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Discussion » Questions » Television and Movies » Is there a mystical reason there were seven stranded castaways on Gilligian's Isle?

Is there a mystical reason there were seven stranded castaways on Gilligian's Isle?

Posted - January 15, 2017

Responses


  • Nup.
    It was just the right number for creating misunderstandings and comedy with enough but not too much complexity for the average viewer.
      January 15, 2017 7:02 PM MST
    3

  • Absolutely! The Wandering Jew, a guy named Ahasuerus, was cursed at the Crucifixion and has been damned to walk this Earth ever since. He cannot grow older, he cannot die, he can never settlein any place he can call home, he is always moving. Wherever he goes seven plovers follow him, marking his progress and his position.

    I have no doubt that it was he who financed Gilligan's Island and the cast of seven was his way of giving the bird to the birds that dog his weary footsteps. 

    Quod erat demonstrandum.
      January 15, 2017 7:59 PM MST
    3

  • LOL!
    Five stars for creative imagination! :-)
      January 16, 2017 1:40 PM MST
    1

  • Thanks Hartfire, but I largely plagiarised Viereck and Eldridge who wrote a trilogy about the wandering Jew in the 1930s. My First 2,000 Years, Salome, and The Invincible Adam. And it wasn't seven plovers, it was five. But I thought that, 80 years after publication, I'd probably get away with cribbing an extra 2. 

    I read it back in the 1970s and a workmate picked up my copy and said, "What's this about?" So I told him, "It's about a bloke who lived for 2,000 years." And, so help me, he said, "Is it fiction?"
      January 16, 2017 1:51 PM MST
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  • 22891
    maybe its for good luck
      January 15, 2017 8:37 PM MST
    0

  • Somewhere in the back of the writers mind was the phrase size of the gene pool ... i think....
      January 15, 2017 9:01 PM MST
    2

  • Actually, I don't think it's in the back of the mind.
    I think it's standard formula for the number of most prominent characters in any soap or comedy.
      January 16, 2017 1:41 PM MST
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  • 5354
    It is a tradition, a kind of convention in stories. Just as there are usually 3 sons seeking their fortune and 3 princessses to be wed in fairytales, This post was edited by JakobA the unAmerican. at January 16, 2017 1:13 AM MST
      January 16, 2017 1:11 AM MST
    0