The Only Gilligan’s Island Video Game Adaptation Was A Mess

By the late ’80s, “Gilligan’s Island” had become a pop culture fixture. Though Sherwood Schwartz’s sitcom only lasted for three seasons and 98 episodes from 1964 to 1967, it was heavily syndicated throughout the ’70s and ’80s, ensuring new generations became familiar with Gilligan and his fellow castaways. Not only that, the show produced two animated spin-offs with “The New Adventures of Gilligan” (1974-75) and “Gilligan’s Planet” (1982-83). What’s more, the original cast returned for three live-action TV movies: “Rescue From Gilligan’s Island” (1978), “The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island” (1979), and “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island” (1981). So, by the end of the 1980s, the “Gilligan’s” universe was most certainly etched into the public’s collective consciousness.

But you could also argue that it was waning in popularity. The last live-action TV movie, “The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island” — which almost featured a different team entirely — was not a big ratings success and therefore marked the end of the TV films based on the sitcom. Meanwhile “Gilligan’s Planet” didn’t last more than one season. So, while “Gilligan’s Island” had become well-established, it also wasn’t exactly at the height of its popularity by the end of the ’80s, which is only part of the reason why Bandai’s 1990 NES game “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” is such a mystery.

There’s been plenty of video games based on popular TV IP. Anyone who grew up in PS2/Xbox age will surely remember “The Simpsons: Hit & Run,” and many a ’90s kid spent hours on the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” game. Heck, there was even a “Desperate Housewives” video game adaptation. But “Gilligan’s Island?” Happily, the Bandai game actually turned out to be a masterpiece, revered by players across the globe as one of the Nintendo Entertainment System’s finest offerings. Just kidding, it was bad.

“Gilligan’s Island” was a show that embraced nonsense and never once apologized for it. The sitcom knew it was a ridiculous and campy comfort watch and never really tried to be much else. Bob Denver’s bumbling first mate was just one of several charming characters who made up the castaways of the S.S. Minnow — named as such for a hilarious reason — making for a show that, while it never made much sense, was essentially lovable nonsense. But none of that really screams “video game adaptation,” which didn’t stop Bandai from churning out a NES game in 1990. Lamentably, “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” was terrible.

There’s even something off about the name. Typically, “The Adventures of” would precede a character’s name; “The Adventures of TinTin,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (itself inexplicably transformed into a lackluster video game back in 1989). While “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” is not technically incorrect grammar, it sort of suggests that you’re getting some compendium of all the adventures to take place on the titular isle, when in fact you’re embarking on your own single adventure. That might sound nit-picky, but the title is just the first sign of trouble and hints at what’s to come once you fire up this ill-conceived adventure game.

The next sign of trouble? Bandai’s 8-bit take on CBS’s classic sitcom had you play as The Skipper, played by Alan Hale Jr. in the original show. That’s right, in the “Gilligan’s Island” video game you don’t play as Gilligan. Instead, the first mate follows you around while you explore the island across four levels — a game mechanic that evidently proved incredibly frustrating for anyone who actually played the game. As a GameFaqs review from 2006 noted, the AI that guided Gilligan through the levels was awful, and yet keeping the hapless lad by your side was “integral to the game,” as leaving him behind caused the time limit to quickly plummet. There was also a “random glitch where Gilligan will actually dart off in the opposite direction and then trap himself in the edge of the screen” — and these were just some of the issues with “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island.”

“Gilligan’s Island” has been at the center of several perplexing cultural developments since it first aired, such as the time the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song sparked a weird lawsuit. But the decision to market a video game adaptation to the kids of 1990, who were busy sinking hours into “Mega Man” and “Zelda” seems like one of the strangest moments in “Gilligan’s Island” history. Just two years after “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island,” we were all busy unleashing ferocious fatalities on our enemies in “Mortal Kombat,” so why were Bandai convinced that we’d all be tempted to wander an 8-bit version of an island from a campy 60s sitcom?

Suppose if it had been a decent adventure/strategy game that just happened to use the “Gilligan’s Island” branding, it would be a different story. But by all accounts, the game was about as bad as any NES game has ever been. It opens with a chiptunes version of “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle” — the famous sitcom theme co-written by Sherwood Schwartz and George Wyle. But even then, there’s something off, with the NES’ digital synth chip struggling to recreate the actual notes of the original song. Things only got worse from there. Aside from the fact that you didn’t get to play as Gilligan in “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” and the fact that the in-game AI was atrocious, there were multiple other problems with Bandai’s game. Most of the time, players simply walked back and forth between other castaways, which included all the beloved characters from the original show (Mary Ann, the Professor, Mr. and Mrs. Howell) but inexplicably left out Ginger, played by Tina Louise on the original sitcom. 

According to GameFaqs, these expeditions between characters involved interactions with “hyperactive monkeys, ferocious wild boars, and swarthy headhunters” who were nearly impossible to hit and therefore worth avoiding entirely. This only left island exploration — hardly the most thrilling video game experience, especially when so many other aspects of the game didn’t work.

GameFaqs’ retrospective of “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” summed up the game as a “three-hour bore,” but even that isn’t quite as bad as Wired‘s estimation of it as a “three-hour torture.” The magazine reviewed the game back in 2009, only to surmise that it “plays like a grad student’s achingly postmodern master’s thesis in which he explores what happens to players when they are forced to play a game with nothing in it. Except Bandai actually sold this to actual children for $50.”

While GameFaqs at least acknowledges that there are some decent aspects to the game, overall “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” was a pretty abject misfire that remains somewhat of a mystery today. Why was it made? What kid with an NES was asking their parents for the “Gilligan’s Island” game — surely a real-world analog for “Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge” from “The Simpsons.” Did Bandai really think Gilligan and his stranded crew would appeal to kids who could have been playing “Super Marios Bros. 3” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game,” both of which also debuted in 1990? Questions abound.

To this date, “The Adventures of Gilligan’s Island” is the only video game adaptation of Sherwood Schwartz’s beloved sitcom ever made, and, all things considered, that’s probably for the best.