The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island

"The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" is a made for T.V. movie released in 1981.

ynopsis

The film is a sequel to the TV movie "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island". Gilligan and his friends still own and operate the vacation resort The Castaways. In the film, the Harlem Globetrotters, a traveling troupe of merry basketball players, are on a plane ride over the Pacific Ocean when it has engine trouble and they are forced into an emergency landing onto Gilligan's Island. After a brief time struggling in the jungle, they are discovered by Gilligan and Skipper and welcomed to The Castaways. Meanwhile, a corporate raider has a plan to bamboozle the owners of The Castaways (Gilligan and his friends) into signing over ownership to him, as the island contains ore which provides large sources of energy. Eventually Gilligan and the Skipper uncover the conspiracy, and it results in a basketball game between the Globetrotters and the doctor's robots.

The original script was going to be known as "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on Gilligan's Island", but was changed to have the Harlem Globetrotters star instead. On the original series, the Howells are childless (in fact in one episode they adopt Gilligan). Despite this, a new character of Thurston Howell IV (the Howell's never previously mentioned son, portrayed by David Ruprecht) was added due to the ailing health of actor Jim Backus, who appeared only briefly in the movie's final scene. Thurston Howell III was written out of the script by saying he was tending to business on the mainland United States, and ordered his son, Thurston Howell IV, to manage the island resort. Although Backus was not in the cast, at his insistence to keep up the series canon he made a cameo appearance at the end and is thus credited.

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