The Dark ‘Gilligan’s Island’ Fan Theories About the Fate of the Eighth Passenger of the S.S. Minnow

Perhaps we shouldn’t be looking for logical consistency in a show that featured coconut radios, grenade-wielding gorillas and ghosts that turn out to be Russian spies in disguise. 

But one unexplained moment in Gilligan’s Island has prompted a number of fans to propose some surprisingly upsetting theories about the classic sitcom. Like even more upsetting than the theory that the castaways represent the seven deadly sins, and Gilligan is really Satan himself.

Presumably because the show first aired in the ‘60s, back when TV picture quality was worse and inevitably obstructed by a thick haze of totally not toxic cigarette smoke, only now have fans pointed out that in the opening credits for Gilligan’s Island, which famously depict the doomed voyage of the S.S. Minnow, the boat seemingly contains an extra person.

As the theme song notes, the “three-hour tour” boasts just five passengers, along with the Skipper and his annoying mate Gilligan. But according to some overly-attentive viewers, there appear to be eight people on board. Why would you lie to us, theme song?!

 So, what happened to this mysterious eighth castaway? Well, a lot of theories involve first-degree murder.

Some have suggested that the eighth passenger was thrown overboard and devoured by sharks. Others have stated that this poor unnamed character made it to the island, like the others, but then became a victim of cannibalism — that is, before the rest of the castaways eventually embraced coconut cream pie as a substitute for devouring human flesh. 

Which, come to think of it, was pretty much Charlie Kaufman and James Gunn’s pitch for a Gilligan’s Island movie, which never got made due to creator Sherwood Schwartz’s objections. 

Other theories posit that the castaway number eight became some kind of human sacrifice, or perhaps they were a camera person who was the one “documenting” the events of the show, not unlike The Office. Or just maybe they were some kind of interdimensional phantom representation of Bunny, the character from the unaired pilot that was eventually deleted from the show’s continuity and replaced with Mary Ann. 

Of course, it’s more likely that the alleged eighth castaway was either just some kind of person-shaped object, or a crew member who never imagined that fans would be screenshotting images from this credit sequence more than half a century later and using “cannibalism” to explain away any narrative inconsistencies.

Those looking for real problems with the believability of the Gilligan’s Island-verse would be wiser to focus on the castaway’s never-ending supply of fashionable clothes. Or the fact that the Professor apparently thought it would make more sense to escape the island by building a wooden spacecraft capable of traveling beyond our solar system rather than cobbling together a raft or simply repairing the S.S. Minnow. 

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