Editing Gilligan's Island (section)

=== First broadcast episode ===
The first episode broadcast, "Two on a Raft," is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the series pilot. This episode begins with the theme song performed by the Wellingtons and then the same scene of Gilligan and the Skipper awakening on the boat as in the pilot (though slightly differently cut to eliminate most shots of the departed actors) and continues with the characters sitting on the beach listening to a radio news report about their disappearance. No equivalent scene or background information is in the pilot, except for the description of the passengers in the original theme song. Rather than reshooting the rest of the pilot story for broadcast, the show proceeded. The plot thus skips over the topics of the pilot; the bulk of the episode tells of Gilligan and the Skipper setting off on a raft to try to bring help but unknowingly landing back on the other side of the same island.

The scene with the radio report is one of two scenes that reveal the names of the Skipper (Jonas Grumby) and the Professor (Roy Hinkley); the names are used in a similar radio report early in the series. The name Jonas Grumby appears nowhere else in the series except for an episode in which the Maritime Board of Review blames the Skipper for the loss of the ''Minnow''. The name Roy Hinkley is used one other time when Mr. Howell introduces the Professor as Roy Huntley, and the Professor corrects him, to which Mr. Howell replies, "[[Huntley-Brinkley Report|Brinkley]], Brinkley."

The plot for the pilot episode was recycled into that season's Christmas episode, "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk," in which the story of the pilot episode, concerning the practical problems on landing, is related through a series of [[Flashback (narrative)|flashbacks]]. Footage featuring characters that had been recast was reshot using the current actors. For scenes including only Denver, Hale, Backus, and Schafer, the original footage was reused.