User Reviews

Any episode that features the always reliable comedic talent of Jim Backus and his favorite game, golf, is going to be money in the bank, and Three certainly is one of the best episodes (if not the best) of the season. It has an excellent, simple premise and plot line that steadily builds, no pesky subplots, and the slapstick is tamped down for once to a minimum. It's a near classic, meaning it's a scene and a few clunker lines away from perfection.

In the simple, low-key opening, Gilligan interrupts Mr. Howell's golf outing and off-handily remarks that practice putts don't look too difficult. He easily makes a couple, but Mr. Howell isn't impressed. The billionaire believes betting on the putts will increase the pressure of making them and Gilligan will soon wilt under the pressure.

What he doesn't count on is Gilligan going all Arnold Palmer on him and making shot after shot. Mr. Howell, starting at twenty-five cents, doubles every bet, but he can't slow Gilligan down. By the time the Skipper shows up to check on Gilligan's whereabouts, his little buddy is up three million smackers.

We saw how wealth affected the castaways in The Big Gold Strike, and the fun here is how their attitude toward Gilligan changes once they find out he's newly rich. They take turns cozying up to him; his bunkmate wants to be his father figure in the hopes Gilligan will buy him a ship or two, and Ginger hints she'll marry him just to play his wife in the film of his life story.

Of course, the only one who doesn't change is our lead, who wants only to share his new found wealth with his friends. To the Skipper's chagrin, he proves he is the same old naïve bumbler by allowing Mr. Howell to cheat him out of his winnings, selling him the deed to a worthless oil well in Dustbowl, Oklahoma.

Our lead goes back to rags. But, just like in a Horatio Alger tale or a Frank Capra film, there is a miracle. The long dormant Dustbowl well suddenly gushes oil. Gilligan once again joins the millionaire's club and returns to the good graces of his adoring public.

By the second act, the wily Wizard of Wall Street has had enough of this young upstart and schemes to get his greedy hands on that deed once again. We get a fun, inevitable showdown between the Howells and the two sailors. The billionaire is unable to pry Gilligan away from his surrogate father, so he invites the pair to dinner in his hut. The conversation is soon steered to games of chance, and we find out the Skip's favorite is pool.

If only the Wizard of Wall Street had a pool table.

No problem.

Mr. Howell pulls back the tablecloth to reveal a coconut and bamboo pool table. In a great, crazy takeoff of The Hustler, he shocks the sailors by making trick shot after trick shot. The hapless Gilligan is soon in a twelve million dollar hole and is forced to return the Dustbowl deed to its original owner. Everyone is back in their usual tax bracket by the break.

But the epilogue contains one last funny, though predictable, twist.

COCONOTES

This is the first episode where Mr. Howell is referred to as the Wizard of Wall Street.

It also marks the debut of Ginger's SS Minnow dress made from Gilligan's duffle (though it was seen in Goodbye, Island).

Kudos to whoever came up with Tahatchapuku Oil and Mining Company.

Ironic that the Professor has the time and the resources to build Mr. Howell his pool table and roulette wheel, while it's left to Gilligan to build the watch tower.

Jim Backus was an expert pool player and doubtless performed his own trick shots. He later exhibited his skill on an episode of the Brady Bunch where he played Mr. Phillips, Mike's boss.

Unfortunately, the pool table is never seen or mentioned again.

It's curtains for Howell holdings when an oil field in Dustbowl Oklahoma strikes oil, and it's ironic that Thurston had just given Gilligan the deed for the field so he wouldn't have to pay him $3000000 for a golfing bet. The episode has pretty much everybody supporting deal again over Thurston, both when Gilligan and suddenly $3000000 richer and then when Thurston cheats him out of the money. The episode shows once again after the previous gold episode that the castaways are still money-hungry even though they're on an island where money has no value.

An entertaining episode where the premise was utilized several more times, with Thurston somehow involved in money schemes with various castaways, and his efforts to teach them to keep what he arrives with or gain more in the process. An ironic scene has Ginger commenting on Gilligan's Island and wanting to cast Rock Hudson as him as long as she can play Gilligan's wife. And just how did Thurston get a pool table in his hut? Borrow it from Jed Clampett and have it shipped from Beverly Hills?

We begin our tale with Gilligan practicing his golf swing instead of building the watchtower like the Skipper told him too. Meanwhile, Mr. Howell is doing a little practice putting of his own when Gilligan breaks his concentration.

When Gilligan expresses his doubt about how tough it is to putt, Mr. Howell bets him a single quarter (all the money Gilligan has) that he can't make the putt. When Gilligan makes the putt, Mr. Howell doubles the bet until he owes Gilligan $3 million.

This episode is in the tradition of taking Mr. Howell down a notch or two, which was needed considering his personality. Of course, it works like gangbusters as the entire episode is very funny. The exasperated Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) simply cannot catch a break even when he fools Gilligan out of his money, only to lose once again.

Highlights include Mr.Howell's determination to see Gilligan fail to make the putt, the rest of the castaways buttering up Gilligan, especially the Skipper wanting Gilligan to call him "Dad", the Skipper making room at the table for his "boy" after the oil strike is reported, the incredible skill of Mr. Howell at the game of pool and finally the epilogue scene when the truth about the oil strike is revealed.

Cracker jack timing combined with some good material makes this a winning episode, one of the best in the first season.

• Perhaps showing that different writers were assigned to this episode to punch up the material. In the teaser, the Skipper tells Gilligan that this was the third night he dreamed about a ship passing the island and this is the 3rd day of the 3rd month, making it March 3rd. After the commercial break, Mrs. Howell tells Mr. Howell that of course his oyster shell putter doesn't feel right because there is no "R" in the month...

• Once again, the Professor and Mary Ann only make token appearances in this episode compared to the rest of the castaways..."and the rest" indeed.

• Does it strike anyone else as odd that the Skipper, bound and determined to have that watchtower built before evening, doesn't bother to search for Gilligan until well after 10:30pm?

• Assuming that Gilligan never missed a putt and he made one putt per minute, then going "double or nothing" to reach $3 million would certainly not take the several hours that is implied by the episode. Accounting for rounding up or down to the nearest zero to keep it simple, it would take roughly 25 putts in a row for Gilligan to reach over $3 million.

• My home state gets a tweak when Gilligan becomes the owner of the "Tahatchapuku Oil & Mining Company" in "Dust Bowl" Oklahoma...despite the fact that the "Dust Bowl" days were over with long before this episode takes place. Oh well, par for the course I suppose for my home state.

• There are a few firsts in this episode, We see the Skipper's jacket for perhaps the first time. We also see what appears to be a water trough where Gilligan takes a dip, although we never see it again for the rest of the season. Plus, we see the former steering wheel of the Minnow as a roulette spinner and a pool table in Mr. Howell's hut. Before, we only saw the wheel either in Gilligan's hands during "Goodbye Island" or as wall decoration in "President Gilligan".

However, when Ginger debuts her "SS Minnow" dress...which, to Tina Louise's credit, looks a lot better than the duffel bag it was made from :). Yet we saw this dress in an earlier episode, "The Big Gold Strike", which could indicate that this episode was shot much earlier in the production schedule.

• Naturally, this episode continues the tradition of not carrying themes or things over from episode to episode. While Ginger's "SS Minnow" dress manages to make future appearances, the pool table in Mr. Howell's hut is never to be seen again.