Little Buddy
Many times we hear The Skipper calling Gilligan "Little Buddy". One might think this was an original part of the script. However, this was a term that Alan Hale Jr often used when referring to members on the set. In fact, a couple of years before Gilligan's Island, Hale was using this term in a 1962 episode of The Andy Griffith Show called “The Farmer Takes a Wife”. Hale plays a farmer named “Big” Jeff Pruitt, who refers to his partner, Barney, as his “Little Buddy.”
Moving to Gilligan's Island again, when Schwartz heard Hale use this term with his crewmates, he decided to write it into the script and that is how Gilligan began to be called The Skipper's, "Little Buddy".