Gilligan's Island Episode: The Little Dictator

This episode was first broadcast in September 1965.

"Gilligan's Island" was a comedy originally aired on the CBS television network in the mid 1960s. The show's first season, 1964-65, was broadcast in black and white, but the show began airing in color with the 1965-66 season. The basic idea of the series was that seven people had been shipwrecked during a severe storm after the tour boat they were on sailed from Hawaii. The boat was beached on a small uncharted island where these seven representatives from various parts of American society had to learn to get along in order to survive. Some viewers took the show far too seriously, as many particulars of the episodes certainly didn't make sense,* but those of us who loved the show didn't care, and "Gilligan's Island" was and still is one of my all time favorite shows. The show was canceled after the 1966-67 season, but these episodes from the 1960s were aired for decades in syndication in the United States and around the world. In addition, three full-length movies were made in the late 1970s and early 1980s featuring all of the original cast, except Tina Louise, who remained embittered about how the show had damaged her career, as movie and television execs felt she was too tied to her "Ginger" character from the show, and this restricted the roles offered to her. Some of the other cast members were embittered too, until they came to realize how beloved they and the show were to so many people around the globe.

Cast:

Bob Denver ................. Gilligan
Alan Hale, Jr. .............. (the) Skipper
Jim Backus ................. Thurston Howell III
Natalie Schafer ........... Mrs. Howell, aka "Lovey"
Tina Louise ................ Ginger Grant
Russell Johnson ......... the Professor
Dawn Wells ............... Mary Ann
Nehemiah Persoff ...... Presidente Rodriguez 
 
This episode was done as a parody of Central and South American countries of that time period in the 1960s, as so many of those countries often were politically unstable back then. This episode uses a fictional country called "Equarico" to make that point. The guest star was Nehemiah Persoff, a favorite of mine, and a man now 100 years old! 

A deposed dictator from the fictitious Latin American country of "Equarico" is exiled to the island, complete with his pistol. He meets Gilligan and introduces himself as Ex Presidente Rodriguez, but Gilligan doesn't believe him and sarcastically introduces himself as George Washington, which brings Rodriguez to mistakenly reply, "They exiled you too?" From this point on, Rodriguez calls Gilligan "George." In the world of Equarico, Rodriguez has learned that "he who has gun is the leader." Rodriguez implements this doctrine and he sees the castaways as his new subjects, and he declares himself as "the provisional presidente, until such time as it is safe to hold free and democratic elections." When the castaways ask, "When will that be?" Rodriguez responds, "You should live so long." The castaways make a couple of attempts to overthrow Rodriguez, but they fail, which brings Rodriguez to prepare to execute Gilligan, but when he pulls the trigger of the pistol, the gun is out of bullets. The castaways now take the dictator into custody. Rodriguez assumes he will be executed or exiled, because that's what happens in Equarico. Instead, the castaways simply want Rodriguez to become one of them and to be a good citizen of their island community, where he can become "anything he wants." Of course, what Rodriguez wants is to be the leader, and he plans to use Gilligan ("George") as the means to achieve that wish by trying to convince Gilligan to become the "leader" of the island, with Rodriguez always being there to "help" him. (Democracy is always vulnerable to want to be dictators, if people don't keep vigilant.) He tells Gilligan to sleep on the proposal and Gilligan has a dream about being the "leader," but in his dream, he realizes that much is wrong in his realm, and that Rodriguez won't let the truth about his nation's problems come to his attention. Rodriguez is self aggrandizing, interested in his own well being, not interested in the country and its people. Gilligan's loyal and truthful cabinet members (all portrayed by the castaways) are executed by Rodriguez, who fears the truths about the country they are trying to show to Gilligan. Rodriguez finally tells Gilligan that he has no real power, rather he is a puppet ruler, with Rodriguez pulling the strings. Gilligan awakens from the dream and races outside to tell Rodriguez he will not be his puppet, but he finds Rodriguez getting into a boat sent by Equarico to take him back to that nation so he can be restored to power, as there has been another revolution. He promises he will send a ship to rescue the people on the island. The castaways begin to learn a few basic words in Spanish for their trip, but on the radio comes the announcement that Rodriguez has again been overthrown and exiled to the top of the Andes Mountains. So much for any rescue. 

* No question about it, the castaways had access to things that magically appeared, and to items that certainly would not have been carted along on a tour boat, including Mr. and Mrs. Howell's extensive wardrobes. I suppose if you totaled up everything the seven people had available to them, the tour boat, the SS Minnow, might have been closer to the size of the Queen Mary. In one episode, Gilligan thinks he's won a million dollar sweepstakes, bringing Mr. Howell to grant Gilligan a membership in Howell's exclusive club, complete with a special blazer adorned with the club seal. Where did Mr. Howell get the special blazer for Gilligan? I don't care. Remember, this was a comedy. In another episode, the castaways salvage movie equipment and costumes from a sunken ship; the key here being "sunken ship." The thing is, the equipment and costumes are all in perfect condition and totally dry, in spite of the fact that the ship had sunk decades earlier, and again, it was a sunken ship, as in, how did everything remain dry? Again, I don't care, and it was a funny episode.

Photo is from the Turner Home Entertainment/Warner Brothers' Complete Second Season DVD Set 

WORD HISTORY:
Puppet (Pupa)-This word is distantly related, through Indo European, to "few," a word from the Germanic roots of English, but it is more closely related to "pupil," meaning, "student and also the middle of the eye," both (meanings) of Latin derivation and borrowed by English from French. It goes back to Indo European "pau," meaning, "small in size or amount." This gave Latin "pupus," meaning "boy, a male child," and "pupa," meaning "girl, female child" (see "pupa" below), but with the feminine form also meaning "doll;" thus also, "puppet." This gave Latin-based Old French "po(u)pee," meaning "doll, puppet," which provided the basis of the French diminutive "po(u)pette;" thus, "little doll, puppet." English borrowed the word as "poppet" (initially as "popet"?) meaning "small doll, small person." This then became "puppet" by the 1500s and with the meaning of "a small doll made to move by attached strings, wires or sticks" (later also including "hand manipulated dolls in glove form"). About that same time came the generally negative figurative meaning of, "a person manipulated by another to act in a certain way." The word "pupa," meaning "an intermediate stage of development of an insect," is a direct borrowing, circa 1775, from the above mentioned Latin form, which had that meaning attached by Swedish botanist/zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the mid 1700s.