Non Fluffy Wicca

Today we lost an American Icon, albeit one we might want to throw things at when he was on tv. Gilligan, the Skipper's "Little Buddy," perpetual inhabitant of Gilligan's Island, passed away today.

All of us over the age of 30 or so have memories of Gilligan's Island, whether it be re-runs or even those first run programs. One of my personal favorite memories was when I worked for WMUR-TV, Channel 9 in Manchester, NH - the seemingly "All Gilligan, All The Time" station (when we weren't doing the comedy News 1/2 hours :-)). As Gilligan was walking across the island, and I was passing through the control room on the way back upstairs to the newsroom located in the attic, our chief engineer, Maurice Wynn, was under the audio control board, yanking wires out like nobody's business. Unfortunately, one of the wires he pulled was the one that made the booth microphone "live." For those who have never heard of a "booth microphone," the booth was where you put the actual human called the announcer, who said things like "this is Channel 9, WMUR-TV, Manchester" when you didn't have enough technical capability to use recorded station identifications or tag lines to commercials. Anyway, the booth mike was live, as Dave Meuss said all too clearly, "What the FUCK is he DOING?"

The phones lit up (all three lines) with people whose small children had heard the evil words during such a wholesome and cherished bastion of clean television as Gilligan's Island. To make it worse, our hero himself, happened to be on screen at the time. And thus, the Gilligan's Island audience in Manchester, NH in approximately 1980 lost its innocence.

Gilligan, Goddess-speed on your next journey. Just make sure it's not a three hour tour.