Fantasy Island (the show, not the movie)

Does anyone remember this campfest? It seems like every B or C list actor was on it.

What were your favorite episodes?

DL fave George Maharis was on it

Mr. Roarke was a demanding and sometimes impatient boss.

The midget/dwarf looks like a tranny or a very small butch dyke (check out the haircut)

I just remember it came on every Saturday night for years following "The Love Boat" and that the two of them were a huge draw for ABC for pretty much the last half of the 70s (and possibly the first half of the 80s). The only episode I remember (and vaguely at that) had Toni Tennille in it. I think her fantasy may have been solving a murder mystery but I can't recall anything else beyond that.

The TV movies that preceded the TV Series were much darker and less campy.

I always remember even as a pre-teen being so puzzled that no one's fantasy involved sex. They almost always involved re-doing some part of your life again, and then everyone learned the lesson that you have to live with your life.

Every episode, the plane would land and Mr. Rourke would say, "Smiles, everyone! Smiles!" to his staff.

You would think they would have learned pretty quickly to smile when a plane landed, but they seemed to forget every damned time.

They were trips into hell and back. I wanted fantasies fulfilled, not lessons learned.

I'm sure I watched it every week, but I can't remember a single thing about it except "de plane, de plane" and "smiles everyone, smiles" and Mr. Roarke went on to a lucrative career pitching "fine Corinthian leather" in the Chrysler Cordoba.

I heard a funny comment in an interview with one of the writers of the show, he said “Loveboat had all the actors you thought were dead and Fantasy Island had all the actors you knew were dead!”

In high school my friends and I used to say; you know you are having a shitty weekend if you are stuck home watching reruns of Love Boat and Fantasy Island and you had already seen the episodes.

My favorite episode: Jan Brady, who was dying, wished to see what was to become of her young daughter. She then discovered her daughter was a hooker played by Nellie Oleson.

Eve was stunning in her 20s.

[quote]In high school you knew you were having a shitty weekend if you were stuck home watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island even if the episodes were brand new.

Fixed it for you.

r13, is that for real? It looks hilarious.

The midget was always so annoying.

There was an episode (or two) where guests on The Love Boat arrived on Fantasy Island in the episode that followed. As a kid in the 70s I remember thinking that was cool.. Love Boat came on at 9 on Saturday, Fantasy Island at 10.

This discussion also reminds me of how huge ABC was during that time -- they had so many hit shows that CBS and NBC could barely keep up, among them Six Million Dollar Man, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, Baretta, Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels, Starsky & Hutch, Barney Miller, What's Happening, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, etc. This of course was also when their slogan was, appropriately enough, "Still the One" and they aired a commercial at the start of the new TV season with all of their stars standing on the deck of, you guessed it, the Love Boat.

Carol Linley appearances were always a highlight (she made several)

I also fondly remember the episode featuring Bigfoot.

Just saw one with Carol Lynley in it (RIP)

Remember when Network TV was still a thing, and had great shows?

I liked how at the end Mr. Roarke started acting like The Phantom Stranger from DC Comics, complete with mystical powers.

I was too young to have a social life when The Love Boat and Fantasy Island started running. (I don't even remember the TV movies. I was too young to stay up to watch them.) I probably watched them semi-religiously from 1977-1980. By the fall of 1980, I was still too young to have a social (night)life, but the shows had run their course for me.

I tried watching them a few years back on the Mesothelioma channels and they were excruciating to sit through.

I do remember one Fantasy Island story that always stayed with me. Four women who were best friends and cheerleaders together back in high school came to FI for a reunion and were being killed off one by one. When one would disappear, their doppelganger doll would also disappear from the mantle. The four women were played by Michele Lee, Sue Lyon, Pamela Franklin and some no name chick (Hillary someone or other).

Isn't there one episode where Mr. Roark squares off against the devil?

r10, actually, Ricardo's Chrysler commercials preceeded Fantasy Island -- the first commercial aired in 1975, while the first Fantasy Island TV movie aired in 1977.

Ricardo Montalbán would claim in interviews that he had a definite opinion in mind regarding the mystery of Mr. Roarke, and how he accomplished his fantasies, but he would never publicly state what it was. Years after the series was off the air, in an interview with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Montalbán finally revealed that his motivation was imagining Roarke as a fallen angel whose sin was pride and that Fantasy Island was Purgatory.

I did the helicopter tour over Kauai, which is where much of the FI opening footage was filmed. It was beautiful, even though I was terrified. LOL

I have been on the porch of Mr. Roarke's house. It's in the LA County Arboretum.

Wasn't there an incest one ? A brother and sister find out they are not really related and hook up at the end.

N0, r30. Mr. Aaron Spelling would never support that, nor would he support nepotism.

it was the best for old wonderful hasbeens. And I kind of think we need another. Not sure about the premise, but something where a bunch of 80s and 90s stars can gather for one last hurrah.

and in about 5 years, I expect the cast of Will and Grace to make an appearance on my mythical show.

I loved this show as a kid. Watched it again last year and maybe two out of ten episodes were good and held up well while the rest were crap.

Didn’t the little guy kill himself? Did he have a career after the show was over?

well yeah there is that r34, but honestly isn't that okay. A place for hasbeens, with the occasional good episode. Now we just warehouse them. It's cruel.

R35 he screwed himself off the show by complaining too much and demanding more money. His career pretty much ended after that.

Just saw one with Maureen "Marcia" McCormick

I’m in the minority here but I love watching these on the Mesothelioma channel.

The best one was when Peter Graves’ fantasy was to catch Bigfoot. It was very matter-of-factly explained that no one had gotten close to Bigfoot because he had such strong ESP.

[quote]Wasn't there an incest one ? A brother and sister find out they are not really related and hook up at the end.

Yes, I was going to post this! I can't remember the whole story but a brother and sister are trying to learn something about their family history and I seem to recall an old gothic (haunted?) mansion. At the end they find out they're not actually brother and sister and promptly reveal that they've always had the hots for each other. No biggie! I wonder if that one was inspired by Flowers in the Attic which came out in the late 70s.

Adrienne Barbeau as a fat woman who had the fantasy of being thin

Adrienne Barbeau was on another one where George Maharis was in love with her. LOL. I guess that fantasy involved him magically turning straight

As a young gayling, I wanted to have sex with Ricardo Montalbán. Yum.

As a young gayling, I wanted to have sex with Tattoo

Just watched a really campy one where a group of women (including Pamela Franklin, Sue "Lolita" Lyon, and Michelle Lee) meet up for a high school reunion, only for it to go horribly awry!

[quote] Just watched a really campy one where a group of women (including Pamela Franklin, Sue "Lolita" Lyon, and Michelle Lee) meet up for a high school reunion, only for it to go horribly awry!

You don't say.

The one where a reality show stars wishes to be president wasn't very good. It just didn't seem credible to me.

Fran: I just heard Mr. Sheffield has a thing for tattoos!

Val: Ugh! That little guy from Fantasy Island?

Who could ever forget Mr. Roark battling Satan for the immortal soul of Carol Brady?

The midget was Latino? What wouldn't I give for a midget assistant. My fantasy.