# Help me ID Gilligan's Island episode (everybody tells their version of the same story) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443 "2016-08-29T23:41:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/21 "2016-08-30T01:57:11Z")
A great Rashomon style kids movie is “Hoodwinked”. A detective frog investigates the Little Red Riding Hood story and gets seperate conflicting stories from all involved. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/22 "2016-08-30T02:03:42Z")
S2E16 has then re-enacting a murder mystery (old paper clipping implicates one of the Minnow passengers in a death just before the Minnow sailed - all castaways knew the victim in some way) S3E1 has Gilligan thinking he’s a vampire, dream sequence has Holmes/Watson-esque mystery sequence ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/23 "2016-08-30T02:35:53Z")
Which was the one where Mr Howell is using a mocked up pay phone, and checks to see if there’s any change, with a guilty smile? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/24 "2016-08-30T02:44:19Z")
[Rashomon.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1) This is one of the greatest movies ever made, and Akira Kurosawa is one of the finest filmmakers. If you haven’t seen it, you should, albeit, if you are an American who will be seeing it subtitled, and don’t speak Japanese, there is something to be said for holding out for seeing it on screen. I saw it in 16mm, which was better than nothing. Totally blew me away, and I was familiar with the trope. This film invented it. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/25 "2016-08-30T02:55:02Z")
S2E17 is where a telephone cable washes up, several different phone calls were made. I didn’t see Howell using it, but I skimmed through it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/26 "2016-08-30T04:52:29Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > A great Rashomon style kids movie is “Hoodwinked”. A detective frog investigates the Little Red Riding Hood story and gets seperate conflicting stories from all involved. Actually, as I recall, there were no conflicts among the various stories, just ambiguities, i.e. when Red first realizes the Wolf is watching her through the bushes, she hears a menacing growl from him. When time comes for the Wolf’s version, the sequence is exactly the same, but we find out the growl was from the Wolf’s stomach - after we’ve learned he’s a struggling reporter who is underpaid and thus underfed. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/27 "2016-08-30T08:27:30Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > A lot of sitcoms use the Rashomon device. I remember it being used on All in the Family, Maude, M_A_S\*H, Everybody Loves Raymond. I can probably pick out some others if I think for awhile. I remember the _All in the Family_ one. They were recounting Archie’s claim that a plumber’s assistant, who was black, had threatened Archie with a knife. In Archie’s version he’s a Black Panter-esque thug with a switchblade, in Meathead’s version he’s an oppressed Stepin Fetchit, Amos n’ Andy stereotype, finally in Edith’s version he’s just a regular guy (the knife was just a penknife he was using to eat an apple). Ron Glass from _Barney Miller_ and _Firefly_ played him. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/28 "2016-09-01T18:13:46Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > A lot of sitcoms use the Rashomon device. I remember it being used on All in the Family, Maude, M_A_S\*H, Everybody Loves Raymond. I can probably pick out some others if I think for awhile. And _The Odd Couple_, in an episode in which Oscar and Blanche recall the night that they broke up, each blaming the other – until Felix tells _his_ version, and they realize that it was all his fault. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/29 "2016-09-01T18:27:08Z")
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia\* had a great use of the trope. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/30 "2016-09-01T18:30:35Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > A lot of sitcoms use the Rashomon device. I remember it being used on All in the Family, Maude, M_A_S\*H, Everybody Loves Raymond. I can probably pick out some others if I think for awhile. The one from **Raymond** , about the new can opener, was great. Never knew the term before! ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/31 "2016-09-01T18:37:45Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I remember the _All in the Family_ one. They were recounting Archie’s claim that a plumber’s assistant, who was black, had threatened Archie with a knife. **In Archie’s version he’s a Black Panter-esque thug** with a switchblade, in Meathead’s version he’s an oppressed Stepin Fetchit, Amos n’ Andy stereotype, finally in Edith’s version he’s just a regular guy (the knife was just a penknife he was using to eat an apple). Ron Glass from _Barney Miller_ and _Firefly_ played him. “YOU IRRI-TATE ME!” (OT, but Ron Glass was great in the Twilight Zone episode “I of Newton,” where he said, “I can travel faster than the speed of light or make two electrons occupy the same quantum state…even go to Berlin if the Nazis had won the war, or Rome had Alexander the Great lived to a ripe old age…What a guy, huh?”) ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/32 "2016-09-01T19:42:49Z")
_Star Trek: The Next Generation_ had a Rashomon episode (ep 3.14, “A Matter of Perspective”) in which Riker is accused of murder and he and witnesses each provide their own different version of what happened. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/33 "2016-09-01T20:04:31Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > [Rashomon.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042876/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1) This is one of the greatest movies ever made, and Akira Kurosawa is one of the finest filmmakers. If you haven’t seen it, you should, albeit, if you are an American who will be seeing it subtitled, and don’t speak Japanese, there is something to be said for holding out for seeing it on screen. I saw it in 16mm, which was better than nothing. Totally blew me away, and I was familiar with the trope. This film invented it. The film was based on a short story by [Ryūnosuke Akutagawa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%ABnosuke_Akutagawa). Akutagawa did indeed write a short story called [“Rashomon”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rash%C5%8Dmon_(short_story)), but this wasn’t the story the movie was primarily based on. It’s based on [“In a Grove”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Grove) (藪の中, “Yabu no Naka”). (The movie does in fact open at the Rashomon gate of Kyoto, but that’s the only connection to the so-named short story. When the characters start narrating the story, the story they tell is basically “In a Grove”.) But yes. A genius movie, and truer to its sources than most movie adaptations of literature, other than the titles. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/34 "2016-09-01T20:17:33Z")
Yeah, it was probably Roshomon. It’s easy to confuse Kurosawa with Sherwood Schwartz. I mean, The Brady Bunch is a just a retelling of The Seven Samurai. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443/35 "2016-09-01T20:36:38Z")
> [@Rucksinator](#): > > In school today a 4th grade teacher was talking about Point Of View… Wow, we have 4th graders posting now! Reminder: no helping them with their homework. (“Where do penguins live?” or “What is the capital of New Jersey?” might not just be innocent questions…) (I came in here to address the question and post the Simpsons reference, but my work was done for me) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-gilligans-island-episode-everybody-tells-their-version-of-the-same-story/764443.md?page=1)