Are you a Mary Ann guy or a Ginger guy?

The pie fight.

It went right by me.

I should say it was the pie fight fight that I missed.

I saw the ad.  And I knew many of Kos' readers were mad at Kos because of his reaction to their reaction to the ad.  But I didn't really connect the two things in my head.  It was as if they were a matching shirt and tie I'd put in different drawers in my  head.  They're meant to be worn together, but I could put the tie with another shirt and it would go so well I wouldn't think about the first shirt, and I could wear the first shirt without any tie at all, go anywhere in it, and not feel the least bit underdressed.

People have a tendency to compartmentalize their thinking like this.  It's called cognitive dissonance.

I could think about the pie fight ad---and, believe me, I have thought about it---and I could think about the anger and resentment Kos had brought upon himself because of the ad,  but without really thinking about the ad, as if the cause of the debate was something else entirely, which, in a way, it was.  Kos has a habit of showing a dismissive and even insulting attitude towards readers who criticize him or object to his arguments and many of his women readers feel he is especially so with women who disagree with him.

So, the other day, when Kathy Flake announced she was dropping Kos from her blog roll and putting yours truly on it---which seems to me a bit like when the Mets let Mike Hampton get away and replaced him with, well, nobody.  Who pitched for the Mets that year when Al Leiter wasn't on the mound anyway?---and she introduced me to her readers as one of the good boy bloggers, I wrote this note in her comments section to thank her:

I'm a good boy??????

Darn!

Sorry. Please forgive the rough language. But, gee whiz! All my life I've been Frasier Crane, never Sam Malone. BJ but never Hawkeye. Butch and not Sundance. Gilligan not the Skipper---you know about the Skipper and Mary Ann and Ginger, right?

You might recall that in my posts on the wonks versus the writers I said the wonks could be dumb.  But I also said that I'm dumb too and I could prove it.  Here's the proof.

Kathy's writing about delinking to Kos because what grew out of the pie fight ad, she includes in her post a link to a post on the controversy by Shakespeare's Sister, a post I had already read and was planning to link to myself in a post I'm still working on, and I go and make a Ginger and Mary Ann lesbian action joke without mentioning Kos or the pie fight ad!

(Note to porn connoiseurs:   Some sticklers might object that I had made a threesome joke, not a lesbian joke, but real fans, and really lucky people with experience, know that it's not a true FFM threesome unless there is some lesbian action.

Trust me on this.

Mary Ann might have been hesitant to take it to the next level, but Ginger would have gotten her over her shyness in a hurry.  Which by the way is one of the things that's wrong with the pie fight ad.  Mary Ann is on top.  I know she grew up on a farm and she's stronger and hardier than she looks, but Ginger has six inches on her, all kinds of reach, and lots, lots, more experience.  Fans of the show can debate in the comments whether or not the M in the FFM would have been the Skipper or the Professor.  I'm about to write some stuff that implies that I think the real answer is neither one, and I don't think it would be Gilligan or Mr Howell either.)

I think it's matter of taste whether or not you find the ad objectionable and demeaning and the choice of whether or not to run it is up to individual bloggers.  I don't remember whose site I clicked through to get to the ad, but I saw it up on many different blogs, including those of some unquestionably feminist women.   The ad is pornographic, but most TV ads are these days, and it's far from the most pornographic ad I've seen.  Far from the most erotic too.  The debate is still open on whether pornography in and of itself is demeaning to women (and men).

Some of it is.  And some intelligent, liberated, and thoughtful women are turned on by some stuff that is.

Could some woman write me an email explaining the appeal of pony girls?

I've been meaning to start selling ads.  If I'd gotten around to it when I should have, I'd have had to make the decision to run it or not, and I think I would have decided not to.

I have a lot of kids visiting this page.  Really.  I did a post on Lemony Snicket back in November that kids have been finding their way to through Google and quite a thread has developed in the comments section there.  It's still growing.  I'm pretty sure the kids don't visit any of my other posts.  I wouldn't censor my writing if I thought they did, but I might have to do something to warn them away.  But they would see the ad and they would click through and, although it's up to their parents to police what they're looking at online, I am a parent and I know how hard it is to do that.  Sometimes it's like trying to play tennis against twelve opponents at once, all with serves as strong as Venus Williams'.

But as it happens I think the ad is objectionable and demeaning.

Not demeaning to women in general.

To Mary Ann and Ginger.

I'm not kidding.

I loved that show!  When I was a kid I used to have dreams that I was marooned with the seven stranded castaways here on Gilligan's Isle.   I can't explain it.  I had a severe crush on Mary Ann, of course.  But my affection for the show wasn't based on that.  I think it was that I saw the whole gang as my friends.

I thought they would be good friends to have because they were such good friends to each other.

Ginger and Mary Ann were pals.  They argued sometimes, and they could be rivals, although never sexual rivals.  It's amazing how de-eroticized Gilligan's Island was.  Here was a show that featured two beautiful and very well-built young actresses who appeared regularly in bikinis---their usual costumes weren't exactly modest either.  Mary Ann liked to go about in a low collared shirt tied up under her breasts and a pair of tight short shorts, with high heels too!  And Ginger had that slinky cocktail dress that didn't hide anything.---and Ginger was meant to be a Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield stand-in, with all the erotic backstory that pedigree implied, and yet week after week the episodes stayed as kid-friendly as a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Have you noticed that the movie versions of Scooby Doo have added sex to an essentially sexless conceit not by doing much with Daphne and Fred but by sexing up Velma? She's a bisexual sex goddess!  Look at her fan club at the beginning of Monsters Unleashed.

Also I don't think Tina Louise has gotten enough credit for the intelligent acting job she did playing Ginger Grant.  Without downplaying Ginger's sex appeal or shying away from showing that Ginger was experienced at using her body as both a weapon and a bribe, she still managed to take a part that was meant to be a stereotypical bimbo and give the character brains, heart, and an essential decency.   Loni Anderson did something similar on WKRP but her character's brains and integrity were explicity written into the scripts.

At any rate, both Mary Ann and Ginger were nice girls.  The ad makes them out to be sluts.  I think I remember an episode where they had a pie fight, but the punchline was Gilligan getting the pie in the face.  And they were in the habit of taking mud baths together.  It was never shown if they did this nude or in their bathing suits.  I always assumed they wore their bathing suits but then in college I met a couple of girls who used to like to go to a beach that had some clay pits they'd soak in, naked, for a while and then they'd go skinny dipping to rinse off.

The blonde says there was nothing in this.  But, my runaway fantasies aside, I wondered, if there was nothing to it, why they used to sneak off to the beach without inviting any of the rest of their gang along.

So now I wonder about Ginger and Mary Ann's mud baths.

That ad doesn't wonder.  It knows.  And it tries to force me to know too.   And it's not that I don't want to know.  It's that I don't want to have anyone else, particularly not a pack of leering ad men, tell me what sorts of fantasies I should have about one of my favorite TV shows.

Ginger and Mary Ann are TV characters.  Fairly cartoonish TV characters, at that.  But they are nice characters and they are truly attractive characters who have personalities---that is, they have souls.  Fictional characters have souls.  The souls are borrowed from real life.  By seeming, if only for the moment we are watching them or reading about them, to be real people, they share the humanity of real people and in reminding us of our fellow men and women they aquire their souls.  The ad strips Mary Ann and Ginger of their souls.  It makes them into objects.  And so in that way it does in fact objectify women.

I don't think all pornography does this.  But that ad does for me and I hate it.

I hate it on purely aesthetic grounds too.

First, I don't get the catfight.  I know guys are supposed to dig the catfight.  But I don't.  I like the girl with girl.  But I don't like the catfight.  I think it's because in real life most catfights are not between women who look like Mary Ann and Ginger.  They're between women who look like Gilligan and the Skipper and nothing comes out of them but bloodshed, heartache, and jail time.

Second, the actresses playing Mary Ann and Ginger are all wrong.  It's not just that the ad's Mary Ann is taller and more generously endowed than the ad's Ginger.  It's that they don't look at all like them.  Dawn Wells and Tina Louise were very beautiful young women.  The actresses in the ads aren't beautiful.  They are fake beautiful.  They look like what they probably are, lap dancers who make money on the side hooking and doing bit parts in stag films.

I like the strip.  I like the lap dance.  I like the showering together.  I even like the smearing each other with whip cream, as long as it's done in fun and not in anger.  But I like them when they are done by women who look like real women.

I think that's why I'm a Mary Ann guy and not a Ginger guy.  Dawn Wells looked a lot more like a person you might actually meet on the street.

So, which are you?  Are you a Mary Ann Guy or a Ginger guy?  Women can be guys for this purpose too.  It's not necessarily a question of erotic appeal.  So gay guys can play right along too.

Take the quiz.

Mary Ann?

Or Ginger?

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

real fans, and really lucky people with experience, know that it's not a true FFM threesome unless there is some lesbian action.

TMI alert: I've been in one with, and I've been in one without. Both seemed really really real to me.

[Chris Clarke]

Oh, and

Mary Ann? Or Ginger?

Mrs. Howell.

[Elsie]

Sure, Lance, tease us! The full 60 second version is only available for viewing between 10 PM and 5 AM. This gives me something to look forward to this evening!

[KathyF]

I must confess, I had not watched the ad--my objection to Kos was over the way he objected to the objections, not necessarily to the ad itself. But now I've watched, and I have to say, they've made it childproof. Took 10 minutes for me to figure out when the arrow pointed to one spot but the words said "click on the image to play" they really meant that. Another 10 minutes to set my settings, and it was hardly worth it.

Since I can't choose either Ginger or Mary Ann, (although if I were to vote on a best friend, Mary Ann would win hands down) I did like the professor a lot. Those guys all owed their lives to him, yet they hardly ever showed their thanks. Well, Ginger did. But I thought he had a soft spot for Mary Ann. Or maybe he was more a Gilligan guy.

The ad is pretty pathetic. What's more pathetic is all the people who watch it because someone tells them it's pathetic.

[sfmike]

I was a bit too old for Gilligan's Island when it came out so I thought it incredibly stupid, and I hated that Maynard G. Krebs had become the nebbish Gilligan, but I did love Tina Louise. She and Ursula Andress were two of the most amazing looking Amazons, projecting strength, kindness and humor. Tina's small part in the original "Stepford Wives" also just about swiped the movie from Katherine Ross and Paula Prentiss, no easy feat.

And physical female catfights on television were tired and washed-up by the time Joan Collins and Linda Evans were being put through their monthly humiliations with each other on the 1980s "Dynasty." The only great one I've ever seen was with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins in a 1940s film, "Old Acquaintance," about a "serious" writer and a "potboiler" writer. Highly recommended.

[Padraig]

Just a quick second on the whole cat-fight deal. I never got the appeal either. I guess it's supposed to be women fighting over men, or something involving power-trips for men, or whatever. Also, notice how it's hard to see the two actresses faces? Their faces are hinted at the way breasts used to be hinted at. God, what does THAT say about those ad men?

[anon]

"I guess it's supposed to be women fighting over men, or something involving power-trips for men, or whatever."

When women are fighting over a man, the man isn't a person anymore. He's a trophy and being objectified. It happens both ways.

[Maureen Hay]

The threesome episode from the BBC series COUPLING is a must watch. Trust me.

[res publica]

"First, I don't get the catfight. I know guys are supposed to dig the catfight. But I don't. I like the girl with girl. But I don't like the catfight. I think it's because in real life most catfights are not between women who look like Mary Ann and Ginger. They're between women who look like Gilligan and the Skipper and nothing comes out of them but bloodshed, heartache, and jail time."

Okay that made me laugh really hard. Were you there with me that one night at that lesbian bar?

As re: your quiz, I was totally hot for the Professor, but I guess if I had to choose, I'd pick Mary Ann. Because I'm a floozy from Kansas too.

[Lance]

Maureen, are we talking funny, sexy, or funny and sexy? Should I see it with someone I love? Two someones?

[J.]

Mary Ann. I always dig the girl next door. Like going with Ally Sheedy instead of Molly Ringwald.

[cgeye]

That's what pissed me off about the ad, too...

Go to all that trouble to advertise the start of a reality series, and *don't* show the Ginger or Mary Ann of that series? Just have two anonymous bimboes who don't have the body or behavior traits of either original character, with pumped up breasts, then stage a pie fight for no reason? It's just *wrong*, on a spiritual level, and not hot enough, on a carnal level.

As for the Kos matter, it's like what Zig Ziglar said about kicking the cat: We can't stop the Quisling behavior of our House and Senate members, when they stab each other and fail to support strong, progressive messages -- so now we take it out on each other, when all past sexist slights get caught up in this new controversy. Would we be so committed to airing this problem, if we were in June, 2006, and the Congressional campaigns were in full swing?

The trouble is it's hard to tell if this is necessary housekeeping, or a destructive feedback loop.

[rod]

"I always dig the girl next door. Like going with Ally Sheedy instead of Molly Ringwald."

Oh, sure, Ally Sheedy was the girl next door - if you happen to live next door to Psychotown! Have you forgotten the "dandruff as snow" scene? Creepy!

[sfgary]

Even as a pre-pubescent boy I wondered why neither Gilligan nor the professor made the move on Mary Ann (the skipper was somehow out of the question, and Ginger was frightening to me in a way I didn't understand). Or perhaps they did make a move, I imagined, but since Mary Ann turned them down it wasn't broadcast.

Or, maybe, Mary Ann was into it and there were some wild times on the island, kind of like the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan, but since it was a family show they couldn't air it.

Waaaaay too much thinking about Mary Ann and Ginger these days.... The world is an angry place... Since our anger at Bush or al Queda leaves us no escape routes, some of us are expressing it in anger at our allies. We can't, after all, sever our ties with the US government or wrap ourselves in a protective coccoon from the terrorists - there aren't even any symbolic moves we can make. But we can by God show that Kos guy, can't we?

Instead of looking for a way to vent my anger I've decided to work on being less angry. As long as we feel righteous in our anger there will be no winners... only Israelis and Palestinians.

[Amanda]

My RL demeanor is frightfully like Mary Ann--a little rough, but mostly sweet. As for the catfight, I always thought it confirmed to men that women all hate each other so you can be secure that they love no one more than you.

[Slothrop]

What saddens me is how Gilligan's Island took the beatnik out of Maynard G. Crebs and transformed him into Conventional Nerd.

Dobie Gillis to THIS? It set back the beat era so much that hippiedom replaced it.

[Shannon]

Totally Mary Ann. She's a goody-goody, and so am I. Ginger was always more glamourous, more adult, than little old me could comprehend when I was watching these shows in syndication back in the 70s and 80s. I have to say that now that I'm in my 30s, I can even appreciate the odd sex appeal of *gasp* Mrs. Howell. WTF? Is that just sick and wrong?

In some ways, the the Mary Ann vs. Ginger discussion is the distaff dark star twin of the Jedi/Sith Douche vs. Asshole distinction madce by this guy who writes over at the Face Knife.

[j. bryant]

I missed the pie wars too and I'm really sorry because I think Kos is missing the point. He wants to get back to "important shit," right? Then he should take a close look at what response he got on this ad because it is related to some bigger issues. This IS that morality thing the Right keeps saying they own. Yes, there are the hot buttons of gay marriage and abortion....but there is a big fat lukewarm button that we are ignoring here and it means votes.

I do a lot of work with a woman I like quite a bit. As a political demographic she probably would be called a soccer mom. She has three boys in elementary to high school, kind of affluent, and now, along with most of the mothers she knows, she is voting conservative. Why - because she is freaked out by all the sex on TV, on the Internet, in magazines, etc. This is a woman that was pretty wild in her own youth, still smokes illegal substances, used to watch a little porn with her husband....in other words - not straitlaced but....now we're talking about her kids - her sons. She can't watch TV with them without being embarrassed, she has caught the eldest (15?) looking at porn on-line even though she has net nanny (I think he can disable it) and she is deathly afraid of what goes on with "today's youth." As the next step down the road of our moral degradation she asked me if I heard of - I think it was called rainbow parties - where different girls take turns...shall we say...orally treating guys leaving them a rainbow of lipstick traces. We're talking young teens here. And she sees it all as symptomatic.

She knows I'm a hardcore liberal and she is amazed to find I don't like a lot of what I see. I have resorted to bringing up Tipper Gore to let her know Democrats care too but...the Right is wielding some pretty big fat talking points against us on this and this should be looked at. Now, when Kos dismisses LIBERAL women's concerns against an ad he described as two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then have water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms - granted, women complaining not for the softly pornographic nature but as degrading to women - he might want to consider women are voters and the soccer moms are a very important block. The polls showed up "safety" as their big concern last election but, I promise you, some kind of time, place and age appropriate content guidelines would go a very long way.

Perhaps I've gone too far afield in this but this is something I've been thinking needs to be addressed. And NOT by Lieberman.

I don't care about the ad itself - it isn't funny, witty, subtle or even coherent and it shows no affection for women at all. Some men don't actually like women - they may like them sexually but they don't LIKE them - this kind of reminded me of that fact which is so wrong for a Gilligan ad. That doesn't mean I don't recognize the sex in it but kind of relentlessly gratuitous. (Me, as a female? Ginger all the way - Mary Ann seemed like she wouldn't be any fun to hang out with and who would want to borrow her clothes?) BTW, the "good boy blogger" is a very unfortunate choice of words and I'm sure didn't come like the compliment she meant it to be.

As far as Kos's decision to run it? I don't know. When you do a media buy, you try and match the media to the audience. Is that who he thinks his content is bringing in? Who his audience is?

Or, was it bigger money? (Whenever I've contracted for a technology company that has lost its way, they always talk about somehow bringing porn into it as a surefire seller AND as the bottom of the barrel)

Did he think the women's responses were from prudishness? Censorship? Or, most typical male assumption when they think they've really got women figured out - jealousy? Kos should trust his readers more - I think it was incongruity.

Anyway - interesting to have men and women talking about this...

[harry near indy]

i'll play calvinball and change the rules in the middle of the game.

jeannie, as in i dream of ... all the way.

barbara eden. those eyes. that outfit -- although she never showed navel.

i caught the show a couple of months ago on tv land. vapid. lousy. a true sh!itcom -- except for, as i said before, barbara eden.

as for the sexual dynamics of the original gilligant's island, friends of mine and i have come up with these:

--gilligan and the skipper were lovers.

--gilligan used to service mrs howell because thurston was impotent. however, he knew about it and gave his approval, because lovey had her needs, she couldn't get pregnant, and gilligan was clean.

--another three-way scene -- gilligan serviced mrs. howell while the skipper sodomized gilligan.

and as for you kids coming to these comments looking for something about lemony snicket ... nothing here -- move along now.

[bobo brooks]

Why, oh why, won't anyone ever take Ginger's side?!

[NTodd Pritsky]

Mary Ann. No contest.

[Cornholin']

Ginger or Mary Ann?

I'll take the teenage Cambodian hooker, thank you very much!

[wolfstar]

"The actresses in the ads aren't beautiful. They are fake beautiful. They look like what they probably are, lap dancers who make money on the side hooking and doing bit parts in stag films."

So "objectifying" two fictional characters is out of bounds, but drawing baseless inferences about the lives of the two very real young women who appear in the ad is A-OK? Fine.

Oh, and Mary Ann.

[Brad]

Mary Ann or Ginger? Mary Ann.

Now, what about Starfire or Raven?

[Lance]

Wolfstar, Touche. But I said I suffer from cognitive dissonance. Anyway, it's my blog and I can be as inconsistent and hypocritical as I want.

Brad, Raven. I think I must just go for the brunettes over the redheads. Plus, I took the Which Teen Titan are you quiz and came out Robin, and doesn't he have a thing for Raven?

[blue girl]

bobo brooks: I think it's because Mary Ann, although soooo cute -- just didn't have the Va-Va-Voom that Ginger did -- so we're sticking up for the underdog that deserves just as much admiration.

Also -- Mary Ann (and the Professor) -- got left out of the one version of the theme song:

".....and all the rest -- here on Gilligan's Aisle!"

And when they got added in -- it seemed like a cheap afterthought -- instead of what is really was.....maybe the cast wasn't set in stone yet? Don't know the reason for it and too tired to google for it now.

[blue girl]

Ooops. I meant "Isle" instead of "Aisle" -- they never opened their own grocery store on the island, did they?

You never know with that show. They might have.

Told you I was tired.

[Chris Clarke]

they never opened their own grocery store on the island,

Yep. The Professor built the bar-code scanner out of a broken bottle and some parts from the radio.

[j fyrste]

i'd like to think i'd go with with Mary Ann but truthfully given real life it would probably be Ginger. Anyway, to open up a whole 'nother can of worms threesome-wise it would probably be the professor because, i mean c'mon aside from the Howell's the other 'real' couple on the show was undeniably Gilligan and the Skipper, and the Skipper was the top. He was the Skipper and a bear for god's sake and Gilligan, the First Mate, was his boy-toy. there is no other explanation for the lack of tension between the three "single" men.

[Carnacki]

I've got to go with Mary Ann, but I'd like Mrs. Howell to be my sugah momma.

[Dominic]

Dude, Ginger, for christ's sake! What's wrong with you people?
Though in a perfect world, one would not have to choose between Ginger and Marianne. Or between Ginger and the professor, for that matter.

[Kip W]

In one "dream" episode, Mary Ann is -- if fading memory still serves -- a princess, and she kisses Gilligan who, with appropriate lighting and sound effects, becomes himself. At this point, the Old Man (played by Professor Hinkley) tells her that he's a handsome prince, and if she kisses him, he'll turn back into himself too. So she does, and we have the lighting and sound effects, and... "But you're still an old man!" says Princess. "Don't believe everything ya hear, girlie!" cackles the Dirty Old Man. It wasn't the only time he showed signs of "life" on the show, but it was my favorite.

I always thought Ginger would be more fun, particularly with her vast experience in such stag films as "Pole Smokers of Pago Pago" and the like...

[denisdekat]

I seem to be a Mary Ginger sort of fellow...

[mrs. norman maine]

Mary Ann! I've always been perplexed by those two-chick setups in which a perfectly lovely woman is always ignored because she's not as slutty as her friend.

I mean, slutty has its place, and I certainly wouldn't push Ginger out of bed, but when you can have beauty AND substance, where's the contest?

I never understood why did Chrissy always got more male attention than Janet. Or Veronica more than Betty. Or (to stretch a point) Daphne more than Velma? C'mon -- those knee socks were hot.

[Chase]

Lance - Kudos on a wonderful post. I now know how to rationalize all MY fantasies regarding the original Mary Ann and Ginger. At any rate, I agree wholeheartedly with your contention that the whole ad is completely out of the spirit of what made these characters sexy in the first place.

So that said, my vote is now with Mary Ann -- although when I was a horny 13-year-old, I was a Ginger devotee.

That's right. I've matured dramatically.

[Oi]

This is the latest chapter in the dumbest argument I've ever heard. The mere fact that anyone cares about this---even on the internet---makes me suspect I disbelieve in evolution because humanity can't still be this stupid after a million years, so 6004 it is.

And definitely Ginger.

[Kevin Hayden]

I was also a Mary Ann guy. And a Professor guy. And a fan of that pot-smoking Bob Denver guy. But you're right, the reality revisionism makes me wonder what's nwxt. Rob & Laura Petry in a queen size bed? June Cleaver in a halter top coming on to Lumpy?

What's the great appeal to sluttifying old TV? It was bad enough when they started colorizing old black & white movies. But Gilligan's Island was a kid-friendly show before these braindead Hollywood writers started finding ways to upgrade them to soft porn crap.

Excuse me, now. I'm going to go get Touched By An Angel...

[Kevin]

"June Cleaver in a halter top coming on to Lumpy?"

HA! I actually laughed out loud at that!

[Andrew]

Speaking of Mrs. Howell, I understand that IRL, Natalie Schaefer was a playa. The story goes that back in the '30s she once lunched with priapic playwright George S. Kaufman, and during lunch she tried to taste Kaufman's soup. He rudely rebuffed her. They hailed a taxi, and soon as they got in he was all over her. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"There's a difference," Kaufman repiled, "between fucking and cream of tomato."

[Beel]

How about some serious thought about what is a wedge issue, and how to disengage that phenomenon? Obviously we have one here. The Xian-fascists are winning thru the ongoing use of wedge issues, which are pretty much all beside the point and just trade on unconsidered emotional triggers--case in point, the soccer mom cited above, who still smokes pot but is freaking about her boys' natural process of growing up. More seriously, the Right is going after the black church vote via the scapegoating of homosexuality, using the unconsidered predjudice of the black church to slice off parts of that pie for themselves, even tho it's completely obvious that black people are cannon fodder to conservatives. --Beel

[PZ Myers]

Fans of the show can debate in the comments whether or not the M in the FFM would have been the Skipper or the Professor.

The professor. It has to be the professor.

[Lance]

Professor Myers, I think I detect some professional bias in your argument. We need to hear from some ex-Navy men on this one too. Where's the Linkmeister?

[Linkmeister]

Considering the number of men who've served in the US Navy over 200 years, compared to the number of professors, I suggest that statistical probability alone would indicate the Skipper would be the preferred choice. Besides, he's the one who knows how to sail.

[mac macgillicuddy]

Or (to stretch a point) Daphne more than Velma? C'mon -- those knee socks were hot.

I always had a crush on Velma. I am not making this up. I think maybe I have a thing for glasses, or whatever.

[Anne Laurie]

Never could stand that ridiculous show, which my moronic slightly-younger teenage brothers watched at least 6 days a week in afternoon reruns (this would be late 60s-early 70s). Among many reasons, because even while not-viewing (this was a small apartment in the Bronx; there was no getting away from the sound of our single black'n'white set), it irked me that Ginger & the Professor didn't get together, efficiently murder the rest of the cast, and then sail off into the blissful sunset. Which should have happened on approximately Day Three, since they were the only characters whose IQs seemed to be higher than their collar sizes. What's irked me ever since, the few times it's come up, is that so many nice liberal guys think Mary Ann was hot. The proper answer to the G vs. MA question... well, it worked for my husband: "Gee, didn't that show totally SUCK?"

[Lance Mannion]

Anne Laurie,

Aw, you had to go and bring intelligence and taste into the discussion.

I'm not really sure why this liberal guy prefers Mary Ann. I've always had a thing for short brunettes, which is why I married a tall blonde.

Prefering Mary Ann doesn't mean I don't appreciate Ginger. I'm with Mrs Maine, I wouldn't toss her out of bed if she was in there with us either.

Wait, that didn't come out right.

[W. Kiernan]

That linkie "the most pornographic ad I've seen," I had to click that. Well, I think you're talking about this wonderful ad for the Citroen Xsara, starring, get this now, Claudia Schiffer. I saw it a few years back. Alas, Citroen is too good to sell their cars in the U.S.A. So if you saw the ad you saw in the U.S.A., I wonder if it was some less-good knock-off of the original Citroen ad, which was, as I said, amazing. I mean, Claudia Schiffer.

[Lo Ping Huang]

"As for the catfight, I always thought it confirmed to men that women all hate each other so you can be secure that they love no one more than you"

No, no no. The appeal of catfights is that the girls will tear each other's clothes off and you'll get to see something you're not supposed to see. Geez, who didn't know that?

[Yosef]

"No, no no. The appeal of catfights is that the girls will tear each other's clothes off and you'll get to see something you're not supposed to see. Geez, who didn't know that?"

Exactly. It's so simple that people don't even realize it.

And let's all be honest with each other. Gilligan was the only straight guy on that Island and he was bangin' all the ladies.

[Braniff]

I'd take MaryAnn. She's down to earth--I'd be glad to go rafting, horseback riding, skiing, snowboarding or mountain biking in the Colorado Rockies, for example. As for Ginger, I wouldn't let her leave the Denver area or Denver International Airport.