Depending on your tastes, one of the best things about “Gilligan’s Island” was the fact that seven castaways on an uncharted island, hidden from the rest of humankind, were frequently visited by all manner of guests. There was the time a young Kurt Russell appeared on “Gilligan’s Island” as Jungle Boy, or when Don Rickles guest starred as kidnapper Norbert Wiley and quickly made Russell Johnson lose his cool.
Though one scrapped episode would have made sense of some of this classic “Gilligan’s Island” nonsense, for the most part this kind of thing was never explained. Such was the case with the season 2 episode “Don’t Bug the Mosquitoes,” in which a Beatles-esque band named The Mosquitos visits the island simply to escape their fame for a while. How did they know about this uncharted island? Did they really pack all their instruments and amps into a small helicopter just so they could perform by themselves on their brief excursion? Again, none of this is remotely logical, and for most fans of the series, none of it really matters.
One lingering question many might have had, however, is whether The Mosquitos were a real band or not. After all, they certainly had the tunes and the look. Unfortunately, this pop supergroup was invented for the series — though it did feature some real musicians that already had a close connection to “Gilligan’s Island.”
The Mosquitoes on Gilligan’s Island weren’t a real band (but they sort of were)
“Don’t Bug the Mosquitoes” sees the eponymous group perform several songs written for the show, most notably “Don’t Bug Me/He’s A Loser” which the band plays for the castaways during a makeshift concert. As the episode goes on, Gilligan and the gang hatch a plot to drive the band off the island, hoping that they’ll take them all along for the ride and finally rescue them. Unfortunately, their plan backfires when Ginger, Mary Anne, and Mrs. Howell form their own group, the Honeybees, and perform for The Mosquitoes, only to scare off the band into leaving in secret due to their being intimidated by the prospect of more competition from the girl group.
Though the songs and performances could very well belong to a real life band, The Mosquitos were invented solely for the show. When “Gilligan’s Island” first aired in 1964, it did so with a theme song provided by real-life folk pop trio The Wellingtons. The theme song was changed for the show’s second season, but during that same season the three members of The Wellingtons (plus an additional actor) guest-starred as The Mosquitos.
Les Brown Jr. played Bingo, while the rest of the group was made up Wellingtons members: George Patterson as Bango, Ed Wade as Bongo, and Kirby Johnson as Irving. The names of the band members mirror the names of The Beatles, too. John, Paul, and George represent somewhat ordinary names, making Ringo the outlier in that regard. For The Mosquitoes, that dynamic was reversed, with three members having more unorthodox names (Bingo, Bango, Bongo) and one simply being called Irving.
