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Post-55th Anniversary Viewing
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Gilligan's Island
"Splashdown"
Originally aired February 20, 1967
Frndly said:
A downed, unmanned space capsule could be used as an escape vehicle. There's just one hitch: the craft's built for two.
The episode opens with Scorpio 6 launching on what appears to be an Atlas rocket to rendezvous with a previously launched unmanned Scorpio capsule. Calculating that the S6 capsule will be only 155 miles above the island during some of its orbits, the Professor determines that they should be able to send it a signal with the radio's parts. He instructs the castaways to gather materials to build a directional cone, which ends up being a bamboo-tech contraption pedal-powered by four castaways...but the signal isn't sent successfully. For the next orbital opportunity, the Professor comes up with a lower-tech option--spelling out SOS with tree trunks and setting them on fire, for which Mr. Howell is forced to part with some brandy that he's managed to hold onto this long. (The letters seem way too small-scale, and Gilligan, a career sailor, doesn't know what SOS means.) Thanks to a Gilligan mishap, logs are knocked out of place in time for the astronauts, Tobias and Ryan (Scott Graham and Jim Spencer), to see the letters SOL--which they assume is a greeting to Tobias, as that's his first name. After a subsequent report that the tracking stations have lost contact with the unmanned capsule, it lands on the island via retro-rockets. IMDb brought to my attention that this capsule, the Scorpio E-X-1, is the one used on
It's About Time, designation and all.
Gilligan and the Skipper initially assume that it's the manned capsule, and the Professor finds that its radio is damaged beyond repair. They try to get the capsule into the lagoon to float it out to sea where it can be more easily spotted with two castaways aboard. The Professor asserts that the Skipper and Gilligan are the ones most qualified to drift in the capsule (One of them's the most qualified to screw up their opportunity, too.), but the other four castaways stow away aboard it by night in separate parties of two. Back at Mission Control, a NASA director (George Neise) calls off the search for the capsule, planning to remotely detonate it to keep its top-secret equipment from falling into enemy hands. The next morning, as the Skipper and Gilligan are trying to move the capsule out, they discover the stowaways. While the Professor is chastising them on shore, the capsule floats out into the lagoon and blows up.
In the coda, Mr. Howell throws a tantrum in his hut over having lost a bunch of cash on the capsule in addition to his brandy.
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Gilligan's Island
"High Man on the Totem Pole"
Originally aired February 27, 1967
Frndly said:
A look-alike head of Gilligan's on a totem pole convinces him he's descended from headhunters, who later descend on the isle.
The Skipper and Gilligan are lost in the jungle when they come upon a totem pole with a likeness of Gilligan on top. The Professor assesses it to be the work of the Kupa Kai, a local headhunter tribe. Something the Skipper says triggers Gilligan into obsessing over the possibility that he's descended from a native king. The others try to take his mind off of it, including a Ginger seduction attempt. After a mishap throwing a boomerang made for him by the Skipper, Gilligan takes an axe to the pole and chops off the head, which only makes him feel worse. The Professor ultimately succeeds by offering his own neck on the chopping block, proving that Gilligan has no instinct for beheading. Meanwhile, a trio of natives (Jim Lefebvre, Al Ferrara, and Pete Sotos) has found the desecrated totem and are out for blood.
A cheered-up Gilligan goes back for the head and is freaked out to find it on the pole. He then runs into the Skipper and the Professor, who've seen the headhunters. He manages to get to the girls in time, initially thinking they've been beheaded when he finds them in a mud bath; but the headhunters capture the Howells and start to prepare a kettle for them. (Where exactly do headhunters get an iron kettle with a handle?) When the others learn of this, the Professor hatches a plan to have Gilligan impersonate the King Mashuka to scare them off. After the others end up getting captured behind his back, Gilligan sneaks into the clearing to help and makes an awkward entrance while trying to climb up the pole to restore the head again, which causes the natives to think that he's the head. He ends up falling down and they become skeptical, until he dives for cover and the head rolls out from the behind the pole, making the natives think that they've killed Mashuka, which sends them running.
In the coda, Gilligan reveals that he's put a likeness of Mr. Howell on the pole to take the heat off of him.
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Gilligan's Island
"The Second Ginger Grant"
Originally aired March 6, 1967
Frndly said:
A case of mixed identities adds to the usual confusion when a bump on the head causes Mary Ann to believe that she's Ginger. And that means she starts behaving very sexily.
Speaking of confusion, it seems like we've already had an episode that could just as easily have used this title. This one opens with Ginger putting on a stage show for the other castaways, singing "I Wanna Be Loved By You"...and Mary Ann acting uncharacteristically hero-worshippy about her hutmate, gushing out a wish that she could be just like Ginger. After the show, Mary Ann trips and hits her head on a rock, following which she thinks she's Ginger. This is a lot like a mind-switch episode in that it involves one cast member doing an impersonation of another playing their character.
After examining Mary Ann, the Professor diagnoses that her condition is psychological and encourages the others to play along with her, which includes having Ginger assume the role of Mary Ann. While the Howells are busy conjuring a dark wig from wherever they get all their stuff, Gilligan has to keep Mary Ann occupied by enduring a Ginger-style seduction attempt. There's a cute bit of business in which the other three men effectively put on a runway show as each of them tries to demonstrate to Ginger how Mary Ann walks. Once Ginger is in her role, the other castaways have to endure her lack of culinary skill and she has to contain herself when Mary Ann cuts up all of her dresses to make them fit. Despite these efforts, the next day Mary Ann comes upon Ginger without her wig on and faints.
The Professor finds that Mary Ann's in a state of traumatic shock and decides to risk trying hypnosis...which proves ineffective on her but does work on Gilligan, who was eavesdropping during the session.
Mr. Howell: We've got three Mary Anns and we're fresh out of Gilligans and Gingers!
The confusion intensifies as Gilligan, who was taking a bath when the Skipper accidentally triggered his conditioning, goes to the girls' hut and runs into Ginger as Mary Ann. Once the Professor undoes the hypnosis on Gilligan, the Professor finally comes up with a resolution--letting Mary Ann try to perform as Ginger. The castaways throw another stage show with her as the star...and Mr. Howell MCing while doing a Sullivan impression. Mary Ann starts off reasonably well, but finds herself getting confused when her lack of experience becomes evident. Eventually she falls backward onto the stage and hits her head again, following which she resumes her normal persona, doesn't remember being Ginger, and wonders why Ginger's done up to look just like her.
In the coda, Ginger tries wearing one of her cut-up dresses as a miniskirt, which Mary Ann finds scandalous.
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Gilligan's Island
"The Secret of Gilligan's Island"
Originally aired March 13, 1967
Frndly said:
A hieroglyphic tablet that may reveal an escape route prompts a dream sequence in which the castaways are cave people who made the tablet.
Exploring the cave set, Gilligan finds a piece of a stone tablet with drawings on it, which the Professor is able to read because he's familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphics. (The nitpickers on IMDb had a field day with this, as well as the Professor's estimate that the tablet could be a million years old.) He believes that it shows a way off the island, and has the other castaways explore the cave looking for more fragments, which they find. He also has the girls brew some acid, man, which a couple of spoons and a cup sacrifice themselves to save Gilligan from tasting when he thinks that it's soup. The Professor pieces together the fragments and finds that there's still one key section missing. It turns out that Gilligan's been using it as a serving tray for months, but he accidentally drops it, smashing it into small pieces.
The Professor manages to put it back together and determines that the full drawing indicates a time and place on the island where the currents would be favorable to traveling by raft to Hawaii. Having learned from the Professor of a chieftain who wouldn't let the people leave the island, Gilligan has a dream (the last such sequence in the series according to IMDb) in which he's the brave stone-age rebel who made the drawing; Mr. Howell is the chieftain, who's leaning on him about it; and the Professor is trying to invent the wheel. The Skipper recruits the girls to accompany him, Gilligan, and the Professor in their attempt to escape the island, but Gilligan and the Skipper are conked on the head by Howell and bamboo-imprisoned while attempting a nighttime rendezvous. Ginger goes to try to save them via a seduction attempt on "Chiefy Weefey," only to end up fleeing when Mrs. Howell sneaks up and conks Thurston on the head...but after Lovey drags her husband away, Gilligan and the Skipper escape. They and the other three proceed with their attempt by day, but the dream ends when they find their path blocked by a dinosaur.
When Gilligan's back in the land of the living, the Professor breaks the news that he'd mistakenly read the tablet left to right instead of right to left, and that it actually shows how to get
to the island.
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Gilligan's Island
"Slave Girl"
Originally aired March 20, 1967
IMDb said:
Gilligan rescues a native woman from drowning, which according [to] her custom makes her his slave. But soon a fellow tribesman comes to the island and challenges Gilligan for her in a fight to the death.
When Kalani's (Midori) outrigger boat capsizes, Gilligan heroically swims out to rescue her. He does the arm-pumping thing to revive her, and she declares herself to be Gilligan's titular servant in convenient English while worship-bowing at his feet.
Unable, along with the Skipper, to deny that she's there, the Professor recognizes from Kalani's medallion that she's a member of the Matoba tribe, whose language he conveniently speaks. The Professor explains that refusing to honor their custom would be a great insult to them. The others try to bid with Gilligan for her services, but she'll only serve him. Gilligan quickly becomes frustrated with this arrangement when she won't let him do any of his routine chores, but the Professor informs him that the only way to get out of the deal is to lose her in mortal combat...and has to explain to Gilligan what that means. Mr. Howell promptly hatches a scheme to fake-kill Gilligan in a fencing match. Yes, he brought rapiers and fencing outfits with him...which is all the sillier when contrasted with the Professor using his big-ass bamboo stethoscope. As Kalani's bowing at Thurston's feet, three members of her tribe dramatically appear--one of them being her beau, Ugundi (Apollo-to-be Michael Forest), who challenges Howell to a fight to the death.
Thurston tries unsuccessfully to forfeit, then Gilligan comes to and finds himself on the receiving end of the challenge. He refuses to let the others put their lives on the line to save him, but something he says about first killing himself gives the Professor the idea to fake his death (again) with a poisonous plant that, when carefully administered, will cause a death-like paralysis. There's a brief farce when the Howells come in on this mid-plan, assume that the Skipper and Professor are conspiring to kill Gilligan, and try to save him. The paralysis fools Ugundi, who then insists on giving Gilligan a Matoba funeral--which involves burning him on a pyre. The castaways stall for time by having Ginger do a veil dance under the pretense that it's their funerary custom, but ultimately Ugundi lights the pyre and Gilligan awakens. The Matoba then think that he's a fire god, which the Professor uses as leverage to have Gilligan frighten them off the island...an act that's aided by Gilligan's pants being on fire.
In the coda, Mary Ann sends Gilligan fast-mo running into the jungle when she pranks him by declaring herself to be his titular servant.
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Sorry to be MIA yesterday. I had some connectivity issues.
Say, did you get tremors from the Jersey quake up there Friday?
Wow, I had no idea that such legislation had ever made it so far.
It boggles the mind that this still isn't a thing. Nobody should be able to wrap themselves in a flag and not support it.
Amazing. I wonder if I'll live long enough to see such governance return.
From the doc about the geological history of the Earth that I was just watching on Story, I think we'll get the extinction glaciers first.
Hey, a Nazi Millennial.
Those are pretty common these days, aren't they?
Karen Carpenter. 'nuff said.
...
I didn't recognize the title, but I definitely remember it. Good one, although I don't remember it being quite so long.
It's the official audio of the album version, and the version that I own. Helps to keep it distinct from the reality show version, minimizing visions of Orange Mussolini.
Classic Olivia at her peak.
She's only just begun, but I know you don't like Mildly Naughty Olivia.
A classic novelty number.
This highlights that the fad was a current thing at the time, but I just can't get into Ray Stevens.
Classic. Beautiful poetry.
Nice early '70s soft rock.
On the subject of classic TV actors who are still with us at very ripe old ages, I just caught this promo on an episode of GI that I recorded in January:
Watch: Dick Van Dyke sings the unheard lyrics to The Dick Van Dyke Show theme song (metv.com)