Within the guide, Schwartz reiterated his struggles with casting the Skipper, writing:
“Instinctively, I knew the Skipper could be the toughest character to solid. Fairly often, once you consider one thing goes to be essentially the most tough, it seems to be the best. Not on this case. The Skipper was, no doubt, the hardest casting job in ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ The Skipper needed to mix the gruff, forceful energy of a lion with the gentleness and heat of a pussycat. You needed to love the Skipper, even whereas he was bawling out the sympathetic, well-meaning Gilligan for some blunder.”
There’s a high quality line between comedic cruelty and slapstick comedy, and Schwartz knew he needed to stroll it. It is humorous when Oliver Hardy will get mad at Stan Laurel since you sense that each males are equally innocent. It is much less humorous when a wrathful man merely beats up a helpless schlub. Therefore, Schwartz wanted his particular check scene to gauge an actor’s cuddliness. He wished somebody, in his phrases, who may very well be as evil as Attila the Hun whereas nonetheless feeling like Edmund Gwenn from “Miracle on thirty fourth Road.” Schwartz continued:
“I wrote a particular check scene between the Skipper and Gillian. It wasn’t within the script. It was a scene that made the Skipper as indignant, unforgiving, and unsympathetic as doable. This uncompromisingly cruel scene was designed to make you hate the Skipper, regardless of which actor performed the half.”
Evidently Bob Denver and Alan Hale understood the chemistry that their roles required, and so they have been skilled sufficient comedians to supply it. It helped that Hale was, in actual life, a really good-natured man.
