Sunday, October 30, 2005

Breaking "The Gilligan Code"


Jesus and Mary Magdalene?

Now that Bob Denver has made it off the island, as we say in spiritland -- where no man is an island, indeed, no island is an island -- we can now begin to unravel the many mysteries presented by the television classic.

For example:

Consider this list...
  • Gilligan
  • the skipper
  • the millionaire
  • his wife
  • the movie star
  • the professor
  • Mary Ann
This is the order of names mentioned in the final version of the song. But what is wrong with this picture?

Only the Alpha and Omega have actual names attached to them. Gilligan and Mary Ann.
Is this because they are in fact the Alpha and the Omega?
We know that Alpha is a hurricane, and Omega is a vitamin suppliment made of fish oil.
Hurricanes travel OVER water, and fish swim IN the water. But is this important?
Is the Pope important? We like to think so.

They all have names. Thurston Howell, of course. But Lovey Wentworth, Jonas Grumby (skipper), and Roy Hinkley (professor)? Sound familiar? Granted, Ginger Grant sounds a little familiar, but that might be because we had a president and a Lou named Grant.

But what else is it about Gilligan and Mary Ann? Is it that they were meant to be together from the very start, and that they are the only characters worth their salt? Salt too, remember, is IN the ocean, like fish, but that Salt II is something else entirely.

Or is it???

Were Gilligan and Mary Ann, in fact, desposyni? Did they have olive eyes? Are they the true vitalismen?

Now some will argue that the professor and Mary Ann are the only important characters...since they were first distinguished as being the original "and the rest". Clearly an important title.
But remember, Mary was the name of Jesus' wife and mother, and Ann was the name of Mary's mother, although she spelled it with an "e" although placing in the creative spot in the second space, producing "Aenn"...although she preferred the more friendly "Annie", at least according to dental records.

But such thinking is flawed, since there were no professors in biblical times, and the ones that did profess were considered wiseacres and numbnuts, and were typically forced to eat their falafel without ketchup, so to speak, and were thus rendered toothless, socially. Clearly the professor was not a major player in the Gilligan Code.

"And the rest"

The professor and Mary Ann were, at one time, the proverbial "rest". Requiem is the latin word for rest. Therefore, the professor and Mary Ann were the requiem. But so what? Who isn't these days?

So this leads us back to Gilligan and Mary Ann; the Alpha and Omega.
Were they meant to be an item? Is that what it is all about?
Is this just some fantasy on the part of the writers, anticipating Survivor and Lost?


Gilligan's Isthmus

And speaking of Lost, could it be, as some have said, that the crew were in fact not on an island, but an isthmus? This would make a lot of sense, since Isthmus rhymes with Christmas, and sense rhymes with since...but somehow this seems like a dead-end, since it was all filmed on a soundstage, which only rhymes with roundstage, which was popular during the Albionic Renaissance, as proved by Herr Shakesjoyce, writing between the lines.

As we explore the Gilligan Code, we will discover all manner of wild and wondrous connections.
We hope you will stay with us as the secrets are, at last, revealed.

Many thanks to Jude Camwell, the Iddybud of the Blogosphere, for her inspiration and amazing sleuthwork of this timely and touching matter.