Gilligan's Island/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Ginger was advertised as the celebrity sex symbol, and Mary-Anne was the plain Kansas farm girl. Guess which one the fans actually thought was hot?
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory - The popular theory that the seven castaways represent the seven deadly sins, and that the island is a purgatory for them to work off their bad karma, or a hell constructed specifically to torture them.
  • Ear Worm - the theme song. As Achewood pointed out, Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" fits the theme song... as do "Amazing Grace", "Auld Lang Syne", and the first verse of the first English Pokémon theme.
    • The aforementioned works are all written in Ballad Meter if your wondering.
  • Fetish Fuel: Ginger's numerous seduction scenes.
    • The episode "Ring Around Gilligan," in which the entire crew (especially Ginger and Mary Ann) are given rings that make them act like robots, complete with blank stares, stiff movements, and obedience. Even Lampshaded when the Mad Scientist tried (and failed) to take advantage of the Power Perversion Potential! This episode is legendary among Mind Control fetishists.
  • Ham and Cheese - The whole cast to some degree, but Jim Backus as Mr. Howell in particular (and the character was immeasurably the better for it).
  • Ho Yay - In one episode both Gilligan and the skipper both think the other has been turned into a monkey. It Makes Sense in Context. What is the first thing they do when they see the monkey dressed up in the other's clothes? Strip it naked, of course.
    • Apart from that, consider the Skipper's way of addressing Gilligan as "Little Buddy."
  • Hollywood Homely: Mary Ann. Even Lampshaded on The Simpsons when the network executive wanted someone "ugly" like Mary Ann, not "ugly ugly" like Moe. (Even though none of the other Gilligan characters ever referred to Mary Ann as homely; more the shy, Girl Next Door type.)
  • Large Ham - In one of the hammiest shows in television history, it really says something that Jim Backus as Thurston Howell III wins "Largest Ham" in a walk.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Why someone thought this would make a good video game is one of history's great unsolved mysteries, but a NES game was made. It's generally considered one of that console's worst titles.
  • Unfortunate Implications - the full-on Yellow Peril Japanese submarine sailor, complete with buck teeth, coke-bottle glasses, and funny accent.