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"The Ballad of Gilligan's Island," in case it needs repeating, is the single best TV theme song of all time. In addition to explicitly explaining the premise of the classic show, "Ballad" introduces every single one of its seven main characters by name (at least starting in the second season, when "The Professor and Mary Ann" replaced the phrase "and the rest"). It also helps that it's one of the most insidious earworms this side of "Yellow Submarine"; once you get "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island" stuck in your head, it will never leave. Your mind will be as lost as the Minnow.
In the original pilot episode for "Gilligan's Island," back before the final cast had been selected, the theme song was a calypso number composed by John Williams. That song, however, wasn't exactly what show creator Sherwood Schwartz wanted, so he and songwriter George Wyle wrote a second, better theme. (Wyle also wrote the Christmas standard "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" in 1963, so he knew how to write an effective earworm). His and Schwartz's "Ballad" was written as a sea shanty, and no one can hear its first six notes without singing the theme in its entirety.
The song was recorded by a band called the Wellingtons, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Urbana, Illinois a few years earlier. The Wellingtons originally called themselves the Lincolns, in homage to their home state (The Land of Lincoln), but changed their name to the Wellingtons when, presumably, the British Invasion was in full swing. The Wellingtons managed to land a plum gig in 1961 when they sang the theme song for the Disney series "The Wonderful World of Color." A proven quantity, the Wellingtons fit the bill to sing Schwartz's and Wyle's now-famed sea shanty.
In the first season, 'The Ballad of Gilligan's Island' was performed by the Wellingtons
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The Wellingtons had a pretty healthy TV career in the 1960s. In addition to "The Wonderful World of Color" and "Gilligan's Island," the band performed the themes for "Annette on Campus," "Savage Sam," and "Folk Heroes." They also toured with comedian Donald O'Connor, and played on the road with musicians like Stevie Wonder and the Supremes. In the second season of "Gilligan's Island," in the episode "Don't Bug the Mosquitos" (December 9, 1965), the Wellingtons appeared on camera as a fictional teen rock band called the Mosquitos. The Wellingtons composed their own songs for that episode.
There is a funny story Schwartz tells about rushing the Wellingtons over to a friend's in-home recording studio on a Sunday, and how they had to record the theme song in between blasts of party preparation noises. The Wellingtons broke up at some point and went their separate ways.
In the second season of "Gilligan's Island," the theme song needed to be re-recorded in order to incorporate "The Professor and Mary Ann" into the lyrics. It seems Tina Louise (Ginger) had a stipulation in her contract that required her credit to come last, forcing Schwartz and Wyle to write the "and the rest" line. In an interview with The Today Show, Bob Denver (Gilligan) implied that was unfair, and noted that as the star of the show, he also had the freedom to put his own credit wherever he wanted. So he called the network and threatened to move his credit to the end of the show's roll-call. The network balked, and eventually allowed Russell Johnson (the Professor) and Dawn Wells (Mary Ann) to be listed after Louise.
Instead of returning to the Wellingtons for the show's second season, however, Schwartz decided to record a slicker version of "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island" with a band called the Eligibles.
For the second and third seasons, the Gilligan's Island theme song was performed by the Eligibles
CBS Television Distribution
Like the Wellingtons, the Eligibles could occasionally be seen on the 1964 music program "Shindig!", but unlike the Wellingtons, didn't have much a career beyond "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island." The Eligibles came to Los Angeles from Renton, Washington, where they began as a pop vocal quartet. A record of their singles can be found in the Capitol Records Singles Guide (include a Christmas song called "My First Christmas With You") and their records include "Along the Trail," "Love is a Gamble," and "Mike Fright."
The Eligibles sang on the road with "Batman '66" actress Eartha Kitt and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Some of their songs can be found easily enough online. The group's members included Stan Farber, Ron Hicklin, Ron Rolla, and Bob Zwirn.
The veracity of this isn't wholly verified, but on the very old website Pwnbands, a person claiming to be Ron Rolla, the band's bass singer, left a comment in 2003 updating readers where he had been since 1963. The comment read:
"I left the group in 1963 after all of the above records were produced and started to concentrate on Opera and Acting. I married and did some singing on the side with the Johnny Mann Singers, and as a band member with Jimmy Wakely. When my family came along, I left music and entered the film production business. As soon as I made the decision to leave music, I received a letter from the Los Angeles Opera Association asking me to become a member of their group as a singer."
Little else is known about the band, but they sang one of the most famous songs of all time. Some would even say the Eligibles' version is the superior, "complete" song.
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