GILLIGAN'S ZONKS

PROFESSOR:

Fortunately, I know a simple cure for this problem. 

I'll prepare an anti Vampire potion. 

SKIPPER:

An Anti Vampire potion!? 

Well Professor, what school did you go to!? 

Batman U!?

'Gilligan's Island'

"Up At Bat"

In a ME-TV interstitial, characters from 'Gilligan's Island' are seen mentioning characters from other TV shows and then a clip would be shown from that aforementioned series with an appropriate quote.

• The Skipper mentions Marshall Dillon of 'Gunsmoke'.
• Mr. Howell compares the Skipper's girth to the Ponderosa ranch seen on 'Bonanza'.
• The Skipper makes that 'Batman' crack shown above.
• And Ginger uses the most famous phrase uttered by Maxwell Smart.  (In that part, his clip is seen first.)
• The promo is book-ended with Gilligan's references to 'Perry Mason'.

They're undiluted Zonks but luckily the promo didn't try to force a mash-up to suggest that they were all on the same island and in the same time zone!

For the most part, these Zonks can be splained away, especially since it has become standard practice to accept the fact that eventually everybody in Toobworld will have a TV show produced about themselves.  And that is what the Toobworld audience sees.  (What the Trueniverse audience sees is the "real life" of that alternate universe.)

Let's take them in order, starting with the two 'Perry Mason' book-ends.

Gilligan:

"That didn't fool Perry Mason!"

As with most of these other references, the first one can be seen as a reference to the "real" defense attorney.  Since at least the 1940s (but not seen by the Trueniverse audience until 1957), Perry Mason had been practicing Law in Los Angeles.  In that time leading up to the S.S. Minnow being shipwrecked in 1964, Mason made quite a name for himself in the news as he kept getting his clients free from the murder charges hanging over their heads - especially when the client or the murder case had the potential to sell papers.  So even a klutz like Gilligan must have heard about Perry Mason. 

Gilligan:

That's how it always is.

Skipper:

What is?

Gilligan:

The last part of 'Perry Mason'.

Now we have to concede that the career of 'Perry Mason' was adapted for a television show.  And as with every TV show mentioned within other TV shows, the producers were lucky enough to find actors who resembled the real people of Toobworld - in this case, Raymond Burr who looked just like Perry Mason.

And now we take a look at the clips that take up the middle of this promo.....

Skipper:

You know how the girls are always crazy about Marshall Dillon.

I know there are TV shows out there who mention Marshall Dillon as a TV character, along with his TV series 'Gunsmoke'.  But in this case, I think we can get away with it being a mention of the historical lawman of the Old West.  

But to have the girls so crazy about an historical figure?  Maybe they did see the TV show after all; it had been around at since 1958 when Sgt. Rizik mentioned it at Fort Baxter (on 'The Phil Silvers Show'.)

Mr. Howell (to the Skipper):

Well, you are built like the Ponderosa.

No mention of the TV show even though 'Bonanza' had a prequel by that very name.  Instead I think it's quite pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Mr. Howell had visited the Cartwright Ranch at one time in his long life, perhaps with the intent to buy it!

And now we come to that exchange of dialogue concerning Batman......

Skipper:

Well Professor, what school did you go to!? 

Batman U!?

The 'Batman' TV series, the only true representation of the Caped Crusader in the main Toobworld, debuted in 1966.  But the seven stranded castaways had been on that island since the fall of 1964.  And considering what a close relationship the Dynamic Duo had with the Police Commissioner of Gotham City, it's O'Bvious they had worked together for a long time.  I'd say Batman at least had been patrolling the streets of Gotham since the early 1950s, with Commissioner Gordon taking on his job a few years later.  Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's ward, joined up with him as Robin by 1960. (After his parents were killed in a suspicious circus trapeze mishap - that much at least we are going to retain from the comic book universe even though it plays no part in the TV series.  We'll consider it just there in the background.)

Ginger Grant:

Sorry about that, Chief.

O'Bviously the line was written to cash in on the then-current fad of quoting Secret Agent #86.  But Ginger's use of it has nothing to do with CONTROL; she probably never even heard of Maxwell Smart or the Chief or Agent 99.   

The same goes for Gilligan.  He also used the line in the episode "Take A Dare".  But there's no need for a splainin there - he said to the Skipper, his boss... and therefore his Chief.

As for Ginger's use, it was her dream-figure in Gilligan's dream about "The Invasion": who said it.  And since it is Gilligan's poor excuse of a mind that is supplying all of the dialogue from his memories, we know where he got it from.

Anyway, it's such a generic term that Ginger probably used it in the past while apologizing to one of the studio heads, perhaps the head honcho at Toobworld favorite Monolith Studios.  (It's unknown if any of those studio heads ever admonished her with "Don't call me 'Chief'!")

And why would she apologize to a studio chief?  Maybe she didn't want to meet their "demands" in order to get a good role in a movie.  Nudge nudge wink wink.....

You can see the commercial here.

BCnU!