‘Gilligan’s Island’ creator Sherwood Schwartz dies

LOS ANGELES -- The man who created "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" has died.

Great niece Robin Randall says Sherwood Schwartz died at 4 a.m. Tuesday. He was 94.

Schwartz was a veteran comedy writer when he created two of TV's best-remembered sitcoms in the 1960s. Over the years, they have inspired parodies, spinoffs and countless stand-up comedy jokes.

"Gilligan's Island" featured a hummable theme song telling how a boatload of seven characters, including a professor and a movie star, wound up stranded on an island. Bob Denver played Gilligan, the assistant skipper.

"The Brady Bunch" featured Florence Henderson as a widow with three daughters who marries a widower with three sons. A bigscreen version, "The Brady Bunch Movie," was a surprise box-office hit in 1995.