Wargaming Pop Culture icons: Gilligan's Island

If you grew up in the 60's, 70's and even the 80's, how could you not need to have this group of castaways available for any Pulp gaming action? I felt the same way and then I realized that no figures that I know of exist for them. Thus began a mid Corona Virus quarantine search of 28mm mini producers to find my crew and passengers of the S.S. Minnow.

Gilligan's Island is an American sitcom that ran on TV between 1964-1967. 

The show followed the seven castaways and their adventures on an uncharted, deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. It has run in syndication ever since so new generations of fans can keep enjoying this bunch, or maybe at least so all of us in middle age can.  

Our cast of characters from rear L to R: Thurston Howell III, "Lovey" Wentworth-Howell, Ginger Grant, Captain Jonas "The Skipper" Grumby, Mary Ann Summers, Gilligan, and Professor Roy Hinkley, Ph.D.

I was able to do a pretty good job of finding appropriate figures. I did settle on a Mrs. Howell figure from a few episodes of her playing the part of a Victorian lady.

I also went with a figure that represented Mary Ann wearing a sun dress.

The series ran for a total of 98 episodes and also produced three made-for-television movies.

So, now that you may have been introduced to our characters or had a refresh here are the figures I used to create the cast.

The Skipper, Mr. Howell and Mary Ann are from Pulp Figures. The Skipper was modified to remove the club he was holding and had a bit of green stuff added to fill out his mid section. Mary Ann still needs to have a bit of painting done to add a bit more color, maybe flowers, to her dress. Mrs. Howell is from Reaper Miniatures. Ginger and the Professor are from Hasslefree Miniatures. Believe it or not, Gilligan was the hardest to source. There are sailor figures out there, but they are mostly fairly brawny depictions. I needed a much more slender character. By chance I happened to stumble across an old line of figures (still being produced by the original sculptor) called Reviresco. While a bit rough compared to modern sculpts, it worked for my needs and my main characters for Gilligan's Island were now complete. 

Now all I need to do is go back and rewatch some old episodes to collect some possible game scenarios and additional characters.

Hope this helps anyone who might be interested.

Feel free to check out the first post in the series Wargaming Pop Culture icons: Jonny Quest

Wargaming Pop Culture icons: Jonny Quest

Pulp wargaming has allowed me to return to my youth with a cast of characters right out of some of my favorite after school television shows. I'm a child of the 70's. My dad flew Huey's in Vietnam. We both thought Evel Knievel was badass (although I wasn't allowed to say that word out loud). But I was allowed to have an awesome metal lunchbox and thermos to take to school with his picture on it.

 But even as great as that was, once that schoolboy status symbol of coolness was safely back on the counter at home, it was time to hit the power on the old Zenith for an afternoon of TV viewing bliss. 

I wasn't really a big fan of "fantasy" gaming until this year. I'm still not into games like 40K, but I have discovered Pulp Alley. After a few solo games I was hooked. I realized I could actually relive some of the fond memories of my youth, specifically from those long ago television shows I enjoyed, within this genre of wargaming. Working from home during quarantine since March has allowed me to do a bit of research into the topic. Come to find out, figures for most of these are not actually available. I was bummed at first and then decided a good way to spend time between work editing was to try to source figures that could be used for my new found wargaming obsession. I have since completed the main characters from three of my favorite shows from that era. First up is:

Jonny Quest

Being born at the tale end of the 60's meant that many of the cool comics and shows were still around well into the 70's. Enter Jonny Quest. 

Jonny, his dad Dr. Benton C. Quest, Roger T. "Race" Bannon, Hadji Singh, and their dog Bandit came to life in the first Gold Key Comics issue #1 The Mystery of the Lizard Men. It is also the same year the cartoon TV series Jonny Quest entered homes and ran for a total of 26 episodes until March 1965. Doug Wildey was the artist who created the Jonny Quest franchise. As a fan of his artwork I feel confident that illustrator Doug Wildey was an alien from the future. This is concept artwork by Doug for the very first episode of Jonny Quest (The Mystery of the Lizardmen) which aired on October 2, 1964. Could Doug be the true inventor of Facetime?

It took me some searching to find appropriate figures. There is someone in St. Louis who made a set for Jonny Quest but he charges $50US for the five 28mm figures and I wasn't ready to pay $10 per figure. I also wanted my Dr. Quest to be a bit more scientist than a guy in leather jacket with a machine gun. Also, I didn't think I wanted either of the boys armed. The figures for sale had Hadji holding a sword. So the search continued. These notions are what took me so long in sourcing figures I wanted to use to put the Quest team together. 

Both Dr. Quest's head and Race are from Hasslefree Miniatures. The figure I used for Race had a Katana sword on his back that I had to remove. I also removed the bearded head for Dr. Quest and added it to a body of a scientist figure from Crooked Dice. Jonny's head and Hadji came from Reaper. Hadji is actually the little girl in this set with some sanding to the shirt and the addition of the turban. Jonny's body as well as Bandit are from Rebel Minis.

I think they turned out well and give a good sense of the characters. I am not totally satisfied with my version of Hadji, but he'll have to do. Now I just need to find some appropriate Lizard Men for them.

Check out my second post in the series Wargaming Pop Culture icons: Gilligan's Island

You can also follow along on a new Pulp campaign Quest for the Tiki Mask.