The Real Gilligan's Island

SPOILER ALERT: I will reveal the ending of the reality show 'The Real Gilligan's Island' in this article.
SPOILER ALERT #2: I will also reveal the real name of the actor who played Potsie on Happy Days.

When I first heard of 'The Real Gilligan's Island' I was a bit skeptical. I was a big fan of the original show. The original show is the REAL Gilligan's Island.

I have never seen Survivor (the TV show, not the 80's rock band -although I never saw them either) and I feel I am a better person for it.

I remember everyone gathering around the TV to see the end of it, babbling incoherently about how each of these people on the show were going to be rich and famous movie stars now because of their participation in this show. I could care less.

But, I became hooked on The Real Gilligan's Island.

The setup was similar to the real show, 7 stranded castaways on an island. For this show, however, they had two teams of castaways. They would be eliminated in a series of competitions, and then keep competing until there is only one castaway left.

The winner gets $250,000, a Ford Mustang and gets rescued. The losers stay on the island and die. Seriously, that is how they explained the rules. The top prize is to get rescued; the losers are stuck on the island.

Yeah, even stupid people had their intelligence insulted by this show.

Skipper with a mustache vs. Skipper with a Santa beard: Actually there was no winner here. Believe it or not, mustachioed Skipper had a heart attack early in the game and left the island.

Gay Professor vs. Old Professor: Gay Professor came off as an annoying jerk. Old Professor beat him in the first contest and Gay Professor was gone.

Girl Next Door Mary Ann vs. Girl Who Actually Looks Like The Girl Next Door Mary Ann: I hate when people say 'girl next door' where do they live? My neighbor is a fat guy from Albania. Both Mary Anns were cute, the sexier one won in a coconut collecting contest.

Eccentric Millionaires vs. Arrogant Millionaires: Eccentric is a very nice way to put it. The woman was insane! Every shot that they chose to use in the show showed her complaining and bad mouthing EVERYONE. She also was responsible for the most gay-bashing on TV since Roddy Piper went on Adrian Adonis' Flower Shop.
Her and her husband lost to the other set during a reality show 'eat a bunch of gross animal parts competition.'

Rachael Hunter vs. Nicole Eggert: Rod Stewart's ex-wife and one of the stars of 'Charles In Charge' were tapped to represent the Movie Star on the show. Sadly, Nicole lost their head to head competition.


Nerd Gilligan vs. Ben Affleck In Good Will Hunting Gilligan: I swear, he reminded me so much of Ben Affleck in that movie. Of course, I spent most of that movie pointing at Robin Williams and saying things like "naa noo, Mork calling Orson" and "Flubber! Come back here Flubber!"
The Nerd Gilligan, Gilligan Gooner was the HIGHLIGHT of the show for me. I thought he was a riot. I almost stopped watching when he lost his competition.

When show came down to the remaining seven castaways it really started to go down hill. First, they stopped doing elimination competitions and started voting each other off.

This was ESPECIALLY stupid since the Millionaires got TWO votes. I think it would have made more sense if they had shared a vote (or shared a condo with Anson Williams who played Potsie on Happy Days.)

To top it off, they convinced Gilligan and Mary Ann (who were making out with each other at this point) to vote lock step with them.

Gilligan and Mary Ann started getting goofy for each other in the first moments of the first episode. In episode 4, Mary Ann won a challenge that gave her a pepperoni pizza for two with the castaway of her choice. She chose Gilligan. As they ate pizza they promised not to vote each other off.

As a side note, if I had one the pizza I would have chosen Skipper to eat it with me. Seriously, how many people can say they ate pepperoni pizza with a guy dressed as the Skipper wearing a Santa beard?

So the 'alliance' between Mary Ann, Gilligan and the Millionaires voted off the Professor.

At this point Gilligan realizes that now the chance of voting off the Millionaires is almost IMPOSSIBLE and he breaks the alliance. It doesn't matter, with three votes they were still able to vote off Rachael Hunter, the Skipper and finally Gilligan.

This left three castaways The Millionaires (who promised Mary Ann that they would draw straws to see who would be the winner, but then said on camera that they would just vote her off when it came down to the end) and Mary Ann (who is cute, but dumb as a box of Frisbees.)

Luckily, they didn't have to vote at this point, instead they had to build an SOS sign and light a flare.

Mr. Millionaire won the race and the show ended. It was pretty disappointing, and predictable. Unlike Gilligan's Island the show provided few laughs and whereas Gilligan's Island showed people working together to help each other, this just showed a sleazy guy with a lot of money in the bank making a fool out of Mary Ann.

I would have rather watched 'The Real We Got It Made.