Jim Backus TV Schedule
See when Jim Backus is on TV tonight and this week. Browse upcoming airings, movies and TV shows at the American TV Listings Guide.
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Coming up this week
Jim Backus on TV This Week
Upcoming TV airings featuring Jim Backus. Times are shown for your selected ZIP code and TV provider.
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Sun 1
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Sun 1
Gilligan's Island: The Big Gold Strike — Jim Backus
It's a comical tug of greed vs liberation as Gilligan stumbles onto a gold mine and the Skipper recovers the Minnow's life raft.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 1, 2:00 pm -
Sun 1
Gilligan's Island: Waiting for Watubi — Jim Backus
The Skipper unearths a statue of a native god that he's sure means bad luck. Sure enough, an earthquake occurs.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 1, 2:30 pm -
Wed 4
I Married Joan — Jim Backus
Gifted comedian Joan Davis played the wife of a domestic court judge who regaled couples in his courtroom with tales of his experiences at home. Among a slew of contemporary zany-housewife shows, this had neither the cachet nor the consistency of 'I Love Lucy,' but it was a popular and underrated sitcom that nicely showcased Davis's gifts for physical comedy.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Wed 4, 3:30 pm -
Fri 6
His Kind of Woman — Jim Backus
A gangster causes trouble at a luxurious Mexican resort while trying to reenter the USA.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Fri 6, 2:50 am -
Sat 7
Gilligan's Island: It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Gilligan — Jim Backus
A jet-powered flight pack plays the key role in the castaways' plan to send an aerial SOS---with Gilligan as the soaring signaller.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sat 7, 3:00 pm -
Sat 7
Gilligan's Island: The Pigeon — Jim Backus
A carrier pigeon relays a message from the castaways to its owner, a prisoner who thinks the note's a joke.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sat 7, 3:30 pm -
Sat 7
Gilligan's Island: Bang! Bang! Bang! — Jim Backus
Soft plastic that's washed ashore in a crate turns out to be an experimental explosive, which is sneakily seized by a clever monkey.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sat 7, 4:00 pm -
Sat 7
Gilligan's Island: Gilligan the Goddess — Jim Backus
In the series finale, a native king, seeking a goddess, is taken with Gilligan, who masquerades to save the castaway women from a terrible fate: the king's choice is to be sacrificed to a volcano.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sat 7, 4:30 pm -
Sun 8
I Married Joan: Mountain Lodge — Jim Backus
Brad and Joan both write $1000 checks against the same bank account.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 8, 12:30 am -
Sun 8
I Married Joan: Mountain Lodge — Jim Backus
Brad and Joan both write $1000 checks against the same bank account.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 8, 11:30 am -
Sun 8
Gilligan's Island: Angel on the Island — Jim Backus
Ginger rehearses for a "very off-Broadway" show that casts her as Cleopatra. Trouble is, Mrs Howell wants the part because her husband is going to back the play.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 8, 2:00 pm -
Sun 8
Gilligan's Island: Three Million Dollars More or Less — Jim Backus
A putting contest between Gilligan and Howell on the isle's golf course escalates from small change to big money---as in $3 million.
Air Time & Details for Jim Backus, Sun 8, 2:30 pm
Filmography
Jim Backus Movies and TV Shows
Browse Jim Backus movies and TV shows, including upcoming TV airings, streaming availability, episode details and related titles.
Biography
About Jim Backus
© Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Ohio-born actor Jim Backus's stage career began in summer stock, where, according to his then-roommate Keenan Wynn, he was as well known for his prowess with the ladies as he was for his on-stage versatility. Backus continued acting in New York, vaudeville, and especially radio in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a regular on radio's The Alan Young Show, portraying Eastern Seaboard snob Hubert Updike III, the prototype for his "Thurston Howell III" characterization on the 1960s TV sitcom Gilligan's Island.
In 1949, Backus provided the voice of the nearsighted Mr. Magoo for the first time in the UPA cartoon Ragtime Bear; the actor later claimed that he based this character on his own businessman father. Also in 1949, Backus made his first film appearance in Easy Living, which starred his childhood friend Victor Mature. Backus' most famous screen role was as James Dean's weak-willed, vacillating father in Rebel without a Cause.
On television, Backus co-starred with Joan Davis on the I Love Lucy-like 1950s sitcom I Married Joan, and played the leading role of fast-talking news service editor Mike O'Toole on the 1960 syndicated series Hot Off the Wire (aka The Jim Backus Show). In the 1960s, Backus continued to provide the voice of Mr. Magoo in several TV projects, and was seen on-camera in the aforementioned Gilligan's Island, as well as the 1968 TV version of Blondie, wherein Backus played Mr. Dithers. Co-starring as Mrs. Dithers was Backus' wife Henny, who also collaborated with her husband on several amusing volumes of memoirs.
Jim and Henny Backus' last two books, Backus Strikes Back and Forgive Us Our Digressions, commented humorously on a deadly serious subject: Parkinson's Disease, the ailment which would eventually cost Backus his life at the age of 76.