MAUREEN DOWD is comparing the Kerry Campaign to Gilligan’s Island, with Kerry in the role of Skipper: “Given that the Kerry convention featured a skipper brave and sure, a first mate who makes others comfortable, a millionaire called “Lovey” by her spouse, two pretty young Kerry castaways and a movie star (the ubiquitously annoying Ben Affleck), I suppose we should be grateful that Camp Kerry didn’t introduce the nominee with the ‘Gilligan’s Island’ theme song.”
Now this seems unfair to Kerry — and to the Skipper — though it’s true that the Skipper did spend an awful lot of time telling old Navy stories. And, like most Dowd efforts, it takes a theme and gets way too cute with it.
Anyway, Gilligan’s Island should be beyond politics. It’s an American classic.
UPDATE: Reader Karl Rotstan has been thinking about this a lot:
A notable absence in Dowd’s Gilligan analysis is the Professor. This surely is not an accident – the Professor was by far the most crucial castaway in terms of the survival of the whole group. Dowd’s failure to reference him in any way is a stunning admission-by-omission that the Dem’s castaway experience is likely to be far more deadly than Gilligan’s. It will indeed be a fateful trip.
Maybe he’s been thinking about it too much.
ANOTHER UPDATE: And this guy is suggesting Fantasy Island, with George Soros in the Ricardo Montalban role. That’ll be next week’s Dowd column! She could do a whole series of Island-themed allusions. . . . [Don’t give her ideas. — Ed. Good point.]
MORE: Les Jones, who hit on this simile before Maureen Dowd did, says that Ron Reagan, Jr. is The Professor. Hmm. I don’t think that works, but you can decide for yourself. Now, maybe this Professor.
STILL MORE: Uh-oh. If Kerry’s campaign is like Gilligan’s Island, it could be a terrible provocation:
Viewed through the prism of America’s enemies, it’s easy to see how the “Gilligan’s Island” gang represents everything Muslim fanatics and their sympathizers hate. As Cantor describes it, “The Skipper embodies American military might, the Professor represents American science and technological know-how, and the Millionaire reflects the power of American business…the presence of The Movie Star among the castaways even hints at the source of America’s cultural domination of the world – Hollywood.”
Heh. Read the whole thing.
MORE STILL: Read this.