The sitcom Gilligan's Island only ran for three seasons in the mid-1960s, yet it is still imprinted on the cultural landscape a half-century later, thanks to its universal humor and endless syndication. The first episode launched in 1964, but the idea was born long before, when a professor at New York University asked his students for a speech about what they would take with them to a deserted island. One of the students in the class was Sherwood Schwartz, who remembered the incident and later created the premise of Gilligan's Island. And you might be surprised by the early casting ideas for the show.
As they started casting the roles for the show, they almost created a very different group of castaways. They nearly cast Jerry Van Dyke as Gilligan, Jayne Mansfield as Ginger, Carroll O’Connor as the Skipper, Raquel Welch as Mary Ann, and John Gabriel or Dabney Coleman as the Professor.
That would have been a stellar cast, but one would surmise that there wasn't a budget for so many stars. The only cast member with name recognition was Bob Denver, who had just finished working on the series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. There are plenty of other trivia tidbits you might not know about Gilligan's Island that you can read at Groovy History.