Doll-A-Day 2019 #186: Gilligan's Island Skipper and Professor

  What with one thing and another,including the fact that our car is about to die and has only been making trips to the grocery store and Ken's workplace,Korglady's prize was only recently mailed.So watch for it Korglady,and let me know when it arrives.
  Today we're looking at some old friends.

It's The Skipper and The Professor from Gilligan's Island. There was a Gilligan doll too, but I don't have it. While they made a special portly body sculpt for The Skipper,they didn't do a special skinny one for Gilligan, and he looks way too buff.

These dolls are from 1997,and were made by Premiere, the same company who made the Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa doll you saw HERE,and the Laurel and Hardy dolls you saw HERE. Also like those dolls they were Target stores exclusives.

They are numbered,limited editions.

The back of the boxes are alike. They feature pictures from the show,but mostly Gilligan. There are  only 2 pictures of the Professor. One is on the side of the boxes.

The box back has a flap that opens to show more scenes from the show.

This picture from the first episode shows The Professor and The Skipper,and Gilligan.

It wasn't a 'three hour fishing party'. It was 'a three hour tour'! Duh! Haven't these people ever heard the theme song?!

The Skipper wears his blue shirt,but his khaki pants are too dark.

His skipper hat is part of his head, and not removable.
 

The Professor wears his khaki pants. They're a bit dark too.

He has a brown vinyl belt.

They made a mistake with his shirt though. Instead of the light blue shirt The Professor always wore, for some reason they've given him a blue and white striped shirt.

He also has molded and painted socks. (His shoes are molded too,and like the socks, part of his legs.)

The shoes on neither are accurate. Both characters wore blue deck shoes,and both dolls wear white shoes.
 

The Skipper has blue socks.

The Skipper was portrayed by Alan Hale Jr.,and this doll is an ok likeness. Not great,but ok.

Russell Johnson played The Professor. The doll's likeness to him is pretty good.

Both dolls come with two accessories...
 

The Skipper comes with a life preservers and the ship's wheel.

The Professor also comes with a life preserver,as well as the radio,the castaway's only contact with the outside world...except for all those people who kept dropping in on them throughout the series.

 ...and a stand.

The radio is a good idea. The radio featured prominently in a lot of plots.And they didn't do a terrible job with the mold. The life preserver even makes sense, but it could have at least had 'SS Minnow' written on it. And they could have given the life preserver to only one of them. There were plenty of  other things they could have chosen. The Professor could have had one of his inventions,or a book. The Skipper could have had a bamboo or coconut cup,like they used on the show. The best accessory they could have given The Skipper would have been a removable hat to hit Gilligan with.
 Both dolls are jointed at the neck,shoulders, and hips, as well as having jointed knees and elbows.
 

They have different hand sculpts. The Skipper's right hand seems to be sculpted for strangling Gilligan.

Alan Hale Jr. was the son of, obviously, Alan Hale. Alan Hale (the father) was an actor too. He was a Warner Brothers contract player. He's best known for his role as Little John in the 1938 "The Adventures of Robin Hood" film, starring Errol Flynn. He also appeared in Laurel and Hardy's "Our Relations" as a waiter, and in Danny Kaye's "The Inspector General" as 'Kovatch',as well as many other famous films like "Algiers","The Prince and the Pauper","Of Human Bondage",and "Hollywood Canteen", where he appeared as himself. Alan Jr. greatly resembled his father,and is more well known these days. Whenever Ivy and I are watching something and Alan Sr. shows up we always say, "Skipper's dad!".

The Skipper,Alan Hale Jr., on the right, with his dad,Alan Hale.

  The other characters on "Gilligan's Island" used actual names. Even Gilligan had at least one name. (And only one is ever mentioned. The show's creator Sherwood Schwartz said that if Gilligan had ever been given a full name, it was to have been 'Willy Gilligan'. I like 'Gilligan' better as a first name.) The real names of the Skipper and the Professor characters were used only once. The real names were mentioned in the pilot episode,when the radio announcer is talking about the ship wreck. (There were two 'pilots':one that wasn't actually used,where the Professor character was played by a different actor,and one that used the regular cast.)  But what were those real names? Can you remember?

'The Professor',whose real name was 'Roy Hinkley'.

'The Skipper',whose real name was 'Jonas Grumby'.
  Those are today's dolls. See you tomorrow for another one.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #55: Oscar Week: Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa

    For the next seven days we'll be celebrating the Academy Awards,which are being given out tonight. The doll celebrating the Oscars today is this lady.

She's Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa.

This doll is supposed to be Ingrid Bergman,but I don't think she bears much resemblance to her.

Maybe it's her startled look.

'Ilsa' was sold as a single doll,or in a two pack with the other doll in the series, Humphrey Bogart as 'Rick'.

The dolls were based on the characters Ilsa and Rick, from the movie "Casabanca".

 

The doll was made by Premeire,and sold in 1998. Premiere does much better with it's male dolls. I think another problem with the Premeire dolls is the thick fabric they use for the clothes. If it were thinner it would be much more to scale and not bunch awkwardly.

Ingrid is 9" tall. Her hat is part of her head and can't be removed,and she has a molded blob of hair.

Her shoes are molded and painted.

She has jointed knees and elbows,and can turn her head.
 

Looks like somebody stole her glass. Other Premeire dolls came with accessories,but I don't think these did. Maybe they were supposed to,and the accessories never made it into production. They did come with display bases though.

Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm Sweden on August 29,1915. She acted in films in Sweden and Germany before making her American film debut in 1939,with the film "Intermezzo". The switch must have been made easy by the fact that in addition to Swedish and German, she also spoke  English, French,and Italian. She was known for her natural looks,which were unusual in film in those days. Ingrid Bergman wore no make up and sported unplucked brows.

 

"Casablanca" was released in 1942. The film was a romantic drama set in,where else, Casablanca. Rick must choose between keeping Ilsa,with whom he previously had been in love,with him,or sending her off with her husband so she can help him continue to fight the Nazis. The release of the film was moved up when the Allied forces invaded North Africa.

The doll is a recreation of 'Ilsa',from the final scene of the film,where 'Rick' convinces her that she must go with her husband,because "You're a part of his work, the thing that keeps him going." It's the famous, "...You'll regret it,maybe not today,maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life...Here's lookin' at you kid." scene.

Maybe that blob of hair wasn't so far off.

There's a great Muppets parody of that scene,which actually uses almost the exact dialogue from the scene,(Only changing one word),but still manages to be hilarious. You can see it HERE.
Her clothes are removable. Under her jacket she wears a satiny blouse.

This doll was rescued from our flooded basement. Somewhere down there the 'Rick' doll is waiting to join her.

The movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Humphrey Bogart was nominated as Best Actor,but Ingrid Bergman was not nominated as Best Actress. Bogart didn't win anyway, but the movie won three other Oscars: Best Picture,Best Director, (Michael Curtiz),and Best Screenplay,(Julius J. and Phillip G. Epstein and Howard Koch).

Ingrid Bergman did win a Best Actress Oscar though. In fact,she won two of them,(For "Gaslight" in 1944 and "Anastasia" in 1956),and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar,(for "Murder on the Orient Express" in 1974). She is one of only 5 people to have won three Oscars, (Although Katherine Hepburn still beats them all with the four she won.),and was nominated seven times. She also won two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award,a BAFTA award,and four Golden Globe Awards.
  Although Ingrid Bergman was loved by the American public,she became very unpopular when, in 1950,while married, she had an affair,and a child, with her director, Roberto Rossellini. She was even denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate. She divorced her first  husband and entered into a custody battle for her daughter Pia. (Pia,who later became an actress herself, was born in 1938.) Ingrid married Rossellini the same year,and had two more children,one of whom, Isabella Rossellini,also became an actress. Ingrid was forced by the scandal to leave Hollywood,and work in Europe. She would not return to Hollywood until 1956,when she returned to star in "Anastasia",for which she won her second Oscar.

  Ingrid Bergman continued to act,her last work being the mini series "Golda" in 1982,in which she played Golda Meir. Ingrid died of breast cancer on her birthday in 1982.