Things I Learned From Gilligan, Marcia & Sherwood

As many of you might have heard, Sherwood Schwartz passed away yesterday. In case his name isn’t emblazoned in your memory banks, he was the creator of not one, but two of the most important television shows of all time. Shows that helped define my childhood, and made me the man that I am today. The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.

Whether broadcast in Prime Time, or after school, I never missed either. Looking back, it is remarkable that either of those shows were ever televised in the evening. As a tribute to Sherwood (I feel we should be on a first name basis by now) I am dedicating today’s post to him.

As a tribute, here is a list of things that I learned because of the Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island:

1) My parents were either to poor, or too cheap, to have a live-in housekeeper.

2) Never trust a jungle boy with your raincoat balloon. Even if he looks like Kurt Russell.

3) Repair vases with water-resistant glue. And for heaven’s sake, develop a good poker face.

4) Always look for concealed vines before entering a cave.

5) “Something Suddenly Came Up” is strangely effective in most circumstances.

6) Never hide in a hollow tree when woodpeckers or Jonathan Kincaid are present.

7) Always return evil Tiki statues to the burial ground before you go surfing.

8) Stay away from glue and feathers when posing for satellite photos.

9) Pork chops should be eaten with…(of course)…applesauce. (Yeah, too easy)

10) You can make anything out of coconut shells and bamboo. Anything.

11) Feigning terminal illness is the absolute best way to get a sports celebrity to show up at your house.

12) Redheads are high maintenance. And conceited.

13) If my parents had shown up with a “Cousin Oliver” he would have ended up buried in the backyard.

14) None of my fillings could ever pick up AM radio – only an occasional CB trucker. I feel cheated.

15) Every time Robert Reed kissed Florence Henderson it was a lie. A damned lie.

Personal note: Once when my EC was pregnant, we watched a rerun of the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby idolizes Jesse James until he has a nightmare where Jesse James kills the entire Brady family. I looked over at her and she was crying her eyes out. True story.

An even more personal note:  Yeah, Marcia was hot. Ginger, not so much.

I guess even though Sherwood is gone, he would want us all to have a “Sunshine Day”