"The Little Dictator" was a play on the title of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," and the favorite episode of series creator Sherwood Schwartz. For critics who dismiss the show as too simple minded to have something to say this proves to be a real eye opener, with Nehemiah Persoff in the title role of Pancho Hernando Gonzales Enriques Rodriguez, El Presidente of the South American Republic of Ecuarico, exiled to a life of solitude on Gilligan's island after his regime has been overthrown. As Schwartz delights to say in his audio commentary, a dictator only knows how to dictate, and with the use of his pistol he takes over control of the castaways as their new President. They try to get him to empty his gun of bullets, and once that succeeds Rodriguez naturally assumes that he is due to be executed, unable to conceive living the life of a commoner. His offer of power and glory to Gilligan leads into one of the most inventive dream sequences, Gilligan as El Presidente, Rodriguez his right hand man, quick to shoot down every rumor that crosses the leader's desk. It's jarring yet appropriate to see Rodriguez eliminating all of the President's problems with bullets, revealing Gilligan to be nothing but a 'puppet ruler,' complete with strings. Schwartz only errs in regard to Persoff never having done comedy before or since, as he played Little Bonaparte in "Some Like It Hot," going on to many different shows like BARNEY MILLER, in which he played a Hasidic Jew. As El Presidente he's a constant delight, just serious enough without losing the comic flair, and his reaction when he first sees the women is priceless: "ah, chihuahua!"