Post #715428 by mike and marie on Wed, Apr 30, 2014 6:48 PM

This thread has been on our mind lately as we've begun to revisit Fantasy Island ourselves thanks to the DVD rereleases. Our own dim childhood memories of the show are shadowy and vague (way past our bedtimes!) ... it seemed to be somewhat mysterious, and tropical of course however not tiki at all -- we just remember the ferns, white wicker and the red jeeps. (Correction, all Marie remembers is Tattoo ringing the bell.)

But it still seemed like good playing for the tiki bar because it's old, set in a tropical locale, and we wanted to investigate and see how much (if any) tiki there really was. We're glad to see the posts above showing that there's more tiki ahead in the next few seasons that we have to look forward to.

What struck us right away in this experiment is how much the theme song owes to "Ebb-Tide" ... like it's almost an inverted version of it.

No tiki at all in the original pilot, the two hour movie, and first half-dozen episodes, not anywhere. Just a vaguely "tropical" hut, the exotic drinks at the beginning of each episode, and a Polynesian outdoor buffet to rival any put together by Trader Vic:

And lots of ferns ... also this Mesoamerican-looking figure by the door (and I don't mean Tattoo!):

The magic doesn't happen until episode 7. Then, with the sound of waterfalls from walkway overhangs above, is a brief site of something that should capture the attention of any tikiphile:

Tiki credit for anyone who can name the place and location. It still looks more or less the same today (at least on the outside), but it's currently endangered:

This cuts to the interior scene of the tiki bar:

Maybe the best thing about it is the lighting. There are many very nice looking lamps used throughout the tiki bar as you'll see in the various clips, like:

They soon developed the outside facade to the bar. After this it's no longer the real-life location noted above, but now it's a small corner complex built of a red and white striped lighthouse, a boxy warehouse type center with fishnet, and the doorway with the awning that seems suspiciously like leftover material from the canopies on the jeeps:

Kelbo's, anyone?

It definitely looks like the prop exterior was modeled after the W Pico Blvd location ... and now you know why the former LA tiki landmark Kelbo's is now called "Fantasy Island"!

The (as yet unnamed) tiki bar gets a rest for a few weeks, and then comes back in episode 10, where it's featured even more prominently than this guy's collar:

If the Kahiki had been built 17 years later than it had, maybe the village seating area would have looked something like this:

The tiki is even having an effect on the cast:

So is the fishnet:

By episode 11, the bar area comes into prominence:

We couldn't quite make out what it said on the menu cover, but it had us wondering if it was real or a prop:

So the tiki bar was surprsingly impressive, and if it existed today in real life would certainly have high Critiki values of tilt and vibe.

But as bigbro indicates in BoT, this is past the prime of Tiki and well into the tiki devolution of the late 70s. It's not just tiki that changed -- it was the world. Tiki's heyday was the Modern age, and by the late 70s the world had gone Postmodern. Two big indicators evident in season one of Fantasy Island will show this. One has already been mentioned here -- macrame:

And ... disco:

Despite this overwhelming just-past-the-prime feeling about it evident in some of the decor, wardrobe and music choices, we found the show to be somewhat entertaining. We'll be coming back for season two.

Who says there's no tiki on Fantasy Island? :)

Now as for The Love Boat, we're working on it!

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2014-04-30 18:53 ]

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2014-04-30 18:55 ]

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2016-03-20 20:39 ]

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2016-03-21 12:46 ]