Like so many character actors of his era, Alan Hale Jr. spent much of the 1950s and ’60s guest starring on classic Western TV shows. But the mid-20th Century didn’t just give us a slew of small-screen oaters. It also gave us the fantasy sitcom, or “magi-com” — sitcoms where the “sit” in question involved some sort of fantastical character being introduced into an otherwise normal setting.
It started with the exploits of talking horse “Mister Ed,” which gave rise to a host of similar shows including “I Dream of Jeannie,” “My Living Doll,” and of course “Bewitched.” Hale Jr. even guest-starred on America’s first fantasy sci-fi sitcom “My Favorite Martian.” But that wasn’t his only foray into the fantasy sitcom phenomenon. In 1969, three years after “Gilligan’s Island” ended on CBS, Hale Jr. returned to the small screen in two episodes of the Sally Field-starring “The Flying Nun.”
Field played Elsie Ethrington/Sister Bertrille, a member of a Puerto Rico-based nun community who could take to the skiest this was the era of the magi-com, and a flying nun was one of the least ridiculous characters to come out of it. What’s more, Field later went on to win two Academy Awards, adding some retrospective prestige to her late-’60s fantasy sitcom
Alan Hale Jr. joined The Flying Nun for two episodes post-Gilligan’s Island
In 1979, Sally Field won her first Best Actress Oscar for playing the titular union organizer in “Norma Rae.” Five years later she took home the same award for her portrayal of an embattled Great Depression-era matriarch in “Places in the Heart.” Though he never caught the attention of the Academy, Alan Hale Jr. had a similarly prestigious career. He remains one of the most prolific and accomplished character actors of his generation, and that’s not even taking into account his beloved portrayal of Captain Jonas Grumby on “Gilligan’s Island” and its many spin-offs/follow-up films. Seeing these two legends together on-screen, then, is a real delight. That’s what happened in 1969. The year after Hale Jr. joined Clint Eastwood for one of his most important Westerns, he returned to TV for two episodes of “The Flying Nun.”
The show sees Field’s 90-pound nun arrive in Puerto Rico from Chicago, where she learns that due to her slight physique and the high winds in San Juan, she’s able to float whenever the wind catches her cornette just right. Throughout the series, she uses her unusual gift to help others and support the convent, while simultaneously buoying her fellow nuns with her upbeat, positive attitude.
How on earth did they come up with that premise? Well, the sitcom was based on Tere Ríos’ 1965 book “The Fifteenth Pelican,” which featured the airborne sister in question. At a time when we’d already seen Jerry Van Dyke turn down “Gilligan’s Island” to star in a sitcom wherein he spoke to his deceased motherrd stuff
Alan Hale Jr. played a dodgy uncle in The Flying Nun
For his brief visit to “The Flying Nun,” Alan Hale Jr. played “Uncle” Reggie Overton Perkins in Episodes 16 and 17 of the show’s second season. A friend of Sister Bertrille’s family from Chicago, Perkins has “lost three fortunes in his lifetime.” Unfortunately, all three of those fortunes belonged to Bertrille’s family members, making Perkins a pariah in the family. When he arrives in “The Great Casino Robbery: Part 1,” he seems dodgy right off the bat, suggesting the nuns bring in a surveyor so that they might start drilling for oil on the land where their convent sits. Soon, he lands a job at a nearby casino, and immediately installs a window allowing patrons to see the money being counted.
This catches the eye of a scheming couple of crooks, who ultimately steal $50,000 from the casino, though Uncle Reggie immediately becomes a suspect. In “The Great Casino Robbery: Part 2,” Sister Bertrille uses her cunning to catch the real perpetrators and help get Uncle Reggie off the hook. And yes, there’s plenty of flying involved.
1969 was the same year Hale Jr. re-teamed with Bob Denver on his post-“Gilligan’s Island” CBS series “The Good Guys.” The show ran for two seasons and Hale Jr. appeared in three episodes. Five years later, the pair reprised their “Gilligan’s Island” roles for animated series “The New Adventures of Gilligan,” after which came several “Gilligan’s Island” sequel films, followed by “Gilligan’s Planet,” an animated sci-fi version of the series that wouldn’t have been out of place among the magi-coms of the 1950s and 60s. Meanwhile, “The Flying Nun” ran until April 1970, ending after three seasons and 82 episodes.
