In Classic Episode of Gilligan’s Island “The Producer,” Hollywood deal-maker Harold Hecuba (Phil Silvers) is looking for talent in “out-of-the-way places” when his plane crashes on our favorite tropical isle. To impress the impresario, the castaways mount a musical version of “Hamlet” with Gilligan (Bob Denver) in the title roll. It ain’t Shakespeare, but it does get the producer’s attention.
He quickly rechristens it “Harold Hecuba’s Hamlet” and swipes all the singing parts for himself (a quicksilver bit of shtick for Silvers0. At the end of this inventive episode, Hecuba steals away — and steals the idea — leaving a sadder but wiser Gilligan to pronounce the moral: “Well, that’s showbiz.”
Original Airdate: 3 October 1966
