Mootligan's Island - Discussion Thread

[Grey_Wolf]

The shipwrecked castaways want to leave the remote Island and various opportunities present themselves. They typically fail due to some bumbling error committed by Gilligan. Sometimes this would result in his saving the others from some unforeseen flaw in their plan. For example, in the episode "Splashdown", where an unmanned space capsule with sensitive technology lands in the lagoon, Gilligan allows the other castaways to talk over him, failing to tell them in time that the capsule is floating away. As the group yells at Gilligan for his "error," the capsule is blown up by NASA via remote control. Another example is in episode "Goodbye Island"; while looking for tree sap for Mary Ann's pancakes, Gilligan discovers a very strong glue-like substance that the Professor believes, because of it is strong and waterproof, is permanent, and therefore can be used to repair the damage to the Minnow. However, Gilligan later discovers that the substance is not permanent at all...it's only temporary. Gilligan tries to warn them, but no one will listen. Suddenly, the boat starts to break apart until it is completely destroyed. (Despite this, the ship was still prominently presented in the opening titles for the rest of the series' run.)

However, one episode ("The Big Gold Strike") in which the castaways discover a rich vein of gold on the island, is notable in that Gilligan is not responsible for the failed escape: the other castaways, having agreed to leave the gold behind, each smuggle bags of gold onto a makeshift raft; the combined weight of all the gold sinks the raft to the bottom of the lagoon. Gilligan is the only one who does not smuggle any gold and even comments that he is glad that it's not his fault this time.

When the castaways are kidnapped to a mad scientist's lab in the episode "The Friendly Physician," they succeed in getting off the island and onto another piece of dry land for the only time in the series.

Recurring elements centered on one of three primary themes. The first deals with life on the island. A running gag is the castaways' ability to fashion a vast array of useful objects from bamboo and other local material. Some were simple everyday things, while others were real stretches of the imagination. Russell Johnson noted in his autobiography that the production crew enjoyed the challenge of building these props. Some bamboo items included: framed huts with thatched grass sides and roofs, along with bamboo closets strong enough to withstand hurricane force winds and rain; the communal dining table and chairs, pipes for Gilligan's hot water, a stethoscope and a pedal-powered car.

The second theme involves visitors to the "uncharted" island. One challenge to a viewer's suspension of disbelief is the frequency with which the castaways are visited by people who do nothing to assist them. Some have ulterior motives for not doing so; some are simply unable to help, incompetent, or Gilligan somehow interferes and a message with their position is never delivered. Bob Denver, Jim Backus, and Tina Louise each had feature episodes in which look-alikes come to the island (who were, of course, played by themselves). Also, the island is home to an unusual assortment of animal life, some of it native, some just visiting.

The third recurring theme is the use of dream sequences, in which one of the castaways "dreams" he or she is some character related to that week's storyline. For example, after being bitten by a bat, Gilligan dreams he is Dracula. All of the castaways would appear as other characters within the dream, as was done in The Wizard of Oz. The only exception is in Mr. Howell's dream, in the episode "The Sweepstakes", in which Mrs. Howell is not present. In later interviews and memoirs, almost all of the actors stated that the dream episodes were among their personal favorites. In the Jack and the Beanstalk dream sequence of the episode "V for Vitamins", the smaller version of Gilligan, running from the Giant (played by the Skipper), is actually Bob Denver's son Patrick.

This is the premise for MI.

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