The Fate of "Gilligan's Island": The castaways are rescued, mentor a child star, play basketball with robots, and blast into space

What Boomer kid doesn't get all wispy and nostalgic upon hearing "Just sit right back, and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip..."

Gilligan's Island (1964-67) was an iconic Boomer tv series, part of the "lost far from home" genre, about seven people who set out from Hawaii on a "three hour tour" and ended up shipwrecked on a desert island.  We didn't care that their escape attempts were ludicrous, or that visitors managed to make it off the island with no trouble.  

What counted was the adventure: they fought pirates, headhunters, mad scientists, Russian spies.  They found a Jungle Boy, a buffed surfer, and a Tarzan clone.

It was a "boys only" paradise, with no girls or grownups around to spoil the fun.

Ok, the Howells were grownups.  Sort of.

Ok, there were two girls, Ginger and Mary Anne, but no one acted all goofy around them.  They were like big sisters.

Although they paid lip service to the goal of getting off the island, it was obvious that no one really wanted to leave.  Back home they were failures, parodies of themselves.  Ginger was an actress relegated to horrid B-movies, but on the Island, she was a star.  The Professor was a polymath teaching high school science, but on the Island he was a genius.  On the Island they all could shine.

There was no ongoing plot arc, as is common in tv series today, nor was there a conclusion.  The last episode of the series leaves them still stranded on the island.

But iconic Boomer tv series don't stay dead for long.  There were endless reruns, and ten years later, the sequels and adaptions started pouring out of the nostalgia factory:

1. The New Adventures of Gilligan (1974-77) appeared as a Saturday morning cartoon opposite other sitcom retreads, The Partridge Family 2200 AD and The Pebbles and Bam-Bam Show.  Tina Louise and Dawn Wells weren't interested, but everyone else in the live-action cast returned to voice their characters.

Most episodes involved inter-group squabbles, with an 1970s "the more you know" moral:

They elect Gilligan as President of the island.

They squabble over pirate gold.

The Skipper and Mr. Howell argue.

The Skipper tries to turn Gilligan into "a real man."

The characters look considerably younger than the actors they depict.  Gilligan and Mary Anne could be in their teens, and Skipper and the Howells look barely 30.  And why is Ginger platinum blonde instead of "ginger"?

2. Rescue from Gilligan's Island (1978) was a tv movie that every grown-up Boomer kid watched.  Except instead of having them shipwrecked for a reasonable amount of time, the premise is that they've been on the island for 14 years, since 1964.  They're obviously older, well into middle age or old age, which makes their stuntwork cringeworthy.

They arrive in Hawaii to a huge crowd of well-wishers and fans (except none of their family or friends).  The moment Gilligan leaves the coast guard ship, a soldier hands him an ice cream cone.

Giving a middle-aged man an ice cream cone rather than a hefty check from the insurance company? Bogus!

Besides, they had ice cream on the island.  Crates full of anything they needed kept washing up in the lagoon.

 They try to go back to their old lives: the Professor to his research university, the Howells to their snooty friends, Ginger to the movies, Mary Anne to her farm in Kansas.  But it's the midst of the s*x-and-sleaze disco era, everything has changed, and they're miserable. Fortunately, they end up being shipwrecked on the same island again.  There's no place like home?

There's also something about spies.

3. The Castaways on Gilligan's Island (1979).  This time they return to convert the island into a resort, where they proceed to solve guests' soap opera problems.  Apparently this was the pilot to a proposed tv series, with different problems every week, sort of like Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

First up, to appeal to the oldsters, a workaholic husband whose wife wants him to relax (played by Happy Days' Tom Bosley and The Bob Newhart Show's Marcia Wallace)

And to appeal to the kids, an unaccompanied minor (popular child star Ronny Scribner) turns out to be runaway: he's an Olympic hopeful, and the training schedule was too intense.

More after the break

Swiss Army Man: Boy Meets Corpse

Swiss Army Man is a gay romance about a man and a corpse.

Hank (Paul Dano) has been trapped on a desert island for a long time, and is planning to commit suicide, when a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on the shore.  Hank names him Manny.  He discovers that he can use Manny's superhuman flautulence to propel them to another, bigger island.

And, when needed, a stream of water comes out of Manny's mouth.

And his erect penis acts as a compass

Manny revives enough to be able to speak, but he still can't move, and he remembers nothing of his previous life; he has to be taught basic human concepts.

They build a hut and start a Robinson Crusoe-style life together.  They hold hands.

Make out at pretend movies (where Manny reanimates enough to hug and kiss).

And no doubt do other things.  Manny can get an erection, after all.

But then one day Hank and Manny wake up in the midst of civilization, in the town of Eastborough, on the lawn of Sarah, a woman he used to photograph on the bus back home. Now married, with a young daughter, who is staring at them.   
And Manny can't talk anymore.

Sarah,naturally concerned with the man and the corpse on her lawn, calls the police.  Reporters show up for the news story "Lost Man Stumbles into Local Yard." Hank's father shows up. They all discover Hank's hut -- in the woods nearby. 

He was never in the South Pacific at all. He was never shipwrecked.  Manny the Corpse was never re-animated.  It was all a massive delusion that Hank experienced as he tried to run away from his miserable life.

Right?

Maybe not. 

No one believes his story about the reanimated corpse, so Hank grabs Manny and takes him to the beach, begs him to re-animate so they can escape and return to their life together. No dice. 

He's arrested on suspicion of murder, desecrating a corpse, and who knows what else, but as he is dragged away, Manny reanimates, and, with a smile, propels off to safety.  Now everyone believes...in the power of love....

I have heard this a lot.  Same-sex desire cannot exist,or if it does, it is evidence of insanity.  You might as well fall in love with a corpse.

Well, in this case, Hank did.

Besides, I don't care if it's just special effects, I got to see Harry Potter with an erection.