Fantasy Island

Aaron Spelling’s production of Fantasy Island became a companion piece to The Love Boat in January of 1978. Just as the cast of The Love Boat was the frame work of the anthologies for the romantic comedies, Fantasy Island’s cast was the frame work of the Twilight Zone type fantasy stories on this show. Ricardo Montalban starred as Mr. Roarke and Herve Villechaize as his right hand man Tattoo. For a season Mr. Roarke’s God Daughter Julie was added to the cast and was played by Wendy Schaal. At first Mr. Roarke seemed to just be a wealthy man who owned the island and wanted to make people’s fantasies come true. He grew more mysterious and magical as the series went on. He was friends with a mermaid who had a fantasy to have legs instead of fins. He also fought the Devil (played by Roddy McDowall) on occasion. The people were flown in by plane and as they got off the plane Mr. Roarke told Tattoo who they were and why they came to the island. This was a good way of introducing their characters into the episode. Usually the fantasy would deal with romance. A woman who was overweight all her life would want to be thin and glamorous. A man who was considered a geek in school would want to become a sex symbol to women. A man would want to live like a gangster in the days of Al Capone. A salesman who was about to loose his job would want to score the sales of his career. At the end of the fantasy they would be back to normal and realize that real life was better then the fantasy and would have found true love along the way. Like Love Boat Fantasy Island’s guest stars were made up of TV and movie stars past and present. Unlike Love Boat the 2 or 3 stories were usually dramas.
Mr. Villechaize started thinking that he was the star of the show not Mr. Montalban. He started making demands for more pay. Of course the real stars on a show like this are the stories and the guest stars each week. Mr. Villechaize may have been wrong about being the star but his character was important to the show. It was his character who gave the show its catch phrase. Each week he would see the plane full of guest stars landing. He would point to it and shout “De Plane! De Plane!” At times Roarke would let him be in charge of a certain person’s fantasy and you would feel sorry for him when things went wrong. Roarke was ready for this and was able to set things straight and give Tattoo the credit. In his bid for more money Mr. Villechaize got replace in the 1983-1984 season by Christopher Hewett as Lawrence. Mr. Hewett later went on to greater television fame as Mr. Belvedere from 1985 to 1990. Perhaps Herve was on to something. The 83-84 season was the last for the show.
In September of 1998 ABC tried to revive the show. Malcolm McDowell was cast as Mr. Roarke. His trademark white suit was replaced by a black suit. Mr. Villechaize had passed away by then and there was no Tattoo on the new show. It took 4 or 5 people to do what Tattoo did on the first show. By January of 1999 the show was canceled.