In school today a 4th grade teacher was talking about Point Of View. It reminded of one of my favorite episodes of Gilligan’s Island (and several other shows that have this same plot): Something happened, and everybody tells their version. The current teller of the story acts brave and debonair while everyone else acts stupid and selfish. Then someone else tells what happened and it’s completely different (because the narrator is over-the-top awesome and everyone else acts like complete doofuses). So I’m trying to find this episode…
The good news is that there are only 3 seasons to go through. The bad news is that there are ~30+ episodes per season.
The good news is that wikipedia has a list of all episodes. The bad news is that I don’t remember enough of the details for that list to do me much good.
I do recall that the episode was mostly set off the island, like in a real-world location. 'm pretty sure it was in color and think it had to do with some cloak-and-dagger, James Bond, jewel thievery type stuff, but this is my ~30 year old memory of a half-century show. My memory can’t be counted on.
I would appreciate any help, including episodes of other shows that had the same plot (different characters telling vastly differently versions of the same events.)
I think you’re referring to the one where they’re trying to figure out which of them is a murderer. They eventually reenact the crime and find out it was an accident (a spear gun went off when a door was slammed), which was confirmed by a radio broadcast at the end. So none of them were guilty, even though they all knew and hated the victim.
DIOGENES, WON’T YOU PLEASE GO HOME threw in a whole angle about a fabulous jewel – is it a diamond? A ruby? An emerald? – before they got down to the serious business of dueling retellings complete with self-serving bravery.
The Rashomon episode was Season 1 "Diogenes, Won’t You Please Go Home? ". Inn it everyone tells their own version of the Japanese soldier on the island.
There was a James Bond one, but that was a dream (Gilligan was 014 - twice as good as 007).
A lot of sitcoms use the Rashomon device. I remember it being used on All in the Family, Maude, MAS*H, Everybody Loves Raymond. I can probably pick out some others if I think for awhile.
S1 E52 “Not Guilty” is AKA S1 E16 (it’s the 52nd total episode.) It’s not the one I was thinking of, because it’s all set on the island, and their versions of what happened are not embellished like the episode I’m thinking of.
