The general consensus is that poor old Gilligan was the one who messed up all the rescues. If I had a dime for every time I saw the ludicrous comment, "why didn't they just kill Gilligan?" I'd be as rich as Thurston Howell III.

But let's consider the Professor. I love the man dearly, as I love Gilligan, but he could sometimes be just as much a klutz.

In Physical Fatness, The Professor puts down a bowl of phosphorus dye on the table right next to identical bowls which contained the food they were making Gilligan eat so that he could gain weight for re-entry into the Navy. What a dumb thing to do.

The Professor was using a measuring stick for the lagoon, which he neglected to tell anyone about, in Quick Before It Sinks. Gilligan, doing his usual job of setting the lobster traps, saw this stick and used it. All the Prof needed to do was label it, "Do not touch, experiment in progress", and Gilligan would have left it alone.

Gilligan may have set the SOS logs on fire in Splashdown, but the Professor was the one who kicked the S out of shape so that it turned into an L.

These are three times I can think of from memory. I am sure there are more.

Anyone?

In Operation Steam Heat Professor also leaves liquids he's experimenting with out and unlabeled and Skipper thinks Gilligan drinks nitro-glycerine.

In Diamonds are an Ape's Best Friend ol' Roy tells Gilligan to spring a net trap when he snaps his fingers. The gorilla never falls for it, but Prof snaps his fingers over an idea he just got and Gilligan releases the trap on Skipper no doubt earning him a whack on the head at some later point.

Good topic. Professor is absent-minded at times, but he's so much more intellectually smarter than the others we forget or overlook it.

Poor Gilligan...

I know! Poor Gilligan. The Skipper overreacted at times, whacking the boy when it wasn't needed. And because the viewers see a supposed man of authority doing it, then looking to camera as if to say, "see what I have to put up with?" it reinforces our belief that Gilligan is a dumb screw-up. When in actual fact, Gilligan has the biggest heart and the best intentions and always tries to do the right thing. There is not a malicious bone in Gilligan's body.

Whose idea was it to brew alcoholic tea in 'Man With a Net'? Was that the Professor too? They got so plastered that Lord Beasley had to leave without them!

LOL...I believe it was the good doctor Hinkley who had the alcoholic tea idea. Not to mention he merely told Duke Williams they coordinates for the island. Why not write them down, put them in plastic and shove them in his pocket just in case something like...oh, I don't know...amnesia...were to happen. Yes sometimes he coulda been brighter, but I guess we got more episodes to enjoy that way!

Ah yes, the good doctor Hinkley, aka The Nutty Professor :lol: Same with the robot, they should have written a big long letter and sealed it up inside.

Professor convinces all the other castaways that Gilligan is going crazy in Gilligan vs Gilligan, when it would have been easier to investigate what Gilligan was saying about his double running around. Because the spy had a boat down at the lagoon all that time!

Pretty good thread, I've noticed too that it wasn't always Gilligan's fault.

Exactly. Did Mr. Howell ever come up with a plan? It's easy to not do something and then sit back and laugh at the person who does. Or to say that you would have done it better (and then never do it.)

If they thought Gilligan was such a loser then why did they always make him do the critical things? Professor should have gone up in the jet pack, I'm sure HE wouldn't have hidden in the clouds if he was being fired at by the Navy!

I love all the castaways and GI wouldn't be GI if they all did things the right way. But I do feel bad for Gilligan being the scapegoat all the time :)