Arnie Moore | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Unfortunately, the show has been removed from most streaming sites. Fortunately, I’ve got nearly every episode on my DVR.

Today, the sixth season of Fantasy Island comes to a close and so does Tattoo’s time on the show.

Episode 6.22 “Love Island/The Sisters”

(Dir by Philip Leacock, originally aired on May 14th, 1983)

This is it. This is not only the finale of season 6 but it’s also the final episode to feature Tattoo as Mr. Roarke’s assistant.

Why did Herve Villechaize leave Fantasy Island after the end of the sixth season? The story that you always hear is that Villechaize wanted more money to continue working on the show. He felt that he deserved to be paid as much as Ricardo Montalban. The show’s producers disagreed. To them, Montalban was not only the star of the show but also someone who has just appeared in a hit movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. They felt that they could keep the show going without Villechaize and …. well, it turns out they were totally and completely wrong about that.

I have not seen much of the seventh season, in which Villechaize was replaced by Christopher Hewett. And, due to the vagaries of my DVR, there’s a lot of season 7 that I won’t be able to review. What I do know is that the show went from being #39 to bring ranked #47 in the ratings after Villechaize left. Obviously, being the 39th ranked show was nothing to brag about but it was still a helluva lot better than #47. Villechaize left and a lot of the audience left with him.

I’ve made a lot of jokes about Roarke and Tattoo’s relationship. Especially during the early seasons, Roarke and Tattoo sometimes did seem to be friendly rivals. (That was when Roarke was a far more enigmatic fellow and Tattoo always seemed to be trying to figure out a way to make some extra money on Fantasy Island.) Remember when Tattoo ran against Mr. Roarke in an Island election? That said, Roarke and Tattoo’s relationship really was the heart of the series. The fantasies themselves were often forgettable. How many times can you get excited about seeing a member of the Brady Bunch as a guest star? The thing that people really remember about Fantasy Island is the relationship between Roarke and Tattoo. Regardless of what went on behind the scenes, Montalban and Villechazie had a good on-camera chemistry. It was fun to watch them interact. I always enjoyed the episodes that allowed Villechaize to reveal Tattoo’s sensitive side. (In real life, Villechaize was an advocate for abused children, often taking the time to personally visit with children who had been rescued from abusive households.)

This is all my long-winded way of saying that they should have just agreed to pay Herve Villechaize more money.

At the very least, they should have given him a proper goodbye episode. The sixth season ends with a rather basic episode, with no mention made of Tattoo leaving or even thinking of leaving. Instead, we get Maureen McCormick going to a mysterious mansion to rescue her old sister (Britt Ekland) from an abusive man (played by Peter Mark Richman). And then we get Bob Denver and Paul Kreppel as two wannabe womanizers who end up in prehistoric times, trying to romance a cavewoman while dealing with dinosaurs. The dinosaur effects were cheap but likable but they were also the only thing that really made either of their fantasies stand-out.

And so, season 6 ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Tattoo waves goodbye one last time. I’m going to miss him.

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion, YouTube, Plex, and a host of other sites.

This week …. someone’s missing!

Episode 5.3 “Cyrano/The Magician”

(Dir by Dan Chaffey, originally aired on October 24th, 1981)

Hey, where’s Tattoo!?

Technically, Tattoo does appear in this episode but it’s only in the stock footage that appeared at the start of every episode. Tattoo rings the bell and announces, “Da plane …. da plane!” but that’s it. He does not meet Mr. Roarke outside of the bungalow. He is not present to greet the guests. He’s not present to say goodbye to the guests. Tattoo is nowhere to be seen and, somewhat disconcertingly, no mention is made of why he’s missing. Instead, Mr. Roarke and Julie handle the fantasies in this episode.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Herve Villechaize was having a salary dispute with the producers. It seems obvious that Julie was brought in as a way to tell Villechaize that he was replaceable. However, Tattoo’s absence is felt so strongly in this episode that it seems likely that all the producers did was prove Villechaize’s point about why he deserved more money. Wendy Schaal is a likable performer but she had close to no real chemistry with Ricardo Montalban and Julie was such a blandly-written character that there was no way she could replace the enigmatic and rather cynical Tattoo.

Sad to say, one of this episode’s fantasies feels as if it would have been perfect for Tattoo’s commentary. Marjorie Denton (Carol Lynley) is a bus driver who wants to go back to a time when men were at their most chivalrous. She finds herself back in 17th century France, a time when men were chivalrous but woman had absolutely no rights. At first, she is thrilled to be the subject of the attentions of both the handsome Gaston (Simon MacCorkindale) and the poetic Cyrano de Bergerac (John Saxon). She is less thrilled to catch the eye of the Marquis de Sade (Lloyd Bochner). It’s not a bad fantasy, though Cyrano and De Sade were not quite contemporaries. But it’s hard not to think about how Villechaize was always at his best when dealing with wounded romanticism. Since Cyrano himself turned out to be a guest having a fantasy, it’s hard not to regret that Tattoo was not around to encourage him.

As for the other fantasy, it’s one of those silly and kind of boring comedic fantasies that was obviously included for the kids. (“Mommy, who is the Marquis De Sade?”) Timothy Potter (Bart Braverman), no relation to Harry, is a bad magician who wants to be a great magician. Mr. Roarke gives him a collection of old spell books and an assistant named Suva (Judy Landers), whom Timothy proceeds to fall in love with. Unfortunately, Timothy doesn’t bother to study the books like Roarke told him to and he accidentally makes Suva disappear. In the end, though, Roarke assures Timothy that he just sent her to Cleveland, which just happens to be his hometown. There’s a chimpanzee in this fantasy and the chimp gives the most compelling performance. The only thing that could have saved this fantasy would have been some snarky Tattoo commentary.

Is it possible to have Fantasy Island without Tattoo? Based on this episode, the answer would be no. Let’s hope he returns next week.