NOW FEATURING...VOODOO

[lm]

"A grown man afraid of a piece of pottery!" That's a great joke!

I've brought this up before. The scene in which the "pin" belonging to Maryann becomes an issue is a bit strange. When non-GI fans have seen it they agreed and said, in effect, "Yeah, really..." The poor Professor is zombified and Maryann has withheld the pin she has when everyone was supposed to return the objects to the cave in order to break the curse. Sure, Maryann is a girl and likes nice things but she is not selfishly materialistic to that degree, to put a piece of jewelry before someone's welfare. Also, once she is told that she must return the pin in order to help the Professor, instead of an "Oh, thank God!" attitude, she is pouty. Gilligan also seems to have a problem with it, even before he hears that he will be the one going back to the cave. What gives?

It's great when Gilligan says, "Surely I don't, but I do." I love that.

It always made me a little nervous when the girls got stuck together by their necklaces--that would be kind of scary.

I also love the joke about Howell wanting to hire the zombies to dig in the cave.

Also great are the Howells' reactions when they hear the Professor's been turned into a zombie, confusing it with the drink.

A funny episode!

[JWood201]

Yeah, that scene about the pin was always pretty awkward and out of character, I agree.

Here's my justification: Gilligan does make a point to say that he gave it to her, which would explain why he was kind of pouty too. Maybe he gave it to her in some really adorable meaningful Gilligan way and she didn't really want to give it back. If a cute boy gave me something, I'd be hesitant to part with it. Although maybe I wouldn't wear it around as overtly as she does, though, haha.

The whole situation was pretty ridiculous, too, so maybe she didn't really believe that keeping it would cause any harm. She was always so practical - I mean, I'd be wary of a plot involving voodoo and cursed artifacts, too. Shrug.

Real reason: The writers needed some sort of obstacle for why the Professor hadn't returned to normal yet and just randomly picked her to keep an artifact. I don't think they thought about these things as much as we do, haha.

[callensensei]

Originally Posted by JWood201

The whole situation was pretty ridiculous, too, so maybe she didn't really believe that keeping it would cause any harm. She was always so practical - I mean, I'd be wary of a plot involving voodoo and cursed artifacts, too. Shrug.

.

I'd agree. Mary Ann didn't seem to think a pin would have that much significance. However, compare her attitude here to the way she rather pushily demands Gilligan's steel four-leaf-clover to be melted down for the raft anchor. A little necklace like that wouldn't have made any difference to the anchor, and Gilligan obviously felt very sentimental about it. That act was even more out of character for Mary Ann. As you say, JWood201, the writers don't think about these things as much as we do!

I do love this episode, though, for the brilliant Eddie Little Sky. He could be funny and menacing at the same time, and all without uttering a single word of English. I adore his manic glee as he's wafting the fire under the dolls' toes and his balletic leap out of the jungle as Gilligan pins him! No one could have played this part like he did.

I also find Gerald Fried's music especially adds to the eerie atmosphere of this episode. The witchdoctor's theme, played on an oboe with the softly beating bongos in the background, gradually gets faster and faster as the menace increases, until it's a frantic, driving chase as the castaways stampede to the lagoon. I'd put this episode right up there with "Gilligan vs Gilligan" and its riff on the Russian folksong "Korobushka" as the best individual episode score.

[JWood201]

True. She was super witchy to him about his four leaf clover necklace. What a ridiculous OOC moment. The writers really didn't think about these things. It's more something the Skipper would demand, but the writers said, "Ok, we need someone to demand his necklace. Let's pick .... her!" No thought. Ugh.

[Steve Carras]

Second Voodoo title, along with "Voodoo Something to Me".

Very "eerie" episode..excellent music beds during the Zombie scene, rather like Martin Denny and his sideman-turned-Hawaiian-Tatihitan bandleader-in-his-own-right Art Lyman, as well as Les Baxter [much of it thru the series credited to Gerald Fried; ASCAP.com lists a number of composers including big names Billy May, Jerry Goldsmith , and Nelson Riddle and some others'possibly such unsungs Les Baxter, Eddy Lund, Marty Wilson, and Roger Roger as well]. The sight of Skipper taking the prof.'s Swiss army pocket knife, NOT to be confused with that one Gilligan double's, and swirling it around the Professor to be him back again, is memorable.

Classic Gilligan music mysteriso mentioned has drip, drop, drip, drop, used in episodes like "The Secret of Gilligan's Island" ["All Aboiut Eva" opened with a simliar mysterious scene cue, also in the last mentioned, the dinosuar nightmare one.].

The "zombie" Howells drink/voodoo wordplay misunderstanding joke [and the debate between Gilligan and the Skipper how to mention undoing the zombie effect (UN-zombie? DIS-zombie?)] are among the episode's other memorble bits, and the finale bit with Gilligan's OWN Witch Doctor voodoo doll without any personal belongings of the Witch Dr..