I find it quite funny that we both came
up with the exact same answer at the exact same moment.
Loraine's currently reading a book by
another Koski, Negaunee's Allen Koski (no relation), who wrote about
his father's experiences in the Pacific during World War II. In the
book, Koski wrote about one of his father's bases on an island, and
used the word “lagoon”. For some bizarre reason, when she
mentioned that he had written that word, we both piped up, almost
simultaneously...
“You mean like on 'Gilligan's
Island'”?
Think of it—when was the last time
you heard the word “lagoon” in a non 'Gilligan's Island”
context? Unless you're watching “Creature from the Black Lagoon”
or “Blue Lagoon”, I'm guessing it was quite a while ago. Even
though “lagoon” is a perfectly valid word, it's not used that
much. It's not something that comes up in typical conversation, and
unless you've studied geology or geography, odds are you weren't even
taught what a “lagoon” actually is.
So thank goodness for “Gilligan's
Island”.
For a sitcom as universally derided as
“Gilligan”, it actually exposed the people who watched it to a
lot of things to which they might not have otherwise been exposed. I
mean, sure, the show taught you that if you're going on a three-hour
cruise it's okay to bring a steamer truck full of clothing, but it
also taught us what a lagoon is. It taught us that if you don't have
Vitamin C, you can get sick. And it exposed us to the music of
“Carmen” and the poetry of “Hamlet”, both in the same
episode.
And therein lies the magic of
“Gilligan's Island”.
Sure, the plots were stupid, the 3
characters woefully underdeveloped, and the amount of people who
passed through what was ostensibly a “lost” island boggled the
mind. But every once in a while, either because the writers couldn't
help themselves or because knowledge will find a way to leak through
even the most mindless of entertainment, we learned about opera and
healthy eating and, most importantly, lagoons.
Who knew?
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