Within the e book, Schwartz reiterated his struggles with casting the Skipper, writing:
“Instinctively, I knew the Skipper can be the toughest character to solid. Fairly often, once you imagine one thing goes to be essentially the most tough, it seems to be the simplest. 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 power 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 wonderful 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 needed somebody, in his phrases, who could possibly be as evil as Attila the Hun whereas nonetheless feeling like Edmund Gwenn from “Miracle on thirty fourth Avenue.” 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 offended, unforgiving, and unsympathetic as potential. This uncompromisingly cruel scene was designed to make you hate the Skipper, regardless of which actor performed the half.”
It appears that evidently Bob Denver and Alan Hale understood the chemistry that their roles required, and so they have been skilled sufficient comedians to offer it. It helped that Hale was, in actual life, a really good-natured man.
