WRITER, BLOGGER & NE'ER-DO-WELL

Judging from shows like Survivor and Lost, life on an island is not a party to be envied. One could never tell from the happy-go-lucky castaways on Gilligan’s Island. Even spending years in the tropics, wearing the same clothes, and, as disgusting as the thought may be, the same underwear, things seemed a bit too everyday normal on the small, uncharted tropic isle.

The biggest quandary viewers of the classic show have is why the Howells would bring trunks of money and gadgets on a simple three-hour charter on a crappy little boat when they owned a fleet of yachts bigger than some nuclear aircraft carriers. People have theories on the underlying true story. Some postulate that Ginger Grant was caught wearing an evening dress in tropical heat because she had been dumped on the docks after a bunch of conventioneer movie producers pulled a “train” on her. To the untrained eye, the rest of the passengers were just the usual tourists, enjoying a Hawaiian vacation and cheap tour on what seemed like a pleasant little charter boat with an all-white crew, as opposed to a bunch of large, sweaty Samoans with lust and murder in their eyes. Even in the 1960s, some truth just could not be ignored.

Thurston Howell the Third, millionaire and industrialist had dirty hands. The IRS and FTC were hot on his trail and he had some explaining to do. It wasn’t so much the government as the mob was also looking for him after some bad dealings on yachts of opium suddenly never offloading their cargo on Maui. Noted hit men, Larry “Greasy” Storch and Jan “Amuse You Like Some Kind of Clown” Murray were known for their wacky antics and brutally hideous torture-murder methods. Howell needed to disappear for a while.

With his yachts and the airport under surveillance, he had few options. He needed to be out of sight for a while but he and his frigid society wife needed their usual comfort zone. There would be sacrifices but he had a plan. After a quick search of the charter boats, he discovered a crew that was perfect. They weren’t too bright, and would provide the manual slave labor needed to serve him and his wife for an indefinite period of time. More servants would be needed but their professional staffs of cooks, maids, butlers and concubines knew too much and were already panting at government rewards for turning in their abusive bosses. It didn’t take long to spot the perfect cast of rubes to fill out the final step in a comfortable stay on a small island Howell had purchased through a small subsidiary.

A simple farm girl with large breasts would provide food services, while a scientist, shunned by his peers for his innovative work with coconuts and bananas would be able to give the island the technology the rich couple needed to survive and play a round of golf every now and then. The final player was needed for an activity his wife, “Lovey” Howell had not provided in many years – a service usually given for a quick $20 by the upstairs maid, Consuelo and visiting B-movie starlet, Ginger Grant was the object of his desire. Miss Grant was rumored to have certain oral tricks unmatched even in the orient. Mr. Howell preferred his sexual pleasure just like his ability to raid and rape small companies – sitting in his chair with no pants on.

While Grant was easily drugged and stowed aboard the S.S. Minnow during the night, the other players were more than happy to use the complimentary tickets delivered to their lower rate single rooms at the Honolulu Motel 6, and the hapless travelers showed up the next morning for the all-inclusive (which meant sodas, beer and baloney sandwiches) tour around the islands. The Howells had arranged for several trunks of goods and cash to be placed aboard the boat, next to the comatose Ginger Grant and the compass to be replaced by a recalled item, produced by Howell Naval Instruments, which was noted for breaking after water so much as touched it’s glass case.

Just before casting off for a few short hours, the Howells, having all mentions of a storm deleted from the media – another subsidiary of Howell Enterprises, arrived in a filthy cab, most assuredly driven by a Yale man, so there would be no suspicion or trace of them. With all passengers aboard, the captain and his first mate, a pleasant fellow who had suffered brain damage years before in the navy when a six-inch gun fired a 50-pound shell into his head, cast off.

With a little prodding from Mr. Howell and a one-man sub attached to the bottom of the boat’s hull, it didn’t take much effort to guide the small craft to Howell’s island, which had a ten-mile privacy boundary placed upon it via graft to certain government officials. None of the other passengers were ever curious about the trunks of money or items stowed below decks nor was Ginger Grant ever questioned as she just thought it was yet another blackout from too many champagne cocktails and a line of Japanese businessmen. Just another Tuesday to her. Certainly none of the men would complain, as the fronts of their chinos were tightened by the thoughts of the three women stuck on an island with them.

It wasn’t long before huts were made from pre-cut bamboo logs found in a clearing and the trunks were moved into the Howells hut, again, without question. It was a pleasant little island and the cast of dupes all played their parts. All the Howells had to do was lie back and sip fermented mango cocktails from coconut shells while Mary Ann baked endless coconut cream pies and the professor created nuclear reactors from coconut shells and seawater. He just couldn’t figure out how to smelt iron ore to make nails to fix the two-foot hole in the boat.

As days, weeks, months and years passed, without scurvy, appendicitis or any broken bones or major hematomas killing off the island inhabitants, they were more than happy to put on shows for the Howells, using the trappings found in the mysterious trunks from below deck, while Ginger collected cash for favors. “Lovey” got to plan her social committees, Thurston played golf and the Skipper and Gilligan constantly jerked off while trying to choose which one of the two women they would pin down and take by force. The professor was only concerned with science and Gilligan’s “engaging simplicity.” Although the island was officially off limits, some Russian sailors did once mistakenly land there, Prompting Gilligan to excitedly tell the professor there was “seamen here for him.” The professor died, so they say, from a broken heart that day when he discovered Gilligan was being literal.

Ginger was the next to go. She was found in a shallow grave with her head bashed in by a rock. Although Mrs. Howells perfume scented the area, she wasn’t suspected, nor was the word “harlot,” carved into Ginger’s chest thought of as evidence.

The Skipper eventually went insane and it was surmised he was poisoned by dangerous sperm buildup (DSB). His body was found floating in the lagoon with the pair of underwear taken from Ginger’s body, wrapped tightly around his neck and his hand clenched around his member, frozen by rigor mortis.

Gilligan’s untimely death came shortly after the Skipper’s when a native spear was lodged in his ear, while he slept and drowned and fell off a cliff, into lava and shot himself with a world war two pistol he found among some hungry sharks. The story is still a bit hazy.

Mrs. Howell disappeared one day. There were signs of a struggle on the beach by the lagoon and the number of headhunter artifacts found strewn about may explain rumors of sightings of Mrs. Howell among tribesmen in Borneo, wearing nothing but a smile on her face.

It was reported that Mary Ann and Mr. Howell lived quite well together after those tragedies, until Mary Ann choked to death on a coconut she was trying to “crack open with her teeth.” Mr. Howell was devastated not only at the loss of Mary Ann but also the baby she carried inside of her and if not for the shortwave radio he discovered in the back of the portable AM radio they had all used for years, he might have been stuck there alone, for many years. With one short message, he was rescued within four hours and returned to the mainland.

It seems that while stuck on the island over the years, several new American presidents had restructured laws for big business owners. The mob had long been incarcerated via the RICO act and Mr. Howell, although reported missing and presumed dead, had never had his estate split up. He returned to the helm of his vast empire and actually received billions in tax returns, while he was away, on a three-hour tour.