George Barkley
Bio[]
George Barkley is the dishonest and smarmy contestant of the game show, Take a Dare, who is left on the island for a week in order to win $10,000. However, once he finds the Castaways there, he starts stealing their food, belongings, and supplies to make his time on the island as smooth as possible. Gilligan discovers him first after he and the Skipper blame monkeys for the missing supplies, and soon realize he has no desire to aid the castaways. When the Skipper tries to use the transmitter, Barkley disconnects the receiver. It is unknown if he thinks the castaways are actors are hired by the network to spy on him, if he could care less about rescuing the castaways, not wanting to lose his money or some other selfish motive. Even when Mr. and Mrs. Howell promise Barkley that they would give him $20,000 to reward him for rescuing them as well as compensating him for his forfeited prize, he insults them calling their jewelry fakes.
Barkley does seem to have a limerence for Ginger and is almost seduced by her, but at the last minute, greed overpowers lust and he rejects her. On the penultimate day of Mr. Barkley's week on the island, Gillian and Skipper are searching for Barley hiding on the island and trail him a cliff. Unfortunately for Mr. Barkley, the game show calls in on his transponder, and Skipper and Gilligan are heard n the transmission, but he passes off their voices with a weak excuse. He ends up throwing the transmitter off the cliff to avoid forfeiture as the game show's rules were that he was to be on the island with no one else there and using nothing from civilization except the clothes on his back. Eluding the castaways overnight, he is picked up by a helicopter the following morning. Over the radio, the castaways are dismayed to learn that George Barkley has cheated his way to victory. However, the game show host reveals that Mr. Barkley lost. As the final test, he was required to surrender his transmitter to the host. When asked why he needed to do this, the host says there was a secret compartment inside the transmitter. The host then remarks "That was where we put the $10,000". The castaways cheer at George Barkley getting his just reward.
Trivia[]
- Actor Strother Martin of Cool Hand Luke fame played George Barkley.
- Barkley steals the Castaways' frying pan, the Howell's good silverware, the Professor's hammock and the Skipper's detective magazines.