Monster of the Day #1183

The Black Morning Spider finally makes his appearance….better get your spider cider. Kind of cool to think the guy playing the spider also played the Horta and probably countless other TV monsters in the 60’s.

Yeah, break out the Spider Cider! Somehow this one I remember clearly. How many giant critter problems were cured by a pigeon?

I was slipping into a nice daydream of me and Mary Ann on a deserted island together and you guys had to bring up “The Giant Spider Invasion” and now I have the horror image of Robert Easton in his longjohns.

Never mind the spider, where’d that *mirror* come from?

I would have guessed the Howell’s since they seemed over packed for a three hour cruise.*

*side note. I always thought if they had a re-make that some of those silly question could be answered. Why a movie star took a cheap island cruise and why would the Howells who owned yachts.

I would have Ginger trying to ditch paparazzi. They Howells could have missed a cruise ship, liner, or their yacht and the Minnow was taking them and the luggage to meet the larger boat.

I think the mirror in this episode belonged to Mrs. Howell. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if the younger girls had a full-size mirror or not.

At any rate, a first season episode did show the Professor making a mirror for Mrs. Howell. Said mirror was broken, but apparently he made an even better mirror which was later shown attached to Mrs. Howell’s closet door. That’s where this one came from. It also gets broken by Gilligan, so it’s a good thing the Professor knew how to replace it!

She only had one dress and later they made her one out of a sail or something from the Minnow.

BTW, does anybody have a clue why Dawn Wells didn’t become a BIG star after Gilligan’s Island? Her Mary Ann character has been beloved for generations, Wells herself was as cute AND hot as heck, and yet her agent’s phone never seemed to ring… except for GI reunion gigs.

Or, as James Lileks once said, he thought the Howells were on the lamb as a pair of shysters.
And why is it ‘on the lamb’. Why not some other barnyard ruminant?

I don’t know but many times pretty and talented actress back then disappeared from the Hollywood scene because they got married and had a family.

“Typecasting” is the probable reason. Most casting people probably could see her as nothing other than Mary Ann Summers, and thought audiences would feel the same way. See also: almost anyone from the original Star Trek.

oh you doctor fans have have a link everything just like at tv tropes ;-)

By the way, this does remind me that in the GIANT SPIDER INVASION review you criticized them for having Hale say “little buddy” in his first moments, as if it were a Gilligan joke. That phrase is actually Hale’s. Everybody was his little buddy.

I’ve read one theory which says that the seaside hotel where the Howells et al. were booked simply didn’t have their rooms ready, and weren’t even able to check them in (perhaps a storm squall blew through and knocked out power?). The hotel had an arrangement with a charter boat – would the guests enjoy a short cruise of the islands while the hotel fixed their rooms?

Of course, they all had their reasons for being in what was clearly a small, out-of-the-way resort.

The SEC’s net was quickly closing in on the Howells. Their financial shenanigans were too big to hide any longer, and at this point even the slightest exposure would bring down their entire business empire. They had enough assets stashed overseas to live comfortably for the rest of their lives – if only they could get to them without anyone noticing…

It was a darned shame that the Senator had to be married to that shrew. He and Ginger Grant actually did love each other; and it wasn’t just sexual. But the press would never leave them alone if their affair came to light. Both careers would be ruined. She’d just have to slip away while his divorce went through…

Huge, secret military research projects tend to pull in polymaths like Dr. Roy Hinckley. This one, however, was not going the way that the government would like. Any fool could see that. But there was way too much riding on this one, and not just the millions upon millions in grant money. Pressure was coming down from on high to “massage” the latest series of results. He still had enough integrity to not want to do that, but he was in the perfect position to take the fall should the project fail. He needed time to think; a little time away from the project…

They were supposed to think he jilted her at the altar. But, damnit, somebody poked their nose in where it shouldn’t have been, and that was someone else she had to “take care” of. And if they started connecting the dots to those other “disappearances”… Best to get out of town and lay low while things died down…