#the castaways on gilligan's island

[tgsclassics]

Raquel Welch auditioned for the role of Mary Ann in the 60s tv series "Gilligan's Island", but was considered 'not wholesome enough' for the part. The role went to Dawn Wells

[nathanolsenart]

Stranded

[stone-cold-groove]

Looks like a Ginger to me.

[hitchell-mope]

Ah jeez.

[creativecuquilu]

Been on a Gilligan's Island mood this week...Another amusing show from the 60s, featuring seven castaways and their misadventures on an island after the Minnow crashed. And the Ballad is amazing! The titular character of Gilligan is the funniest of the bunch, if not the klutziest. One of my favorite episodes (and the only one I constantly watched, by the way) is V for Vitamins, where the Castaways are lacking Vitamin C and need to grow oranges in order not to perish. At some point Gilligan dreams a Jack and the Beanstalk-like story, with him as Jack and Skipper as the Giant. And since there was no such thing as CGI or FX, in order to shrink Gilligan, they picked up Bob Denver's 5yo son Patrick. Let's be honest, but he completely nailed it as a pint sized Gilligan - the large hat is the best part! Another great episode is Pass the Vegetables, Please, where Gilligan finds radioactive veggie seeds, and upon eating them, they gain different powers each, for example, Mrs Howell becomes really fast, and Gilligan gets super strenght! But just so you know, I don't like the first season, mainly due to the fact that is black and white.

Hope you like it!

Artwork © @CreativeCuquiLu

Gilligan's Island © Gladasya - United Artist Television and CBS

WATCH IT - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df7KKQoJjQ4

[tvshowpilot]

Buckle up and join us as we delve into the best TV shows about being stranded on an island, where every episode is a battle against nature and escape seems like an ever-elusive dream!

[slapstikcomedyentertainment]

5 Classic Comedies That Make Us Regret Not Being Older

Oh, the power of comedy. It can make us laugh. It can make us cry...

Oh, the power of comedy. It can make us laugh. It can make us cry. It can make us feel like absolute idiots compared to the geniuses writing it. Most of us feel unworthy when considering hilarious writers such as Tina Fey, Michael Schur, and to pick an entirely random example, me. But comedy has a long history. We’re not the only ones who have enjoyed actors’ antics on the silver screen. Comedy…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You were promised a jetpack by liars

TONIGHT (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

As a science fiction writer, I find it weird that some sf tropes – like space colonization – have become culture-war touchstones. You know, that whole "we were promised jetpacks" thing.

I confess, I never looked too hard at the practicalities of jetpacks, because they are so obviously either used as a visual shorthand (as in the Jetsons) or as a metaphor. Even a brief moment's serious consideration should make it clear why we wouldn't want the distracted, stoned, drunk, suicidal, homicidal maniacs who pilot their two-ton killbots through our residential streets at 75mph to be flying over our heads with a reservoir of high explosives strapped to their backs.

Jetpacks can make for interesting sf eyeball kicks or literary symbols, but I don't actually want to live in a world of jetpacks. I just want to read about them, and, of course, write about them:

https://reactormag.com/chicken-little/

I had blithely assumed that this was the principle reason we never got the jetpacks we were "promised." I mean, there kind of was a promise, right? I grew up seeing videos of rocketeers flying their jetpacks high above the heads of amazed crowds, at World's Fairs and Disneyland and big public spectacles. There was that scene in Thunderball where James Bond (the canonical Connery Bond, no less) makes an escape by jetpack. There was even a Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways find a jetpack and scheme to fly it all the way back to Hawai'i:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0588084/

Clearly, jetpacks were possible, but they didn't make any sense, so we decided not to use them, right?

Well, I was wrong. In a terrific new 99 Percent Invisible episode, Chris Berube tracks the history of all those jetpacks we saw on TV for decades, and reveals that they were all the same jetpack, flown by just one guy, who risked his life every time he went up in it:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/

The jetpack in question – technically a "rocket belt" – was built in the 1960s by Wendell Moore at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, with funding from the DoD. The Bell rocket belt used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as fuel, which burned at temperatures in excess of 1,000'. The rocket belt had a maximum flight time of just 21 seconds.

It was these limitations that disqualified the rocket belt from being used by anyone except stunt pilots with extremely high tolerances for danger. Any tactical advantage conferred on infantrymen by the power to soar over a battlefield for a whopping 21 seconds was totally obliterated by the fact that this infantryman would be encumbered by an extremely heavy, unwieldy and extremely explosive backpack, to say nothing of the high likelihood that rocketeers would plummet out of the sky after failing to track the split-second capacity of a jetpack.

And of course, the rocket belt wasn't going to be a civilian commuting option. If your commute can be accomplished in just 21 seconds of flight time, you should probably just walk, rather than strapping an inferno to your back and risking a lethal fall if you exceed a margin of error measured in just seconds.

Once you know about the jetpack's technical limitations, it's obvious why we never got jetpacks. So why did we expect them? Because we were promised them, and the promise was a lie.

Moore was a consummate showman, which is to say, a bullshitter. He was forever telling the press that his jetpacks would be on everyone's back in one to two years, and he got an impressionable young man, Bill Suitor, to stage showy public demonstrations of the rocket belt. If you ever saw a video of a brave rocketeer piloting a jetpack, it was almost certainly Suitor. Suitor was Connery's stunt-double in Thunderball, and it was he who flew the rocket belt around Sleeping Beauty castle.

Suitor's interview with Berube for the podcast is delightful. Suitor is a hilarious, profane old airman who led an extraordinary life and tells stories with expert timing, busting out great phrases like "a surprise is a fart with a lump in it."

But what's most striking about the tale of the Bell rocket belt is the shape of the deception that Moore and Bell pulled off. By conspicuously failing to mention the rocket belt's limitations, and by callously risking Suitor's life over and over again, they were able to create the impression that jetpacks were everywhere, and that they were trembling on the verge of widespread, popular adoption.

What's more, they played a double game: all the public enthusiasm they manufactured with their carefully stage-managed, canned demos was designed to help them win more defense contracts to keep their dream alive. Ultimately, Uncle Sucker declined to continue funding their boondoggle, and the demos petered out, and the "promise" of a jetpack was broken.

As I listened to the 99 Percent Invisible episode, I was struck by the familiarity of this shuck: this is exactly what the self-driving car bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical, right down to the shameless huckster insisting that "full self-driving is one to two years away" every year for a decade:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23837598/tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-false-promises-land-of-the-giants

The Potemkin rocket belt was a calculated misdirection, as are the "full self-driving" demos that turn out to be routine, pre-programmed runs on carefully manicured closed tracks:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer-says-company-faked-full-autopilot/

Practical rocketeering wasn't ever "just around the corner," because a flying, 21 second blast-furnace couldn't be refined into a practical transport. Making the tank bigger would not make this thing safer or easier to transport.

The jetpack showman hoped to cash out by tricking Uncle Sucker into handing him a fat military contract. Robo-car scammers used their conjurer's tricks to cash out to the public markets, taking Uber public on the promise of robo-taxis, even as Uber's self-driving program burned through $2.5b and produced a car with a half-mile mean time between fatal collisions, which the company had to pay someone else $400m to take the business off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

It's not just self-driving cars. Time and again, the incredibly impressive AI demos that the press credulously promotes turn out to be scams. The dancing robot on stage at the splashy event is literally a guy in a robot-suit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ai-day-tesla-bot-is-just-a-guy-in-a-bodysuit-2021-8

The Hollywood-killing, AI-produced video prompting system is so cumbersome to use, and so severely limited, that it's arguably worse than useless:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

The centuries' worth of progress the AI made in discovering new materials actually "discovered" a bunch of trivial variations on existing materials, as well as a huge swathe of materials that only exist at absolute zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

The AI grocery store where you just pick things up and put them in your shopping basket without using the checkout turns out to be a call-center full of low-waged Indian workers desperately squinting at videos of you, trying to figure out what you put in your bag:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

The discovery of these frauds somehow never precipitates disillusionment. Rather than getting angry with marketers for tricking them, reporters are ventriloquized into repeating the marketing claim that these aren't lies, they're premature truths. Sure, today these are faked, but once the product is refined, the fakery will no longer be required.

This must be the kinds of Magic Underpants Gnomery the credulous press engaged in during the jetpack days: "Sure, a 21-second rocket belt is totally useless for anything except wowing county fair yokels – but once they figure out how to fit an order of magnitude more high-explosive onto that guy's back, this thing will really take off!"

The AI version of this is that if we just keep throwing orders of magnitude more training data and compute at the stochastic parrot, it will eventually come to life and become our superintelligent, omnipotent techno-genie. In other words, if we just keep breeding these horses to run faster and faster, eventually one of our prize mares will give birth to a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As a society, we have vested an alarming amount of power in the hands of tech billionaires who profess to be embittered science fiction fans who merely want to realize the "promises" of our Golden Age stfnal dreams. These bros insist that they can overcome both the technical hurdles and the absolutely insurmountable privation involved in space colonization:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

They have somehow mistaken Neal Stephenson's dystopian satirical "metaverse" for a roadmap:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

As Charlie Stross writes, it's not just that these weirdos can't tell the difference between imaginative parables about the future and predictions about the future – it's also that they keep mistaking dystopias for business plans:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/

Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Please, I beg you, stop building the fucking torment nexus:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

These techno-billionaires profess to be fulfilling a broken promise, but surely they know that the promises were made by liars – showmen using parlor tricks to sell the impossible. You were "promised a jetpack" in the same sense that table-rapping "spiritualists" promised you a conduit to talk with the dead, or that carny barkers promised you a girl that could turn into a gorilla:

https://milwaukeerecord.com/film/ape-girl-shes-alive-documentary-november-11-sugar-maple/

That's quite a supervillain origin story: "I was promised a jetpack, but then I grew up discovered that it was just a special effect. In revenge, I am promising you superintelligent AIs and self-driving cars, and these, too, are SFX."

In other words: "Die a disillusioned jetpack fan or live long enough to become the fraudster who cooked up the jetpack lie you despise."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/#twenty-one-seconds

[mydaddywiki]

Tom Bosley

Physique: Average/Chubby Build Height: 5'6" (1.68 m)

Thomas Edward Bosley (October 1, 1927 – October 19, 2010) was an American actor, television personality and entertainer. Bosley is best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the ABC sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984) for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination. He's also known for his role as Sheriff Amos Tupper in the Angela Lansbury lead mystery series Murder, She Wrote (1984–1988), and as the title character in the series Father Dowling Mysteries (1989–1991). He died on October 19, 2010 at the age of 83.

Portly, warm-voiced and soft-featured, Mr. Bosley personified paternal authority, especially on Happy Days as Howard "Mr. C." Cunningham. And it was those Happy Days reruns that his warm smile and the way he walked, with a kinda swagger that I found appealing and the way his suits clung to his body. Especially his pants, how they hugged his wide hips and bubble butt. My mind suddenly switched from the show to thoughts of anal penetration.

Lets see, had a daughter with his first wife. He was married until his death to his second wife. And what hot piece of ass she was. If Bosley was into 3-way swinging, I'm in. But wow… the filthy things I fantasied I would do to this man.

RECOMMENDATIONS: The Castaways on Gilligan's Island (1979) Happy Days (1974–1984) Murder, She Wrote (1984–1988) Father Dowling Mysteries (1989–1991)

[oldshowbiz]

"The Castaways on Gilligan's Island will return after station identification."

[ashleywool]

Possible fanfiction prompt:

A reboot of Gilligan's Island, but the seven castaways are the Spectrum Club 7 from How to Dance in Ohio.

Gilligan = Tommy (friendly, means well, tries hard, but kind of chaotic and likely to ruin things, usually seen in red)

Skipper = Drew (charismatic, good leader, but knows how to delegate when necessary, usually seen in blue, also I just like the idea of him clonking Tommy on the head a lot)

Professor = Marideth (more intellectual than emotional, has a vast knowledge of facts about pretty much everything, most likely to figure out how to do anything...except fix the boat)

Thurston Howell III = Remy (highly influential and well-connected, could be morally corrupt but chooses not to be, the most likely to pack an absurd amount of "necessary" possessions to keep with them on a three-hour tour)

Eunice Howell = Mel (stronger than they seem, wiser than you expect, protective maternal energy, also I just like the idea of Mel and Remy being married because probably what happened is Remy got rich and famous from influencer income and married Mel so that they could afford to leave Paws & Claws and have a better life with adequate healthcare and that's the wholesome queer aro/ace love story we deserve)

Ginger Grant = Jessica (is a star, knows she's a star, knows that you know she's a star, acts accordingly)

Mary Ann = Caroline (sweet, wholesome, has a toxic ex, bffs with Jessica, and people totally like her better than Jessica, but don't tell Jessica)

cc: @traderjoesfan2008 @indigogirl420 @wakanda-never

[kwebtv]

TV Guide -  October 5 - 11, 1963

Phil Silvers (born Phillip Silver; May 11, 1911 – November 1, 1985) Entertainer and comedy actor, known as “The King of Chutzpah.” He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S. Army post in which he played Master Sergeant Ernest (Ernie) Bilko.

In the 1963–1964 television season, he appeared as Harry Grafton, a factory foreman interested in get-rich-quick schemes, much like the previous Bilko character, in CBS’s 30-episode The New Phil Silvers Show, with co-stars Stafford Repp, Herbie Faye, Buddy Lester, Elena Verdugo as his sister, Audrey, and her children, played by Ronnie Dapo and Sandy Descher.

Silvers also guested on The Beverly Hillbillies, and various TV variety shows such as The Carol Burnett Show, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and The Dean Martin Show. Perhaps Silvers’ most memorable guest appearance was as curmudgeonly Hollywood producer Harold Hecuba in an episode (titled The Producer) on Gilligan’s Island (broadcast in 1966), where he and the castaways performed a musical version of Hamlet. (Wikipedia)

[misfitwashere]

Oligarchs' Island

A Sitcom Pitch in a Tragic Moment

Timothy Snyder

Nov 12, 2024

Oligarchy is an island.  Aristotle knew that oligarchs from various countries will have more in common with one another than they will with their own people.  This is all too true of Trump and the oligarchs he brings to power in America. 

The White House will become an island of international oligarchs.�� It will be an island in the sense of distance and obscurity: we will have a hard time seeing what the billionaires are doing there.  But it is also an island in the sense of isolation: the oligarchs will be stuck there with one another.

So how to think about the island?  Well, these are serious matters, and the ancient Greeks have had their say.  So let us add some contours to the island from a gentler source, American pop culture.  Let us consider Oligarchs' Island on the basis of Gilligan's Island. 

A proviso first.  What is about to happen in our world is horrible.  It is no exaggeration to say that the plans of oligarchs put millions of lives at risk right away.  Yet no matter how dark the evil, there is always a corner for ridicule's little lantern.  

It is evil that Putin believes that he should destroy Ukraine because it never existed, but it is also idiotic.  It is evil that Musk wants to escape Earth and leave the rest of us behind, but it is also silly.  It is evil that Trump and Musk repeat genocidal Russian propaganda, but it also humiliating. 

The premise of Gilligan's Island, an American sitcom of the 1960s, was that seven people, out on a pleasure cruise, were shipwrecked and stranded by a storm on an unknown island.  Although they had different backgrounds and personalities, they had to cooperate to survive.  Their dream was to return home. 

Naturally, on Oligarchs' Island the premise of Gilligan's Island would have to be adjusted.  The castaways on Gilligan's Island were all American, whereas the powerful oligarchs are South African or Russian.  Rather than try to find ways to return home, the oligarchs seek a Muscovian promised land of endless wealth, impunity, and immortality.  Our oligarchs are stuck with one another, as were the good people of Gilligan's Island, but they cannot be expected to cooperate.  Oligarchies are unstable; members disappear.

Seven people were stranded on Gilligan's Island: to cite the lyrics of the theme song, these were "Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire, and his wife, the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann." 

It is not hard to find their Doppelgänger on Oligarchs' Island.

Gilligan is obviously Elon Musk, the South African Putinist oligarch.  On one episode of Gilligan's Island, Russians encounter Gilligan.  Their reaction: "he acts too stupid to be stupid" fits Musk perfectly.  Gilligan is the central protagonist, the one who did the most to get the others to the Island, and the one with the most frantic dreams about the future.  Like Gilligan, Musk bumbles with language and relationships and everything else, but has an undeniable centrality to the plot and to life on the island.  He will antagonize everyone, but the cannot go on without him.  Gilligan, of course, was a sympathetic figure; allowances must be made in Oligarch's Island for the fact that Musk is the single person doing the most to bring our species to extinction.

Gilligan

The Skipper is David Sachs, the South African Putinist venture capitalist.  On Gilligan's Island, the Skipper stands for order.  If anything gets out of line, the Skipper is there to help.  Sachs is, of all of our characters the most devoted proponent of the Russian dream.  He repeats Russian propaganda with a relentless exactitude.  Indeed, he seems to take great care never to communicate any view about Russia or Ukraine which has not previously been published by Russian state media.  If anyone on Oligarchs’ Island diverges from the Putinist line, they can expect humorless discipline from Sachs. 

The millionaire, Thurston Howell, is Peter Thiel, the American investor with New Zealand citizenship, born in Germany and raised in South Africa.  On the show, Howell has taken millions of dollars in cash with him on what was supposed to be an afternoon cruise.  Thiel has a similar notion of 'taking it with him' -- he will be wealthy forever because he will be immortal.  Just as Thurston Howell was disturbed by Gilligan's frantic activity, Thiel can be displeased with Musk.  Whereas Howell was at worst selfish, Thiel has philosophical ideas about the necessity of conflict.  Howell refuses to work; Thiel activates others to do destructive one another. 

The millionaire's wife, Lovey Howell, is JD Vance.  Lovey is a subordinate character to Thurston on Gilligan's Island, just as Vance is Thiel's client.  Thiel brought Vance to capitalist wealth and financed his run for the Senate.  Both Lovey and JD had fancy east-coast educations, and both dissimulate about their pasts.  Although both are wealthy and powerful, each sees prospects for becoming more so.  Both Lovey and JD are vain about appearance and correspondingly bold in their cosmetic choices.

The redheaded movie star, Ginger Grant, is Donald Trump.  Aside from the similarity in hue, these two characters share character and career.  Both are vain entertainers.  And to keep the shows going, both have to be trotted up in front of the camera.  Both are sensitive to the appearance that they might not matter that much to the overall plot.  Like Ginger, Trump knows some rich people, and name drops, but is not rich himself. On Oligarchs’ Island, this is a major vulnerability.

Ginger

The Professor is Vladimir Putin, Russian dictator and in all likelihood the world's wealthiest man.  Whenever the people stranded on Gilligan's Island have a problem, they turn to the Professor for some invention that will rescue them.  Ginger in particular seeks his guidance.  The Professor has a dark secret: he is not as competent as the others think.  Were he so, he would have repaired the boat that brought the castaways to the island.  Putin also has secrets.  He knows that, even as he imposes his will on the others, he is subordinate to China.  He knows that the war he started in Ukraine is not only an atrocity but a disaster.  He knows that the Russia of its own propaganda does not exist, that the oligarchs' dream is a nightmare.  He also knows that today's oligarchs are tomorrow's victims.

Mary Ann, the humble farm girl from Kansas, is Usha Vance.  Mary Ann is the forgotten character on Gilligan's Island, the one who is perhaps more than she seems.  She knows how to remain in the background, but in fact has skills that the men around her lack.  While maintaining an unassuming and unthreatening appearance, she develops plans and cultivates allies. 

This genre, the 1960s sitcom plot modified to fit a 2020s war-criminal-billionaire-fascist oligarchy might just have some analytical and predictive value.  Consider for example what happened last week as the pilot episode of Oligarch's Island.  If you were thinking about the war in Ukraine in terms of US interests or any other rational consideration, you would have a hard time processing Trump's farcical engagement.  But if you imagine it as the pilot episode of Oligarchs' Island, everything makes sense:

Ginger (Trump) has just won an election, thanks to her own charisma and the efforts of Gilligan (Musk) and the Professor (Putin).  Ginger had promised to profile herself by making peace between Russia and Ukraine right after the election, "within twenty-four hours."  Behind her back, the oligarchs laugh at this.  They allow her to push forward as the nominal heroine the story.  Ginger (Trump) wants to talk to the Professor (Putin) to get instructions personally, but he ignores her.  Instead, his state television back in Russia airs a series of naked photographs of Ginger.  While Ginger (Trump) makes a phone call to the Ukrainian president, zany Gilligan (Musk) grabs the phone and steals the show.  Looking on, the Skipper (Sachs) writes stern tweets about staying on Russian message.

All of that just happened, just about.  I only had to alter one detail.  Since in the Oligarchs' Island story Trump/Ginger is female, I had to conflate him with his real-world wife Melania, nude pictures of whom were in fact aired prominently on Russian state television in an obvious bid to humiliate Trump. 

I suspect that in the weeks, months, and years to come, thinking of an Oligarchs' Island sitcom episode will accurately predict what these people will do.  Consider what is happening right now as episode 1 of season 1:

Ginger (Trump) has the idea that she should make her own decisions about the members of her cabinet (cue recorded laughter).  Some Americans not involved in Russian networks such as Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley share the belief (cue recorded laughter) that they might join Ginger's cabinet (more cued laughter here, obvious misunderstanding of the Putinist logic of Oligarchs' Island).  Those two Americans maintain that Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, and so are predictably rejected by the Russian-South African oligarchy.  The Skipper (Sachs) is on the case with a stern tweet: Ginger's appointments must be pro-Russian.  Ginger follows with her own submissive tweet, discarding Pompeo and Haley.  Ginger hopes to at least get her instructions directly from the Professor (Putin).  Ginger claims that she was able to call the Professor (cue laughter).  The Professor denies the call took place (cue more laughter).  Ginger says she asked the Professor not to escalate in Ukraine.  The next day Ukraine suffered one of the biggest drone attacks of the war.  Then the Russians blew up another dam in Ukraine.

Those things happened.  The ridiculous and the criminal.

And events will will continue to develop along these lines.  Here are some suggested plot lines for seasons 1-3 (that's as long as Gilligan's Island lasted, and this group is unlikely to last longer).  These are not things that have not happened yet, but things that are likely to happen, within the plot logic of Oligarchs' Island.

The oligarchs conspire to get Ginger behind a "peace deal" for Ukraine that the Professor immediately breaks, to Ginger's humiliation.  Ginger wants the Professor's approval, the more so as the humiliations accumulate.  Ginger needs money, which everyone but her has, and has to perform for others to get it.  Ginger is jealous that Gilligan is at the center of attention.  The interests of Ginger and the billionaires diverge: she wants to be in the forefront forever, whereas they think that Lovey is a more durable client.  Ginger, in her vanity, does not fully understand the threat.  The mechanics of the coup are however too complicated for the oligarchs.  A rivalry emerges among the Millionaire, Gilligan and the Skipper as to who actually owns Lovey.  Mary Ann saves the day by coming through with an elegant plan for elevating Lovey, thus closing season three as a central figure.  Ginger vanishes.  Ironic closure, in possible spinoff episode: Ginger is actually sent to Rostov in the actual Russia.  Though miserable, Ginger does get her own show.

Matters can be absurd and terrifying at the same time. It is very possible that imagining Trump as Ginger among other Oligarchs' Island characters will have more predictive value than the familiar vocabulary.  We will be tempted to write about a Trump "administration" and will tend to normalize what is happening by treating it within familiar categories of elections and law and public opinion and so forth.  That can be helpful in thinking of the kind of system we want, but not so much in understanding the clique we have brought on ourselves and that will now try to rule, to both comic and tragic effect.  The familiar concepts cannot accommodate the central realities of where we are: of Musk talking to Trump about appointments on the patio, or Putin showing Trump's wife naked on tv.  On Oligarch's Island, this is just everyday life.

On Oligarchs' Island much of politics will be factional, like in the old Soviet politburo, with momentary alliances forming and breaking, and individuals purged.  If US foreign policy is to be anything other than a result of oligarchical preferences, this will have to be a result of the emergence of an "American faction" on Oligarchs' Island (not visible yet: one can imagine, hopefully, that Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz would represent American interests on Oligarchs’ Island, should they be allowed to visit). Trump would have to realize and want to change his current subordinate position, and bring someone else along with him.  Trump could easily overpower Putin on Ukraine, but to do so he would have to break the current logic and pecking order of the oligarchy, and think for himself rather than repeating the Russian-South African line. 

In other words, Ginger would have to break the spell of the Professor and assert herself against Gilligan and the Skipper.  Too much of a stretch for Ginger's character?  Quite likely.

Oligarchies are unstable.  They have flaws and weaknesses and can crumble quickly.  They have given way to democracies.  But we have to see them for what they are.  We need to see the oligarchs not only as selfish and unpatriotic but as ridiculous.  But the same things that make them ridiculous -- the utter self-absorption, the nattering cliques, the pointless struggle for unreal things -- make them lethal to the rest of us.  They have entertained their way to power, and it is a new kind of power: an international oligarchy inside the American capital.  If they can entertain their way to power, perhaps we can at least entertain ourselves toward clarity.  Comedy might help us to see the tragedy.  And we should think in other genres, too -- next time I will try a little mathematics.

if we want to anticipate what will happen in 2025, if will be more useful to think of oligarchs on an island, starting in apparent unity, dreaming an impossible Russian dream, wreaking bloody havoc, and then coming apart.

[citizenscreen]

RESCUE FROM GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, TV movie directed by Leslie H. Martinson and starring our favorite castaways, aired on October 14, 1978, more than 14 years after they embarked on a three-hour tour.

[hitchell-mope]

Well this is going swimmingly isn’t it?

[greensparty]

This Month In History - September

What a month for landmark anniversaries! Here's some I'm raising a glass to:

Sept. 12, 1989: Pump released

In Sept. 1989 Aerosmith' 10th album was released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2014. Happy 35th Pump!

Sept. 12, 2014: The Skeleton Twins opens

In Sept. 2014, one of the best dysfunctional comedies of the 2010s opened. I was lucky enough to see it early on when it screened at the 2014 Independent Film Festival Boston, where my doc Life on the V: The Story of V66 was premiering. I was very proud to be in the same company as this film. It balanced sadness and humor delicately and both stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig swung it out of the park! Happy 10 TST!

Sept. 14, 2004: Funeral released

In Sept. 2004, the debut album from Arcade Fire was released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 20th Funeral!

Sept. 16, 1984: Miami Vice premieres

In Sept. 1984, possibly the greatest cop show of the 80s premiered on NBC. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 40th Miami Vice!

Sept. 19, 1984: Amadeus opens

In Sept. 1984, Milos Forman's biopic masterpiece was released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 40th Amadeus!

Sept. 21, 2004: American Idiot released

In Sept. 2004, Green Day's best concept album was releasd. Here is my piece I wrote in 2014. Happy 20th AI!

Sept. 24, 2004: Shaun of the Dead opens

In Sept. 2004, the zombie comedy to end all zombie comedies was released. Director Edgar Wright's genius has always been in not trying to make a straight up spoof of genres he loves, but actually making a great movie in that genre that's also funny. As a zombie apocalypse takes over London, a slacker tries to survive it with his friends and girlfriend. It is a movie people still talk about and quote today. Got my copy on DVD! Happy 20th SOTD!

Sept. 25, 1984: Three's a Crowd premieres

In Sept. 1984, the spin-off that followed Three's Company premiered. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 40th TAC!

Sept. 25, 2009: Paranormal Activity opens

In Sept. 2009, one of the best found footage horror movies was released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2014. Happy 15 PA!

Sept. 26, 1964: Gilligan's Island premieres

In Sept. 1964, one of the great 60s sitcoms premiered on CBS. A group of differing castaways all find themselves trapped on a desert island together. I used to love it as a kid, watching syndicated reruns. They never got off the island, but that was part of the fun. Happy 60th GI!

Sept. 26, 1969: Abbey Road released and The Brady Bunch premieres

On the same exact day in Sept. 1969, two historical pop culture moments occurred!

First up, The Beatles' 11th studio album was released. There's always been a argument among Beatles fans about the final Beatles album: Abbey Road, the last one recorded, vs. Let It Be, the last one released. It is one of my personal favorites and I grew up with the vinyl. Here is my album review of the 2019 Super Deluxe Edition. Happy 55 Abbey Road!

Next up, the family sitcom The Brady Bunch premiered on ABC-TV. The story of a blended family with six kids became the standard for TV families. The series was on from 1969-1974, but I got into it in syndicated reruns (much like Gilligan's Island). No matter what age you were you could relate to at least one of the Brady kids, i.e. Bobby when I was younger, then Peter, and later on Greg. When I was in college, actor Barry Williams spoke and signed copies of his book there too. Happy 55th Brady Bunch!

Sept. 26, 1984: It's Your Move premieres

In Sept. 1984, one of the best short-lived sitcoms of the 80s premiered. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 40th IYM!

Sept. 27, 1994: Monster released

In Sept. 1994, R.E.M.'s 9th album as released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 30th Monster!

Sept. 30, 1994: Ed Wood opens

In Sept. 1994, one of the best Hollywood biopics was released. Here is my piece I wrote in 2019. Happy 30th EW!