Monster of the Day #1183


Oh, and the Skipper also starred in The Giant Spider Invasion.

Boom!! MIND…BLOWN.

  • SteveWD

    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.

  • Flangepart

    THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION…:)
    “Pork vaccume, I mean Sherrif’s office…”
    “Well, gotta go drain the ‘little buddy’…
    Oh, Alan!…”

  • Gamera977

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

  • The Rev.

    I saw this episode recently on MeTV. I was so glad to have finally seen the spider some of you have talked about before. It was everything I could have hoped for.

  • bgbear_rnh

    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.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I saw so many episodes of this show over the years, how did I ever miss this one? And where did the giant spider come from? Was it yet another result of Gilligan’s bungling?

  • rtpoeman

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

  • Gamera977

    I don’t remember for sure, wasn’t it Ginger’s though? I don’t care, any excuse to post a photo of the lovely Dawn Wells is fine by me.

  • bgbear_rnh

    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.

  • Gamera977

    Makes sense, just thought of Ginger as a ‘clothes-horse’ bringing a full length mirror.

  • Rock Baker

    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!

  • Rock Baker

    “Looks like four men having a tug-o-war.”

  • bgbear_rnh

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

  • Rock Baker

    That was Ginger (Mary Ann had a couple of outfits since she was on vacation, but Ginger was wearing the dress from her just-completed night club appearance) who made a dress from Gilligan’s duffel bag.

    I have a theory that the castaways found several washed-up crates* besides the ones we saw detailed. It’s obvious a few of them were from women’s clothing stores. This is particularly evident by the third season!

    *The island was just perfectly located that the currents would drag stuff in but not left anything out.

  • zombiewhacker

    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.

  • bgbear_rnh

    Lots of cargo from the sinking of the S.S. Deus ex machina

  • Flangepart

    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?

  • Flangepart

    I think it was…the hair. Somethin’ about that doo…maybe it’s just me.

  • bgbear_rnh

    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.

  • CaptNemo

    Black spider night sailor’s delight. Black spider morning sailor take warning.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    “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.

  • Ericb

    And the Minnow would be a Tardis.

  • bgbear_rnh

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

  • bgbear_rnh

    and Hollywood isn’t for everyone. careful what you wish for. . .

  • Rock Baker

    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.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Having just recently re-watched ‘I Married A Witch’ and discovered what became of the lovely Veronica Lake… yeah. Very true words above.

  • rtpoeman

    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…

  • Rodford Smith

    Heh. Remember the episode where the passengers were suspected of murdering a dive shop owner (IIRC). Skipper and Gilligan eventually decided the death was an accident. But what if they were all guilty in an “Orient Express” type plot? :-)