A Treatise on the Merits of the Theology of Gilligan
 

A couple of nights ago, as I was gleefully assembling a new Semroc baffle for my just-getting-started Defender clone, LCO/RC Sandy was surfing on the television. This particular episode caught my attention because, as luck would have it, the United States had designated this particular deserted island as a missile testing ground. The castaways heard the news on their radio. Fun stuff.

Anyway, by the time I looked up, they were showing stock footage of the rocket taking off. I'm embarrassed to say I could not identify which rocket it was. Tall, slender, almost like a Gemini or something. Shortly after the launch, the islanders were listening to a broadcast of the test, and the scene shifted to the rocket descending. Now it was clearly stock footage of a V-2. Finally, it lands in the lagoon and proceeds to ride up the beach toward the castaways and is now a completely TV crew-made prop, with little effort put into the task, apparently.

I got a big kick out of the interchangeable-in-mid-flight technology of the day. Quality television.

The thing is, Sherwood Schwartz was the producer - the creator - of the show, and also created "The Brady Bunch" as well. While today we often see them as minimal in quality, they turned out to be huge money makers for Sherwood. They had just enough quality to appeal to the networks, and enough charm to make millions in syndication for over 40 years! Much of that profit went into Sherwood's pockets (and not the actors' pockets).

So, while I agree those shows should never win _awards_, no doubt Ol' Sherwood had an extraordinarily keen eye for _rewards_! And I must give him major kudos for that.

That is, he produced a product for the target market. He wasn't trying to sell ballet to beer drinking factory workers. So he understand his TV target well (even if the target wasn't very sophisticated).
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That said, I now must be on the lookout for that episode so that I too may witness the morphing rocket ;)
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Anyone recall the episode where the wayward astronauts landed in the lagoon? As I recall, that was a very Gemini-esque capsule, no? (Or am I munging it with something else?)

Doug

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Actually they were Russian Cosmonauts and they're in a cheap Mercury capsule mock up.

I've seen morphing rockets on several low-budget TV shows and movies. Tom Baker era "Doctor Who" comes to mind.

One "serious" mid-50s flick actually sort of tried. The flights of the suborbital rockets began with stock V-2 footage. The models they cut over too looked like V-2s, but without the paint jobs they sported a few seconds before, and just a tiny bit "stretched."

There were several episods involving space capsules and astronauts, one of them was U.S. astronauts passing over head while the castaways light up a signal fire S.O.S., Gilligan trips over the log and spells S.O.L. the astronauts initials.

I believe the 'liftoff' shot is of a Thor, though, as I recall from the episode, they don't show the full liftoff because the castaways are listening to the liftoff via radio broadcast and the scene largely focuses on the castaways reaction to "a perfect launch!", as the announcer says.

And yes the landing footage was indeed a V2 launch, but played in reverse and upside down!

The episode with the two Russian cosmonauts who landed on the island by mistake AND the episode of the 'Gemini-era' American mission passing over head (and attempting to dock with another unmanned Gemini type capsule) both use the same prop-made capsule, which is fairly Gemini looking but about twice the size. In the latter episode, it is the unmanned capsule that lands in the lagoon and is later, by mission control, blown up in the lagoon (of course, JUST after some of the castaways have gotten out of it).

Zany show, but Schwartz was never intending it to be high-brow reality..... It is however more carefully crafted and written than may appear on the surface. There is a reason why it had such broad and long-lasting appeal. And that was no accident of execution.

Earl

It was way too big for a Mercury mock up though it had a sort of similar overall shape. I think it was later redressed into the Scorpio for It's About Time.

As I recall, SOL means 's**t outa luck'............

....or perhaps it was a plug for a Mexican beer. :rolleyes:

I always thought the Gemini looked like an upscaled Mercury. And I attributed that to the fact that McDonnell designed both of them.

Doug

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