Jencyclopedia

A woman wants to get married, but her fiance is allergic to marriage.
A man wants to pull off a jewel heist.

[Tattoo has started writing greeting cards.]
Roarke: “Congratulations on your divorce. Next time, look before you leap.”
Tattoo: Read some more, boss!
Roarke: “Condolences on your fortieth birthday. Is your insurance paid up?”

I would definitely buy Tattoo’s greeting cards; I don’t know why Roarke had such a problem with them.

I think this is the first love fantasy with no special bells and whistles, just straight up “I want to get married” — so much so that that’s the name of the story.

Roarke: First, I must admonish you. In a fantasy as potentially bizarre as yours, it must be understood that any item taken is only exotically borrowed, and you are responsible for its safe return.

Roarke: Your letter didn’t fully explain your present problem.

I always assumed fantasies were arranged over the phone, so that’s… interesting. 1978 was a long time ago.

Uh-oh, Tattoo’s started into the computer dating again.

The guy calls the bartender Wally. I thiiink that’s the same guy that’s one of the drivers later on? Wow! He even has lines and closeups! Aw, but he wasn’t credited. There’s an actor named Rick Flores credited as Wally a few episodes from now, and he did stunts on the show, so I’m guessing that’s probably the guy. The Fantasy Island recurring character family is getting more fleshed out, and I love it.

Leslie Tarleton: That necklace wasn’t even mine. No, I stole it myself.

“The stolen money you stole was stolen?”

WTF. Roarke is dining by the pool, not in the middle of the jungle? That’s… weird.

Leslie tells Roarke she wants revenge on her ex-fiance for lying to her new guys and saying that she’s a hooker. Roarke always seems to be one step ahead of the guests, but in this case, it actually seemed like he hadn’t thought about this possibility, and he was genuinely considering whether to go along with this or not.

Roarke: This may ruin the reputation of Fantasy Island.

Bwhahahah, oh no, because there’s a hooker there? Geez, what do you think goes on here, Mr. Roarke?

Eddie: Where did you come from?
Tattoo: Paris.

lol Hervé Villechaize is actually from a place called Montauban.

Roarke: “Dear graduate, congratulations on your graduation” — Now, that’s better — “…too bad they had to burn the school down.”

lol wut? The other cards made sense, but this one’s kinda a non-sequitur? Or I just don’t get it?

So even though the one fantasy was just “find a husband”, and it’s one of those lame season seven type fantasies, I actually liked that one more — at least there were some shenanigans; season seven “find a husband” fantasies weren’t ever as much fun.

There were no new clues about the layout of the house this episode, but I can’t just leave it alone. I wanted to see where exactly Roarke’s house was filmed, and I figured maybe that would help with picturing the whole place in my mind. I assumed it was at Warner Brothers Hollywood, where they filmed on the soundstages, but I wasn’t sure. I ended up at Retroweb’s TV Studios, Backlots, and Ranches, which is possibly one of my favourite pages on the entire internet, and I use it all the time:

The Fantasy Island house at the WB ranch was a copy (more or less) of an actual Queen Anne cottage which you can still visit at the LA Arboretum. Apparently The Fantasy Island crew got tired of having to drive out there every week for every episode, so the structure was duplicated on-lot.

Yep, just like I thought. This page also talks about some “Apple’s Way” house being turned into Roarke’s headquarters. Turns out Apple’s Way was a TV show. So I google this Apple’s Way house, and yeah, there’s that weird deck thing on the left, and the hills all around the building, so I’d believe that’s the same house — but they did add a lot onto it, which seems dumb, but I guess it makes sense to build onto an existing house than to make one completely from scratch.

Then I end up at The Waltons Locations, which has a nice little map showing exactly where the Fantasy Island set house was. Nice! Hey, that’s weird — this backlot has a Modern Street and Modern Place, just like Columbia Ranch. And New York Street, and Brownstone Street — hey, all the street names are the same as Columbia Ranch. Hey, that is Columbia Ranch!

I did have this memory of reading about Roarke’s house on the Columbia Ranch site, but every time they do a major update to the site, a lot of the old info disappears, but Columbia Ranch on Archive.org has me saved, as always (no pictures though, sadly). But now I know exactly where Roarke’s house was in the world, and that makes me so happy.

But if I’m interpreting Google Maps correctly, this does mean that they paved Fantasy Island and put up a parking lot.

That would be a good line on which to end this entry and get on with my life, but then there’s the Columbia Ranch History page, which tells me the dock was at the Ranch too, and now I need to look into this show called Code R, and waaah! Oh my god! The lighthouse!

And A Trespasser’s Tale has this great picture from 1975 of Roarke’s house before it became Roarke’s house, and you can see some more of the left side.

Wow. Everything I was looking for was on the Columbia Ranch all along.

Waaah oh my god a Fantasy Island fansite!!!! https://mrroarkesfantasyisland.wordpress.com/ Okay, it hasn’t been updated since 2011, but there’s a “The Other Assistants” section… do I look…? Heck yeah, I look! Wat, who is Cindy, what is going on? Ahh spoilers!

Anyway, there’s a lot for me to go through there, but this site seems a lot like my Charles in Charge site — they started making the site, got partway through reviewing the first season, and then lost interest.

This happens so often that, in the occasional episode where the love interest doesn’t show up at the end of the story, you almost feel cheated. What’s wrong with that stupid writer?!?

Yes! I do feel cheated when that happens.

• Tattoo’s shenanigans:
  • He’s going to sell greeting cards to a big company and make a lot of money.
  • He also has a book on traffic safety that he’s read cover-to-cover.
• Roarke’s drink: yellow with an orange slice
• Ominous shot of Roarke raising his glass: there’s a shot of him drinking, but it’s not ominous
• Recurring phrases:
  • Roarke: Have faith, Miss Barker. This is Fantasy Island.
• Surprise guest: Eddie, Cindy Barker’s ex-fiance
• Costume change: Roarke wears a black bowtie and fancy vest to the ball.
• Disappearing act:
  • Jordan Montgomery: If you’ll excuse me a moment–
• Recurring characters:
  • Eddie complains to Wally the bartender.
    
• Mini-fantasy:
  • Harry Webster: Imagine me, Harry Donald Webster, a postal clerk from Woodland Hills California, being the one and only Judge of the First International Beauty Contest, with a prize of fifty thousand dollars.
• Meddling Roarke: Roarke agrees to help Cindy Barker get back at her ex-fiance for telling her suitors she was a hooker.
• Leaving with an extra guest:
  • Jordan Montgomery with Leslie Tarleton
  • Cindy Barker with fiance Eddie