Where Was Gilligan's Island Filmed? Every Major Location, Revealed

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Enterprising fans of Sherwood Schwartz's 1964 sitcom "Gilligan's Island" have figured out more or less where the "Island" might be in the Pacific Ocean. Using Hawai'i as a starting point, and including known information about the make and model of the S.S. Minnow, certain viewers on Reddit have tried to calculate how far such a boat could have drifted during a three-hour tour. Some have even incorporated known tropical storm wind speeds and the fastest a non-operational ship could have drifted in the Pacific to locate Gilligan's desert isle. One calculation puts the island about two-thirds of the way to Midway Island from Hawai'i. Those calculations, however, are based on a lot of unspoken assumptions.

Much easier to figure out are the locations of the "Gilligan's Island," as complete records exist on the show's high-profile production. Most of "Gilligan's Island" was famously filmed indoors at the CBS Studio Center, located at 4024 Radford Ave. in Studio City, California. The Radford Center was built way back in 1928 when a lettuce farm was transformed by producer Mack Sennett into a motion picture facility. Silent superstars like W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin all filmed there.

The following decade, the studio fell into the ownership of Republic Pictures, and many famous serials and Westerns were filmed there. In the 1950s, TV productions moved in and hit shows like "Leave It to Beaver," "The Big Valley," and "The Rifleman" were filmed there on a weekly basis. By the early 1960s, the studio became devoted to TV production almost exclusively, with CBS leaning heavily on the property to make "Gunsmoke," "My Three Sons," and, yes, "Gilligan's Island." All the island sets were clearly interiors, and the cast filmed nearly all of their scenes on constructed sets.

But where were all the exteriors? The outdoor locations have a much more far-reaching geography. Luckily, the website SetJetters has tracked down all the notable Hawai'ian locations where "Gilligan's Island" was filmed.

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The notable outdoor lagoon of "Gilligan's Island" was also located in Studio City and was merely an outsize water tank. The Lagoon wasn't heated or filtered, so the stagnant water became brackish and gross after being left uncovered year-round. The "Gilligan's Island" actors had to complain to the producers to get the tank drained and refilled with fresh water. On busy days traffic days, shooting on the lagoon had to be delayed, as one could hear cars from the nearby 101 Freeway. The lagoon was paved over in 1995, and its old location is now a parking lot. (As Joni Mitchell once observed, they paved paradise ...)

The opening theme sequence of "Gilligan's Island," however, was filmed in Hawai'i, and most of the outdoor ocean scenes were filmed off the coast of Waikiki. The marina where the S.S. Minnow was moored is the still-functional Ala Wai Harbor on the southern coast of Oahu. The opening sequence was filmed shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, so the flags in the sequence are at half-mast.

The title card of "Gilligan's Island" was superimposed over a distant island, meant to be a wide shot of the show's home location. For season 1's title sequence, that island was footage of Sandy Cay, an island in the Bahamas. (Fun fact: if you have $3 million burning a hole in your pocket, you can buy Sandy Cay for yourself.) The second season of "Gilligan's Island" was shot in color, and the title sequence footage of Sandy Cay was replaced by shots of Coconut Island, located in Oahu's Kaneohe Bay. It is current the site of the Hawai'ian Institute of Marine Biology.

The color footage of the marina, shot for the title sequences of seasons 2 and 3, were merely filmed in Marina del Rey, California.

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The title sequence footage of the S.S. Minnow, damaged and washed up on shore, was also filmed in Hawai'i. According to Sherwood Schwartz's memoir "Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndication," Schwartz scoured the Hawai'ian islands, looking for just the right kind of boat that would serve as the S.S. Minnow. He also needed one that he could smash holes into, as seen in the above photograph. He even tells an amusing anecdote about how he and the "Gilligan's Island" production crew arranged the boat on a local beach and got to smashing when a very baffled old man wandered by, wondering what the heck they were doing. 

The remote beach was located one island west of Oahu on Kauai. Specifically, it was Moloa'a Beach. According to Schwartz, the boat was already non-functional when he bought it, so it needed to be towed all the way from Oahu to Kauai for filming.

When the actors filmed their Hawai'ian footage, according to the fansite GilligansIsle.com, they stayed at the Coco Palms Hotel in Kaui, near Wailua. Sadly, that resort has been torn down, and the resort built to replace it was damaged by Hurricane Iniki. Filming there only took four days, from November 18 to November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot. After that, it was back to Southern California to shoot the bulk of the series, all within earshot of the 101 Freeway.

Natalie Schafer, who played Mrs. Howell, once admitted that she only took the "Gilligan's Island" job because she wanted a brief, free vacation to Hawai'ia.