Gilligan

It's funny how key words trigger associations within our minds. Some images are so indelibly locked to those words that the full picture is displayed across our mental movie screen the moment we hear them. For example, it is impossible to hear the phrase "shoe pounding" without thinking of Nikita Kruschev, or "JFK assassination" without thinking of Keith Hernandez. Nor is it possible to hear the name "Ted" without thinking of Wyld Stallyns.

Those associations are universal, of course, but there are the occasional less-obvious ones that pop up for no apparent reason. For example, I was recently speaking to my friend Bob, who had just returned from a trip to Alabama. Somehow, the thought of Bob traveling to the South suddenly reminded me of a childhood memory of a unique wrestling match wrap-up I heard while watching sports on TV. Unparalleled announcer Bill Kersten said "Nobody likes to win more than Texas Bob Geigel, that great German wrestler from Iowa. And win he always, usually does."

Now, that, my friends, is pure eloquence.

And I defy anyone to think of Texas Bob Geigel without thinking of that other famous wrestling Bob..."Bulldog" Bob Brown. You don't mess with the Bulldog.

True story: I was in the audience for a Maynard Ferguson concert at the Century II Convention Center, and during the intermission I saw something truly inspirational. Maynard was making one of his speeches about the value of music education, when none other than the Bulldog struts right out onto the stage in his wrestling tights. As the crowd reacted with astonishment and awe, the Bulldog snatched the microphone away from Maynard and proceeded to deliver a surprisingly articulate endorsement of everything Maynard has just said. "Music is a wonderful artform, and everyone should play an instrument to develop their cultural maturity," he said. And then he reiterated that we should all thank our music teachers, gave Maynard a bear hug, and lumbered off the stage.

The crowd went nuts!

Turns out there was a wrestling match in the arena right next door to the concert venue; BBB was a huge MF fan, and vice versa. There was a surreal sort of synergy in that relationship, and I guarantee you that everyone in that audience left Century II that day with an altered perspective...and a new appreciation of the beauty and harmony that large sweaty men can create onstage.

Anyway, the point is that when I recently met a woman named Mary Anne, I couldn't help but think of Gilligan's island.

Yeah, I know...you're expecting me to weigh in on the "Ginger vs. Mary Ann" controversy. But in my mind, there is no controversy at all. No disrespect to Tina Louise, who is a fine actress and deserves every single performance award she's earned over her long and distinguished career -- but it's gotta be Mary Ann all the way. She's from Kansas, she's wholesome, she's cute, and she would never be caught dead in one of those hideous beehive hairdos.

Who invented that look, anyway? And who ever thought it was attractive? And why on earth are there still commercials on TV for the "Bump-it" thingy that makes hair look all poofy? Are there really that many trailer-trash beehive 'do fans out there with credit cards?

[Side comment: I love my sister dearly, but when she got the highrise hairdo with the pearls in it for her Senior Prom, I nearly died of embarrassment. Fortunately for all of us, that was a one-time error in judgment for her, and despite that one night of attempted fashion suicide, her date married her anyway and they've lived happily ever after. With normal hair.]

Anyway, the whole point of this blog was to explore the unsolved mysteries of Gilligan's Island, and to do it in a scholarly way and with plenty of data and statistics to support my arguments. But I've already gone on too long, so I think I'll just reduce my hours of thoughtful and reasoned debate into a simple bullet list. Perhaps we'll take the academic approach at some later date. Or perhaps not. In any case, try not to burn out any brain cells pondering these imponderables, and have a great day!

• OK, it was a three-hour tour, right? Which means that their max distance from Key West is no more than 1.5 hours at full drive, which for the Minnow is probably about 30 knots. So even given some "mighty ship tossage" during the storm, they're still no more than 50 - 75 miles offshore, right in prime fishing waters, and directly between the mainland and Cuba. They were visited by all sorts of people during their stay on the island (including freakin' Hans Conreid, fergawshsakes), so my question is this: Why were there never any Cuban refugees washed up on shore? Huh? Where were the Cubans?


• It was probably obvious during the voyage, but completely impossible to ignore within 20 minutes of landfall -- Gilligan is an idiot, and is likely to get everyone killed! In any normal survival scenario, eliminating Gilligan would be the castaways' first priority. Even before finding water and food. They should've imprisoned him at the very least, and more likely taken the "long pig barbecue" approach. After all, the only thing you ever see them eat is fruit...some meat would start sounding pretty good before too long. Anyway, why did they allow Gilligan to roam the island freely?


• Why didn't they get malaria? There had to be buttloads of mosquitoes there.


• In the time it took to build those huts, they've could've patched the Minnow. Even if the engines were ruined (which seems unlikely given the relatively minor damage to the structure), wouldn't a repaired Minnow still be more seaworthy than the various palm-tree rafts they attempted to construct?
• And come to think of it, the Minnow seems a bit small to hold all the luggage that the Howells appear to have brought. And anyway, after a month or two, don't you think the Howell's insufferability would've made the Skipper think about putting them on the menu as well? Maybe draft up a will naming the survivors as equal beneficiaries, force Thurston to sign it, and then toss him in the cooking pot. (Although having a cooking pot as standard Caribbean cruise gear on a boat that size seems implausible, too, now that I think about it.)


• And the biggest mystery of all -- Who styled Ginger's hair?