Okay, as most of you who haven’t been living in a cave this week probably already know, Gilligan is dead.  Now, were I to just stop here, this would be a depressingly un-Benlike blog, so clearly I’m still just setting the stage.  Of course a thousand other blogs, European heads of state, and various and sundry poobahs (The Various and Sundry Poobahs, by the way, would make an excellent name for a band) have probably already gone public with all manner of eulogizing of a far better nature than anything that I could possibly write in memoriam of Bob Denver, who, to the best of my knowledge, is related to neither John Denver nor Denver the Last Dinosaur (he’s my friend and a whole lot more!™).  Anyways, lest there be any doubts as to whether I mean this honestly or facetiously, just let me state in the most unequivocal of terms that I am, and have been since at least as far back as the Reagan Administration, a total Gilligan fan.  Seriously, he’s like the older quasi-retarded brother I never had, or if I did, he was abducted by dinosquirrels before I was born and my parents never told me.  I learnt so much about life from Gilligan, like how to get a bowling ball stuck on your hand and turn invisible, or what to do if a monkey is throwing exploding dinner plates at you, or that if you find a lion and/or a mine down by the lagoon, you should definitely tell the Skipper right away.  But what has often been overlooked these past few days by all those extolling the virtues of Gilligan is the very important fact that he was, in addition to being a source of inspiration for untold billions of sentient beings on this and countless other worlds, but also that he was a critical part of our victory over the Red Menace (no, not helltoads, though they’re bad too), The Soviet Union.  Gilligan, you see, was no merely an entertainer, but also a patriot, a positive bulwark of awesomeness against the commie peril or the 1960s.  Finally it can be told, the wonderful, terrible truth behind Gilligan’s Island.

            Though we didn’t know it at the time, most people in Russia back in the day, were less than completely enthused about Communism.  Sure it came with some bitchin’ hats, and national leaders who weren’t afraid to beat a shoe on the table at the U.N., but there were also more than a few drawbacks, such as insanely long toilet paper lines, getting killed by the KGB, and the fact that by the age of fifty, all Russian women who weren’t actively being seduced by James Bond looked like hideous potato trolls in nappy scarves.  So yeah, there was some resentment there.  When Gilligan’s Island came on though, the simmering cup of civil unrest noodles at last boiled over onto the hotplate of Soviet domestic stability.  How, you may ask?  Simple, when people in Russia saw Gilligan’s Island, they were filled with awe at the way that Americans, even Americans stuck on an island, were so much better off than they themselves were.  “Look, Gilligan screwed up again and the Skipper’s not having him executed!” they would exclaim.  Or, “Hey, how come they have a helicopter made out of bamboo?  If Russia’s such a worker’s paradise, where’s my bamboo helicopter?”  The Soviet leaders knew that if something wasn’t done soon, the Soviet Union was going to unravel like a cheap dog sweater on the cute little cocker spaniel of freedom.  Therefore, Nikita Khruschev, already angry because he had a girly first name, decreed that Russia would create it’s own sitcom about a bunch of people on an island on a tropical island in the middle of the North Sea, thereby showing that there was no American idea so awesome that the Soviets wouldn’t try to copy it like a bunch of unoriginal losers.

            The Skipper was to be played by Yuri Gagarin, who, after the failure of the Russian version of “I Dream of Jeannie” needed a new gig anyway.  Gilligan was to be played by Josef Stalin, who would get into wacky situations every week before ordering the deaths of all those who dared to laugh at him, after which he would go back and Photoshop them out of every picture ever taken of them.  The Professor was played by Dmitri Mendeleyev, who would always be building radios out of walruses and explaining how impossible stuff had just happened by using hokey made-up Russian science.  Mary Ann was played by Rasputin, who looked improbably fetching in pigtails, but never really got into the part since he was still stewing about how the Americans had co-opted the demon he tried to summon for Hitler.  Ginger was played by a very young Gorbachev, who just grew his Great Red Spot out for the part and combed it back, thereby looking incredibly bizarre and thoroughly unsexy.  Mr. and Mrs. Howell were played by nobody since they were both evil bourgeoisie capitalist oppressors and no self-respecting Russian desert Island would put up with that sort of thing.

            Needless to say, the show was a complete failure, despite the fact that it featured a wide array of Russian film stars including Peter the Great, Don Knotts, Ivan the Terrible, and Karl Marx in an orangutan costume.  The peace-loving workers and farmers of the U.S.S.R. continued to prefer the American version of the show, and a mere thirty years later, the Evil Empire collapsed and the leaders of the free world threw a Muppet Dance Party the likes of which had never been seen before.

            So when your thoughts turn once more to Gilligan (as those of all good people often do) don’t just remember him as a comedian, ninja, and one-time Harlem Globetrotter, but also as a hero who probably ought to be put on the next dollar coin the U.S. Mint is foolish enough to think anybody would actually use.