In the book, Schwartz reiterated his struggles with casting the Skipper, writing:
“Instinctively, I knew the Skipper would be the hardest character to cast. Very often, when you believe something is going to be the most difficult, it turns out to be the easiest. Not in this case. The Skipper was, without doubt, the toughest casting job in ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ The Skipper had to combine the gruff, forceful strength of a lion with the gentleness and warmth of a pussycat. You had to love the Skipper, even while he was bawling out the sympathetic, well-meaning Gilligan for some blunder.”
There is a fine line between comedic cruelty and slapstick comedy, and Schwartz knew he had to walk it. It’s funny when Oliver Hardy gets mad at Stan Laurel because you sense that both men are equally harmless. It’s less funny when a wrathful man merely beats up a helpless schlub. Hence, Schwartz needed his special test scene to gauge an actor’s cuddliness. He wanted someone, in his words, who could be as evil as Attila the Hun while still feeling like Edmund Gwenn from “Miracle on 34th Street.” Schwartz continued:
“I wrote a special test scene between the Skipper and Gillian. It wasn’t in the script. It was a scene that made the Skipper as angry, unforgiving, and unsympathetic as possible. This uncompromisingly merciless scene was designed to make you hate the Skipper, no matter which actor played the part.”
It seems that Bob Denver and Alan Hale understood the chemistry that their roles required, and they were experienced enough comedians to provide it. It helped that Hale was, in real life, a very good-natured guy.
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