In the United States, the last time any of the extant cast members of “Gilligan’s Island” were united on screen, specifically to reprise their characters from the show, was for a 1992 episode of “Baywatch.” The episode, titled “Now Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale,” saw some of the Baywatch lifeguards finding a small island off the coast of California where Gilligan (Bob Denver) and Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) had been stranded for a few years. They explained that they left their original island in a daring escape, only to become equally stranded on another island. Sadly, by the end of “Now Sit Right Back,” it was revealed that Gilligan and Mary Ann weren’t real, and that the events of the episode were all a dream.
By 1992, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, and Natalie Schafer had already passed away, and it seems that Russell Johnson and Tina Louise didn’t want to, or simply couldn’t, take part in “Baywatch,” so it was just Gilligan and Mary Ann for their final appearance. The “Gilligan’s Island” characters, of course, were so ubiquitous on television (via endless reruns) that they returned periodically on other shows. Case in point: In 1987, Johnson, Hale, Wells, and Denver appeared in character on an episode of “ALF.” That, too, turned out to be a dream in-show.
However, it seems that there was one final “Gilligan’s Island” reunion after “Baywatch,” although it technically never aired in the United States. And this time, it wasn’t a dream.
Indeed, Wells, Johnson, and Denver made their last in-character “Gilligan’s Island” appearances in an episode of a 1997 sci-fi sitcom called “Meego.” The show starred Bronson Pinchot as a 9,000-year-old alien who crash lands on Earth, only to be taken in by an average white suburban family. Said family is played by Ed Begley, Jr., Jonathan Lipnicki (whom /Film has interviewed in the past), and even the late Michelle Trachtenberg. Meego, it seems, was the last known television character to speak to Gilligan.
