Gilligan's Living Doll

Gilligan's Living Doll is the twenty-first episode of the second season of Gilligan's Island. It first aired February 10, 1966.

Synopsis
The Skipper gets stuck with the laundry chore and grouses over it even as he's just lying back watching Gilligan run their Pedal-Powered Washing Machine. Gilligan, meanwhile, stops pedaling to go searching for his rabbit's foot in the laundry. As the Skipper scoffs at Gilligan's belief in his rabbit's foot, they notice a parachute over the island. They go searching for it and discover a robot, which was launched from Hickam Field in Hawaii to Vandenburgh Air Force Base in California on a radiation detection flight. The Professor believes they will be rescued when the Air Force come looking for it, but in the meantime, everyone exploits the robot to do all the menial jobs on the island. Mary Ann has it sweep her hut, but it goes through the wall, and Ginger has it do the dishes, but it goes crazy when she tampers with its controls. When the Skipper tries using it to do the laundry, Mr. Howell takes it to caddy in a golf game with Mrs. Howell. When he sends it back, the robot shoves Gilligan into the laundry before pedaling the machine. On the radio, the news reports that the Air Force won't be looking for the Robot as they don't where it was lost. This leaves everyone trying to decide how to use the Robot to get them rescued. They try to have it build a boat, but it actually builds a boat in miniature. When Gilligan suggests sending the Robot to Hawaii to get supplies to get them rescued, the Skipper realizes the Robot could just deliver a message itself. They try teaching it to swim, but all it can do is walk the bottom of the Lagoon. That leaves the Professor with no recourse but to let it walk the ocean floor and deliver their message to the authorities in Hawaii. A few days later, news comes the Robot has been caught in fisherman's nets, and as its memory tapes are played on the radio, they're all mixed up, demagnetized by Gilligan's rabbit's foot stuck inside it, ruining another chance to be rescued. Gilligan hides under the table as the other castaways gang up on him in anger again...

Message

 * "Unfortunately, high technology is at the mercy of low I.Q.s."

Highlights

 * Gilligan becomes friends with the Robot
 * The Robot pushing Gilligan into the washer and Gilligan's head in the window
 * The Robot stunning the Professor, Skipper and Gilligan with a small model boat (Gilligan: "I think you do a swell job.")
 * This is possibly the closest the castaways come to succeeding in a scheme to get off the island. Unfortunately, Gilligan's rabbit's foot messed up the message about them being stranded.

Credits
Main Cast
 * Bob Denver as Gilligan
 * Alan Hale Jr. as The Skipper
 * Jim Backus as Mr. Howell
 * Natalie Schafer as Mrs. Howell
 * Tina Louise as Ginger
 * Dawn Wells as Mary Ann
 * Russell Johnson as The Professor

Guest Cast
 * Bob d'Arcy as The Robot (uncredited)
 * Charles Maxwell as the Radio Announcer and the The Robot (voice - uncredited)

Trivia

 * The name of this episode is possibly an homage to the 1964 to 1965 series, "My Living Doll." Airing for one year only, "My Living Doll" was a CBS comedy about an Air Force psychologist played by actor Robert Cummings who is placed in charge of a "living" robot, played by the very attractive Julie Newmar, better known as Catwoman in the 1966 to 1968 series, "Batman."
 * The episode opens on Gilligan doing the laundry with the pedal-powered washing machine. The sloshing in it looks like a crew member out of sight wiping the window with a rag.
 * Despite his rabbit's foot in this episode, Gilligan makes no mention of his metal four-leaf clover lucky charm from Mine Hero.
 * The Professor chastises Gilligan for believing in his "lucky rabbit's foot without concluding the item might have some sentimentality to it as a keepsake.
 * The Robot reportedly weighs over one thousand pounds, and yet, the Professor places him over one of their wood tables to work on him.
 * When Gilligan is drowning in the washing machine, Mr. Howell claims he sounds like a Red Crested Hickenlooper. In a strange coincidence, John Hickenlooper was Mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011. Denver was named for Bob Denver's ancestor, James William Denver.
 * It seems extremely odd that the Robot was programmed to build a small model schooner from wood and a full-sized minesweeper, destroyer, and aircraft carrier from steel, but nothing in between, such as a wooden raft (with the parachute attached as a sail). The Professor is able to program the Robot to do chores, but it doesn't occur to him to program the Robot to build a wooden boat large enough for eight people, a store of supplies and itself.
 * No one thinks to check in on the Robot when he is supposed to be building the boat.
 * The Robot reports it will take 89 years and 4 months to build a bridge from the island to Hawaii. However, this would have undoubtedly exhausted all of the available building materials on the Island within a few weeks.
 * The Skipper calls the robot "a tin refugee from The Wizard of Oz," a reference to the Tin Man in the 1939 classic film.
 * The time the Professor deduces for the Robot to reach Hawaii is seriously off, considering that he has already deduced how far they are from Hawaii. It takes the Robot about five minutes to go twenty yards into the lagoon. Likewise, the estimated time for the Robot to go underwater to Hawaii is 111 hours, which divided by 24 equals 4⅝ days. As 60 minutes equals 1 hour, therefore, 24 hours equals 1,440 minutes. With a ratio of 1 minute = 4 yards and 1,440 minutes × 4⅝ days = 6,660 minutes × 4 yards = 26,640 yards, and 1 mile equals 1,760 yards. 26,640 yards divided by 1,760 equals 15.13 miles, which is how far the Robot must travel from the island to Hawaii (barring obstacles and re-routing its path). If the Island was really that close to Hawaii in the real world, a plane or ship would have spotted the Castaways' signals and already rescued them. In X Marks the Spot, the the island is estimated to be a mere 250 miles southeast of Hawaii.  This is 440,000 yards, and the Robot can move 240 yards per hour underwater.  Therefore, the Robot would take at least 1,833⅓ hours (11 weeks) to reach Hawaii.
 * When the Robot comes back from the waterproof test in the lagoon, the Professor gets sprayed in the face with water. This would require some sort of tubing or vent for unknown purposes in the Robot's head since it only requires a miniature speaker (albeit one impervious to water) to respond to verbal commends.
 * The Professor never considers dismantling the Robot to use its parts to fix the transmitter.
 * In the syndicated version of this episode, the scenes with the Robot working for Mary Ann and Ginger are not shown.

Quotes

 * Skipper - "That's just what we needed; a tin fugitive from The Wizard Of Oz."


 * Skipper - "Great, we've got a mechanical Gilligan!"

Gilligan - "Professor, with my mind, I need all the luck I can get."
 * Professor - "Luck, Gilligan, is all in the mind."


 * Mr. Howell - "He, by golly, sounds like our answer to Lloyd Bridges!"


 * Mr. Howell - "Build us a searchlight. We'll shine it on passing planes and ships." The Robot - (haltingly) "Impossible; no electric power."


 * Ginger - "Hi-ya, tall, dark and mechanical." The Robot - (haltingly) "I do not understand." Ginger - "I'll make it a little clearer for you. You see, I've been stuck on this island for a long, long time. Understand?" The Robot - (haltingly) "I understand." Ginger - "And, uh... I want you to get me off." The Robot - (haltingly) "I am not programmed for that task." Ginger - "Well, uh, gee whiz, can't you put your mind into it? Concentrate for Ginger. Just think what it would be like for me to be back in Hollywood." (The Robot starts smoking and making weird noises.)