After curmudgeonly film producer Harold Hecuba (Phil Silvers) crash lands near the island during an around-the-world talent hunt, the castaways are forced to tolerate him until his rescue plane arrives.
The show-biz producer’s new plan, announced on the castaways’ radio, is to take full credit for his latest brilliant idea: the musical version of Hamlet he intends to stage as his next project.
[5] Although the show Gilligan's Island seldom earned awards of any sort, "The Producer" was selected by TV Guide as one of the 100 greatest television episodes of all time, ranked in the #52 spot.
[6] In Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Paul A. Cantor terms the Hamlet production a "full-scale Broadway show" and notes the episode as "evidence of the degree of sophistication the castaways are able to achieve in their supposedly primitive state..."[6] Cantor also observes in an introduction to Hamlet that this episode is one of several recent examples that demonstrate the enduring popularity of Shakespeare's play, since audiences continue to recognize references to the centuries-old drama.
[7] Yet Michael D. Bristol interprets these parodies, including the Gilligan's Island episode, as reflective of "a distinctively modern experience of subjectivity" in Shakespeare's version of the character.