Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for May 31, 2023

On one hand we do not like getting lectured, and yet, we do enjoy the odd tidbit of something new.

Figures. Newton would be a bad boat name. DYSWIDT?

Some things do get through their filter of interest!

The professor could make all sorts of things except a boat repair or a working radio.

I saw an article prior to Minnow’s death that the producers of Gilligan’s Island didn’t like Minnow saw they named the SS Minnow after him. I had the same response as A & J. What I didn’t know, he was a big supporter of PBS and educational TV on commercial TV as part of their FCC license. I think Big Bird mourned his passing.

Arlo is a wealth of knowledge.

I love trivia like that! I never would have suspected the boat was named after a person. I figured, "small boat equals ‘minnow’ "

I’m with you, Janis. I started yawning at panel 1. Woke up for panel 4.

Always bothered me that it was the SS Minnow. Should have been the MV Minnow.

What was in that bowl in the second frame?

I learn something new pretty much every day here on GC.

We love trivia more than the meta narrative.

Interesting? It’s fascinating.

The narrative is not from Arlo. It’s a TV show they’re watching and find it boring until the information RE Gilligan’s Island is presented. JJ is being sarcastic.

Here’s the creator of Gilligan’s Island saying that the boat was named after Newton Minow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlk86NVeWPI&t=358s

Gerry Mander’s book ‘Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television’ is still a classic written by an ad exec…

C’mon! … really?

Evidently, Minow was unaware of a basic truth of humankind: “One person’s wasteland is another’s paradise.”

Not everyone wants – or is able, as is my case – to become an intellectual.

Sherwood Schwartz (GI’s producer)wouldn’t disagree with the vast wasteland statement. He was farming it.

Please stop with this stuff…………………..

That radio they had lasted for years on the same battery.

I was going to say what is in the last panel…

I love a good factual history lesson!!!! Need more of this stuff!!!

Hundred’s of channels and streaming services and still only a few things worth watching…

Wonder what he’d make of TV now that it’s vaster and more wasted.

Yes that is where we are today……heads under the sand….

I could well be wrong but I’m a disbeliever.

Naming it the Minnow was more than an inside joke. He (Minnow) wasn’t popular with his Wasteland comment among other things in the television community so it was a bit of a put down

Interesting. Then Minow would have known my late in-law who was on the board of the FCC around then. Thanks!

I bet C-Dog knew that.

cool

I was never really able to get into the show, it just seemed after Giliigan messing up them getting rescue all the time just made it get boring to me. I think I may have seen half a season and after that I quit.

Steve Allen had a newt in an aquarium behind his desk on his show back then. He named it Minnow. Minnow the newt.

Gilligan’s Island was part of the vast wasteland!

What a sweet tribune to a real dynamo, the late Newton Minow, a good friend of the late, great Congressman and Justice Abner Mikva, a mentor of mine from childhood. They were both giants in their respective fiedls.

Broadcast TV is, if anything, even worse now than in 1961! Cigarette ads are gone, but now we have ads for drugs and lawyers.