Jencyclopedia

The clip show.

I wasn’t sure whether I should watch this episode or 6×22 “Love Island/The Sisters” next, because IMDb has this episode as 6×21, while CTV has this episode as 6×22. It makes more sense to me for the clip show episode to be the season finale. Some cool person scanned the May 7-13, 1983 issue of TV Guide and put it online. Pages A-25 and A-26 show that Fantasy Island was on channel 2 on Saturday, May 7, 1983 at 9 PM:

Roarke (Ricardo Montalban) cancels all fantasies as Tattoo (Herve Villechaize) fights for his life after an auto accident (60 min.)

Guest Cast
Doctor … Richard Anderson
Cindy … Yvonne Craig
Gaylord Nelson … Ray Bolger
Lorraine Peters … Lynda Day George
Cummings … Joseph Cotten
Kid Corey … Jack Elam
Joan … Barbi Benton

I wasn’t able to find the TV Guide for the next week, May 14, so I don’t know for certain if another episode aired that day, or if May 7 was the last episode that season, and I’m very hesitant to trust any info on IMDb for Fantasy Island, because so much of it has been wrong, but the air date for this episode does match up with the date on IMDb, and I don’t have any other info to go on, so it looks like I’m watching this episode tonight.

Interesting that the TV Guide cast list includes a bunch of previous guests. Well, they do credit all the previous guests in the episode, so that makes sense, I guess. A weird choice to include Joseph Cotten though, who played Helena’s father in 3×7 “The Wedding”.

Anyway, due to CTV and IMDb having a different order, I ended up watching 6×22 before 6×21 last year, because I was late for lunch the day my local station was playing 6×21, and so I missed the opening scene, and that just wouldn’t do, so I turned on the next CTV episode instead. I did switch to the TV briefly, and I saw Tattoo in a hospital bed, so I figured the clip show must be about Tattoo getting amnesia, or being infected by a plant (that grows only on Fantasy Island) and Roarke needs to make him feel different emotions in order to revive him or something.

I think this is the first time we’ve seen that building and the bungalow in the same shot, so now we know for certain that they are that close to each other.

I feel kinda bad; Tattoo’s laying there dying, and I’m sitting here rewinding and re-watching the scene, trying to figure out the position of the waterfall in relation to the buildings. (Oh wait, I think we’ve seen before that the waterfall is quite close to the bungalow. Never mind then.)

Anyway, that car accident looked really bad. Like, I’m pretty sure Tattoo would have been dead the way he landed. Roarke probably has the holodeck safeties enabled permanently, considering guests never die on the island (well, hardly ever).

I’m so glad the episode title card says “Remember When…” and not “Remember… When?” like IMDb and everywhere else says. “Remember When…” makes so much more sense. We’ll see if IMDb approves my correction though; they’ve been iffy with approving episode titles lately.

Tattoo: What are you doing here? You’re supposed to attend to your guests.
Roarke: Oh, no, no. I cancelled all fantasies until you’re able to help me again.

Part of me wants to wonder what happens to the guests who were arriving at the island that day, but part of me is saying “Jenny, get a life”.

This doctor waves so stiffly and awkwardly… he reminds me of me.

When I first watched this episode last year, I hadn’t seen all of the episodes that were featured in this episode, so I was actually watching this episode like a typical person in 1983 probably would have watched it. I was kind of the intended audience for a clip show, which put me in the unique position of actually being able to enjoy a clip show in the era of binge watching. I was glad the first flashback was from an episode I’d already seen though, so that it wasn’t a spoiler, but I was also kinda disappointed that they included that scene from 5×16 “A Genie Named Joe”, because it was one of my favourites, and I didn’t want the episode to be full of funny scenes, because then that would spoil all the funny scenes in the episodes I hadn’t seen yet.

[A nurse is taking Tattoo’s blood pressure.]
Tattoo: This is the fifth time you’re doing this. Come on.
Roarke: Why, Tattoo — a beautiful woman is attending to you, and you are complaining? That’s not like you.
Tattoo: Boss, I didn’t see it that way.

I like Roarke calling out Tattoo for being out of character.

The doctors and nurses keep giving Roarke these really serious, dire looks. I would hate to be their patient.

Roarke: Your accident is part of the past. Even I can’t change that.

I think this is consistent with how time travel works in other episodes. There’s an article, Modelling time travel in fiction, that I always think of when I think about time travel in fiction. I don’t remember where I first found this article, so I don’t know if it’s just a random obscure article I found one day, or if it’s actually well-known, so I don’t know if people would understand what I’m referencing if I refer to those time travel models. Anyway, I’m gonna have to do a Fantasy Island and time travel post at some point, so I’ll try not to get into it here, but I feel like Fantasy Island mostly uses a Fixed History model, and this is consistent with that.

Tattoo: Oh, that reminds me, boss. You remember the great song and dance team that gave a once-in-a-lifetime performance here, hm?
Roarke: Um… not offhand, no. To whom are you referring?
Tattoo: Boss! It was you and me! Don’t you remember?

When I first saw this episode, I had already seen a GIF from this scene on Twitter during the post-election press conference debacle near the Fantasy Island adult bookstore, so I already knew this scene existed, but… yeah, nothing could have really prepared me for the actual scene. Also, that event kind of inspired me to make all these GIFs, just in case there was ever any another reference to Fantasy Island anywhere ever, because the quality of the few Fantasy Island GIFs available at the time was appalling… so now I have nearly 900 Fantasy Island GIFs that no one but me will ever use.

Anyway, that scene just gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. I love it, but I can’t watch it… but I can’t look away either.

[I watching Sombrero with my mom recently. Ricardo Montalban was serenading his love interest.]
Mom: If a guy sung to you like that, would you go out with him?
Me: If he looked like Ricardo Montalban, and he sang like Ricardo Montalban… I’d tell him I’d go out with him if he stopped singing.

I still want a musical episode though.

Roarke: Ned Plummer. Does that name ring a bell?
Tattoo: The guy who wanted to meet Kid Corey?
Roarke: That’s right. Mr. Plummer believed that Kid Corey was one of the old west’s unsung heroes.

Tattoo doesn’t have amnesia, so you don’t need to tell him what happened for every flashback. So frustrating, but that’s clip shows for ya.

When I first saw this episode, I wrote about the use of the Fantasy Island Sad Theme in this episode, which I said I never really took much notice of before, but I thought it was very noticeable and recognizable here. Watching it today though, I didn’t notice it — but maybe that was because I wasn’t really paying much attention to this episode, because this is the third or fourth time I’m seeing a lot of these scenes now. Anywhere, here’s the Sad Theme:

Dr. David Phillips: Depression is always a possibility after surgery as serious as his was. A very dangerous possibility.

I don’t actually know whether Hervé suffered from depression, but this part seems sadder now, knowing what happened to him.

Tattoo: Hi, boss.
Roarke: Well! Your powers of perception are growing at a fantastic rate, my friend; you knew who it was without even opening your eyes.

When I first watched this episode, I speculated that perhaps Tattoo does have some kind of power beyond just being a regular observant guy. Now though, having seen all the Tattoo episodes… nah, Tattoo definitely does not have any powers, and I don’t think I’d even call him observant.

[Tattoo mentions Roarke’s wedding.]
Roarke: Perhaps we should talk about something else, Tattoo.
Tattoo: Why?

Tattoo: I’m gonna die, right, boss? That’s why you didn’t want to talk about your wedding, because what happened to your wife is gonna happen to me.

In my previous post, I suggested Roarke didn’t want to talk about it because it’s a painful memory for him, but now, I don’t think that either; Roarke just didn’t want Tattoo thinking about his wedding, because Roarke knew that would lead to him thinking about death.

I just realized this episode is in the proper 4:3 format, and some of the full versions of these episodes were probably in fake widescreen, so I might actually be missing things by not paying attention to these flashbacks.

I am glad it’s not just Present Me that thinks the lei Roarke wore to his wedding was gigantic; Past Me also wrote about that lei being too damn big. Also, shortest wedding ceremony ever. I know she’s not got long to live, but geez.

In my previous post, I kept saying things like “‘Kid Corey’ looks boring, but Tattoo’s part was cute” and “the Red Baron fantasy is not my kind of story, but Tattoo was funny”. It took me a while to realize they were probably highlighting funny Tattoo moments on purpose.

Tattoo: You made her go through the door in your office, and then she end up in Victorian London.
Roarke: Only Jack the Ripper went through that same door and wound up on Fantasy Island.

It’s mildly interesting to hear them talk about the magic door. But they don’t say much, so it’s not that interesting.

When they started talking about 4×6 “Jack the Ripper” being one of Roarke’s mistakes, I was thinking Roarke would counter with 5×17 “Tattoo, the Matchmaker” being one of Tattoo’s mistakes, but I guess a dying person doesn’t need to be reminded of their mistakes. And they were focusing on Tattoo’s funny moments, and 5×17 was more of a funny Roarke episode.

Tattoo: That time, you almost blew it, boss.
Roarke: I certainly did.
Tattoo: …or did you do it on purpose, huh?

I was gonna complain about this, because shouldn’t Tattoo know by now that everything that happens on Fantasy Island happens on purpose? But actually, if any fantasy didn’t turn out the way Roarke expected, I’d believe it was that one; I can’t think of another time where Roarke did something as reckless as let a murderer loose on Fantasy Island.

Roarke: Just think of all the excitement you’ll be missing.
Tattoo: Oh, like the time when Mickey Gilley came here on the island and opened a place?

I kind of don’t like this line, because it sounds like Tattoo is excited about Mickey Gilley — but Mickey Gilley was supposed to be a nobody when he came to Fantasy Island. Maybe Tattoo is just mentioning it because he thought it was an exciting fantasy, which is fine, because Tattoo did say he was a big country music fan in that episode (and hey, that might explain why Tattoo chose to grant Audrey Landers’ fantasy in 3×8 “Tattoo’s Romance”). But also, Mickey Gilley didn’t open the place; Dennis Cole did.

Tattoo: Boss, I think you should start looking for a replacement.

Tattoo: I take it back.
Roarke: Take what back?
Tattoo: What I said about you getting a replacement. I think that you are gonna be stuck with me for a long, very, very long time.

That line didn’t age well. I wonder why they had Tattoo say that, because surely they knew at that point there was a chance Hervé wasn’t gonna be back next season?

I wonder what ever happened to Tattoo’s car. I wonder if it still exists somewhere.

Roarke & Tattoo: Remember when… ahahahaha.

Cheesiest ending ever. I haaate this line. But part of me doesn’t. This show makes me so conflicted sometimes.

My verdict after watching this for the first time, and experiencing a clip show the way they are meant to be experienced, was that I didn’t hate this — and there weren’t even that many spoilers. There were a few points where I though oh my god, are they actually gonna kill off Tattoo? It is incredibly rare that a TV show can fool me into thinking they might actually Kill Them Off For Real, especially a forty year old TV show, which by all rights should be super spoiled for me by now.

I feel like there was a good enough balance of old and new footage in this. And the new footage made me sad, dammit. So I guess this was actually a pretty good episode. Wait, hang on, wasn’t Quantum Leap‘s “Shock Theater” technically a clip show? And that was the best episode! This episode kinda reminded me of that; it definitely wasn’t as good as “Shock Theater” — because that’s like one of the best episodes of any show I’ve seen ever — but this episode similarly tugged at my Vulcan heartstrings.

• Features:
  • 5×16 “A Genie Named Joe”
  • 5×2 “Ziegfeld Girls”
  • 6×2 “Dancing Lady”
  • 2×9 “Mr. Tattoo”
  • 5×2 “Kid Corey Rides Again”
  • 4×21 “Basin Street”
  • 3×7 “The Wedding”
  • 4×2 “Flying Aces”
  • 2×11 “Carnival/The Vaudevillians” (the mini-fantasy)
  • 4×6 “With Affection, Jack the Ripper”
  • 6×5 “Everybody Goes to Gilley’s”
• Employees:
  • Luana
  • Dr. David Phillips
  • Robin the nurse
  • All the other nurses
• Locations:
  • Luana: He took some presents to the orphanage. He said he’d be right back.
  • Fantasy Island Hospital
• Recurring phrases:
  • Tattoo: This is Fantasy Island, and the weather is always perfect.
  • Tattoo: Boss! It was you and me! Don’t you remember?
    Roarke: Oh yes. Yes indeed.
  • Tattoo: Wasn’t he in for a surprise, huh?
    Roarke: Oh, he was indeed.
  • Roarke: Indeed I do remember…
• Roarke’s powers:
  • Tattoo: Boss, I have an idea.
    Roarke: What?
    Tattoo: Why don’t you give me a fantasy so they don’t have to operate on me?
    Roarke: Oh, if only I could do that, Tattoo. But your accident is part of the past. Even I can’t change that. Therefore, the operation must be performed, don’t you see?
    Tattoo: Then why don’t you make it that I’m not so scared?
• First name basis:
  • [Every time Roarke calls someone by their first name, I feel like I need to come up with a reason for it — like okay, now animals can see Al, now children can see Al, now dying people can see Al…]
    Dr. David Phillips: It’s time.
    Roarke: David…
    Dr. David Phillips: Try not to worry; he’ll be in good hands.
• All you need is love:
  • Tattoo: Love is the best medicine in the whole, whole world. Don’t you think so?
• IMDb notes: Everyone who appeared in flashbacks is credited. I don’t feel like adding them all to IMDb, because it’ll take so long, and IMDb probably won’t even approve it, so here they are instead. Also, I don’t know what character Simon Reid (played by Lee Miller) is meant to be, or where that credit came from on IMDb, but it’s not in the actual credits.
  • Guest Starring
    • Richard Anderson
  • Special Guest Appearances By, In Alphabetical Order:
    • Paul John Balson
    • Barbi Benton
    • Ray Bolger
    • Victor Buono
    • Dennis Cole
    • Joseph Cotten
    • Kim Darby
    • Laraine Day
    • Samantha Eggar
    • Jack Elam
    • John Fiedler
    • Lynda Day George
    • Mickey Gilley
    • Don Ho
    • Anne Jeffreys
    • Linda Thompson Jenner
    • Arte Johnson
    • Mabel King
    • Audrey Landers
    • Johnny Lee
    • Larry Linville
    • Cleavon Little
    • Robert Mandan
    • Sam Melville
    • Cameron Mitchell
    • Raymond St. Jacques
    • Berlinda Tolbert
    • Tom Wopat
  • Also Starring
    • Yvonne Craig as Cindy
  • Co-Starring
    • Patricia Kimmel as Robin
    • Jerry G. Velasco as the Intern
    • Maria Roosakos as Luana
    • Elizabeth Lindsey as Nurse #3
  • Special Appearances By:
    • Tom Bailey
    • John Brandon
    • Dick Fair
    • Michael Hadlow
    • Kedren Jones
    • Richard Lineback
    • Rosemary Lord
    • Gerald S. Peters
    • Philece Sampler
    • Angela Slater
    • James Steward
    • Larry Swartz