Gilligan's Island: Five Times Gilligan Wasn't the One at Fault
Along with classic movies, I am a big fan of (some) classic television shows and there are few more classic than Gilligan's Island. I never miss an opportunity to watch a rerun and there isn't an episode of that series, which went off the air eight years before I was born, I haven't seen at least a dozen times.
One thing that has always bothered me about the show, however, is the perception the title character, Gilligan (Bob Denver) is the reason the castaways went three seasons and a movie without being rescued. While this is true some (most) of the time, the other castaways made their share of mistakes as well, unjustly not receiving their share of the blame.
Here are some examples.
Gilligan wasn't the one who sunk the raft with gold (The Big Gold Strike). OK, maybe Gilligan deserves part of the blame for discovering the gold mine in the first place. However, when the Professor (Russell Johnson) said no added weight in the recently repaired raft, even he didn't follow his own rule. Gilligan was the lone person who didn't let greed come before rescue.
I don't remember him directing that film (Castaways Pictures Presents). When Gilligan found that sunken ship with filmmaking equipment, it was a great opportunity for them to be rescued. All they needed to do was a basic film that described who they were, where they were and asking for help. Instead, Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) and the Professor made an overly complicated silent film that did such a poor job communicating their message, it won a film festival.
Maybe the Skipper (Alan Hale, Jr.) should have put someone in charge of watching the cosmonauts (Nyet, Nyet, Not Yet). The castaways knew the two cosmonauts who crash landed on the island wanted to leave them behind. So why, after going out of the way to get the two men drunk, the Skipper and even the Professor thought it would be a good idea to just have everyone go to bed? They were arguably the group leaders, so the blame falls on them.
Why didn't someone go with Erika Tiffany-Smith (Erika Tiffany-Smith to the Rescue)? Of all the times the castaways had a chance to get off the island only to fail, this was arguably one of the most frustrating. Erika Tiffany-Smith (Zsa Zsa Gabor) had the means to get help but was clearly too flaky to pull it off without help. Wouldn't it have made sense for either the Skipper or Professor to go with her? Heck, considering how she fawned over the Professor, I don't think she would have had a problem with that and there would have been someone onboard her ship to give directions back.
Gilligan was the one who wanted to light the signal fire (Ship Ahoax). Did everyone on the island know Ginger (Tina Louise) was pretending to be psychic when she predicted a ship was coming to rescue them? Yes. Was that a reason for the Skipper to stop Gilligan from lighting a signal fire? No. And, sure enough, there was a ship that could have spotted it. Of course, as I've said plenty of times in the past, I don't know why they wouldn't want one lit every night just to be safe.
So, as I said, while Gilligan had his share of mishaps, he was far from being the only one responsible for the castaways' lack of rescue.
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Here are some similar entries:
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Four M*A*S*H Characters That Should Have Had Spin-offs
Three Storylines Left Unresolved by The Big Bang Theory
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