't know the production order. I probably should have checked the end credits, they list production numbers that season. They must have hated that episode to hold it back for the season ending graveyard.

There are other similar examples of arbitrary airdates:

The first episode filmed for Hogan's Heroes' 5th season (Klink's Escape) was broadcast as the final episode of that season.

The final episode filmed for Bonanza's 8th season (Stage Door Johnnies) was broadcast as the final episode of the 9th season.

The first episode of Bonanza's 9th season (A Severe Case of Matrimony) was broadcast as the final 9th-season episode
(followed by Stage Door Johnnies from the previous season):

aired---prod #---airdate/title

9.32---933----2 Jun 68 Pride of a Man
9.33---901-----7 Jul 68 A Severe Case of Matrimony
9.34---834----28 Jul 68 Stage Door Johnnies

Of course, the rerun/DVD order keeps the arbitrary network aired order.

 

[David Deeb]

Just wondering if we will eventually see a Blu-ray release for this series.

Not sure. However, it is available in digital HD from Apple TV. And it looks fantastic. Frequently on sale in the $19.99-$29.99 range so probably less than any discs will ever be, and available to be enjoyed now.

 

[MartinP.]

Of course, the rerun/DVD order keeps the arbitrary network aired order.

I don't think the way TV series episodes aired was ever arbitrary, nor do I believe they were always intended to air in production order. Episodic series without continuing storylines could air episodes the way they wanted to. I always assumed that the creators/producers of a series chose what episodes aired when, not the network they were broadcast on.

I remembering hearing Don Adams say they chose to air an episode they thought wasn't particularly good on New Year's Eve because viewership would be down as people were getting ready to go out or something, and then he went to a party where many of the guests told him they'd watched that episode while they were getting ready to go out and he was embarrassed! Ha!

When I read a book about All in the Family, it had a section of all the episodes with various info including the airdates and production order and I was surprised to find out that they had a two-part episode where they taped the first part, then they did a completely different episode followed by doing the second part of the two-parter. Curious.

There's also the curious case of a three episode story arc of 12 O'Clock High where the third episode was aired weeks later. Experts on this series haven't ever come up with a reason for this.

 

[Desslar]

I don't think the way TV series episodes aired was ever arbitrary, nor do I believe they were always intended to air in production order. Episodic series without continuing storylines could air episodes the way they wanted to. I always assumed that the creators/producers of a series chose what episodes aired when, not the network they were broadcast on.

I would think the network made scheduling decisions, didn't they?