In reliving the memories of Baby Boomer television, you really didn’t think I’d forget about Gilligan’s Island, did you?
Of all the improbable, unrealistic and oh-my-this-is-beyond-stupid shows we watched as kids, this could be in the top three of all time. Didn’t the Captain and his “little buddy” Gilligan ever think that naming a boat the Minnow might portend a bad outcome in a storm? Hello, how about Jaws or Orca?
The Jetsons were far more believable to me than this crew of castaways. A family living in the space age with robots, no problem.
Castaways on a desert island three hours off Hawaii, give me a break. They lived better than most people in the third world, and Ginger never ran out of makeup or hairspray. Too bad there was no Amazon. If there had been they would have been found and saved. That little smiling truck would have pulled right up to the shoreline and delivered the goods.
The castaways built a radio, huts, and cooked up some unbelievable recipes with coconuts, yet they couldn’t find the wherewithal to build a boat. Not enough trees on that deserted island? Even though one of them was a professor? Noah built an entire ark the size of a small city!
Of course, I’m not the first or even the thousandth to mention how highly laughable this fairy tale was.
However, it just made me rethink the sixties and how desperate we must have been for escape that we actually used Gilligan’s Island as a vehicle.
Times must have been pretty crazy off that TV screen.
Yes, I get it. The whole you-have-to-go-along with the joke thing. Yet I just find it more and more difficult to allow myself that luxury.
Even today watching shows like FBI or any police tale, it seems so improbable how the characters act when they are chasing criminals. No one even covers the back door. So, of course we always hear, “they went out the back,” and the chase begins. Give me a break. Is that really what you learned at Quantico?
Or a single cop going in to chase a perp with no partner or back up. Sure, that could happen. But not in this world!
Why do I find myself more familiar with the rules of law enforcement that the writers?
Hey, there’s a terror attack in Times Square. Quick, go to a pizza joint and find two cops to check it out. Are you kidding me? In what world could that happen?
The whole police force would be there like an army. At least they used to. Now with the new mayor of New York, who knows?
It just seems so silly to me I can’t seem to overlook the craziness of it all.
Yet, I overlooked the fact that Ginger worn a ball gown she brought on a three-hour cruise, that a professor couldn’t build a boat and that the Howells lived like Charles and Camilla in a hut?
What could we possibly be escaping from in the sixties that was more frightening than today’s world and yet… and yet.
Perhaps we can’t buy into so many of these premises anymore because we’ve seen so much more real-life craziness.
Let’s face it, we had no Internet, social media and only three news shows a night to choose from. If Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley or Peter Jennings didn’t report it, it didn’t happen. End of story.
We watched police behave like Toody and Muldoone in Car 54 Where are You? Or Andy Griffith in Maybury, where Barney got all bent out of shape and insisted on a public hanging if someone jaywalked.
Yes, we had Dragnet and Jack Webb emphasizing, “Just the facts, Mam.” Or tough cops like Broderick Crawford on Highway Patrol we believed were authentic. We were afraid of police despite Barney Fife.
After all, did Jack Webb look like a guy that couldn’t handle whatever came his way? And what about the granddaddy of all crime shows, The Untouchables? Was there ever anyone like Eliot Ness? Staunch in his dedication, devoted to his duty and as honest as the Dalai Llama.
We believed he’d clean up the town, arrest every bad guy and protect us from those bootlegging bad guys.
In the end was it because we simply became so attached to our TV screens that whatever appeared we embraced?
Was life so hard in the fifties and sixties? Sure, there were difficult times with lots of stress. Polio, the cold war, assassinations, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher splitting up.
So, we watched Gilligan and anything that came on the air, buying into every bit. We were so enthralled with having TV screens in our home we ate up every morsel, believable or not.
We remained optimistic that Gilligan would eventually find a way off that island. That Ginger’s face would break out in zits, and the Professor would take his eyes off Mary Ann’s short shorts long enough to build that boat. Were we naïve or just simply enjoying this new medium that allowed everyone to sit down, be together and escape the outside world?
Was it easy to laugh or were we simply that unsophisticated we found humor and excitement in the characters on the screen? Yet today, it doesn’t seem so easy to buy in. Have we become so jaded that we can’t accept the improbable anymore? Or has the improbable become our new reality? Kinda hard to top politicians for entertainment and pure horror.
As time moved forward into the seventies the shows became more gritty and violent. It got pretty real and a bunch of loons on a desert island wouldn’t make the cut. Or was Gilligan just the precursor to Survivor?
So do the times dictate what we will watch or the shows create the times? Was watching Lee Harvey Oswald murdered in front of our eyes the beginning of reality tv?
Is television a mirror image of life or an exaggeration for entertainment’s sake?
Did we turn to shows like Gilligan for a reprieve from the outside world or to reinforce our belief in innocence? Hasn’t the human race always been eager to laugh at the outrageous and bizarre?
Watching Gilligan on that peaceful island allowed us all to suspend rational thought and just go with the flow and the silliness of their plight.
Perhaps deep inside we were cheering for him to stay there. For that crew to continue to enjoy their desert island in anonymity and uncomplicated joy. Finding a desert island and hiding away sounds even more seductive in these times. After all, Gilligan did always find a way to screw up their potential escapes off the island. Just an observation.
Yep, does sound nice. Maybe that’s why cruises are so popular. They’re no desert island, but at least there’s a boat that works and will hopefully get you home. And a cruise does offer a lot more food choices than a coconut.
Still, knowing the number of fifties and sixties shows, including Gilligan that are watched on reruns daily, maybe more silly is exactly what we all need. Let me see now, The Real Housewives of anywhere or Gilligan’s Island? Okay, no brainer, Mary Ann, cut me another piece of pie, please.
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