The Star Trek Prop You Didn't Realize Came From Gilligan's Island

Decades before the advent of CGI, much less the soaring budgets that became the norm in the 21st century television, "Star Trek" had to make Gene Rodenberry's vision work with an old school TV budget and limited special effects. Even as one of the best TV shows of the 1960s, that still meant entire planet sets looked liable to blow away in a strong breeze, aliens of the week often seemed suspiciously familiar, and sometimes a good prop or costume got recycled for more use. 

In one case, it even meant borrowing an outfit from "Gilligan's Island."

The costume in question appeared in the Halloween-themed holiday episode of "Star Trek: The Original Series," a silly and spooky Season 2 outing titled "Catspaw." Like much of Gene Roddenberry's flagship series, the episode largely focuses on the Enterprise crew trying to figure out what the heck is going on while visiting a strange planet. Unlike the rest of "Star Trek," though, "Catspaw" delivers plenty of Earth-like gothic elements for the October season, including a trio of witches, a black cat, a crumbling castle, and a mysterious man wearing a robe that some eagle-eyed early TV fans may have recognized.

Korob (Theo Marcuse) was the villain of the week's name, and his game involved gathering knowledge about humankind through trickery, confusion, and a bunch of "Scooby-Doo"-style scares. The episode is good fun, even if it doesn't deliver any of the most memorable "Star Trek" moments. Korob sports a dazzling, metallic green and yellow magician's robe and a transmuter device disguised as a magic wand. Emblazoned with an image of a shining eyeball surrounded by sun-like rays, Korob's outfit reads less "alien undercover as an Earthling's idea of a warlock" and more "mid-century secret society costume party," but that's probably because it was originally used nine months earlier on "Gilligan's Island."

In that tropical setting, the robe was worn by a goatee-wearing Gilligan (Bob Denver) himself in the episode "Lovey's Secret Admirer." It served as one of the centerpieces of a dream sequence, with Gilligan appearing as the Fairy Godfather to an anxious Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer), who imagines herself in the role of Cinderella. While "Catspaw" is a horror-tinged story with a few good scares (that Enterprise voodoo doll!), the "Gilligan's" episode, "Lovey's Secret Admirer," is sweet and silly. The Cinderella dream reminds Mrs. Howell how much she has to be grateful for.

Though the origin of this specific robe isn't public knowledge at this time, the blog Costuming, Cosplay & Costume Clubs 101 points out that such costume sharing wasn't particularly uncommon at the time. The real magic trick here is one of artistry and resourcefulness in those fast-moving early TV days, wherein a beautifully gaudy costume disappears from the spotlight, only to pop back up when you least expect it ... on a mysterious, distant planet.