OK, here’s what I remember: I think the Howells had adopted Gilligan for one reason or another, and they were quizzing him–I guess to get him up to speed on how to be a proper Howell.
Well, every time he got an answer right, they would give him something that looked a cigarette–except it wasn’t lit or burning. Gilligan would then suck on it.
What was that supposed to be? It’s been a loooooong time since I’ve seen it.
I think they were lollipops. (though where they came from is anybody’s guess. Maybe they were made from coconut) You know, positive reinforcement.
That’s episode 35 from Season 1, “My Fair Gilligan”, which aired at 8:30 pm on Saturday 06/05/1965. Gilligan saved Mrs. Howell’s life (from a falling boulder, no less) and was adopted, becoming G. Thurston Howell IV. I seem to remember he was given lollipops.
And that’s about all I can dig up on this, and I’m not about to watch TBS for a few months to catch the episode. Hopefully someone else who has a better memory of this will chime in.
And on preview, I see photopat beat me to it, but I’m not about to let my research go to waste.
Are you saying Gilligan sucks?
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
Yep, it’s actual gen-you-wine lollipops.
So, lollipops got to the island via:
???
Yes. 
Doubtlessly the Professor invented a lollypop-making device out of a pair of coconut shells and a few bits of wire.
No, no, no… It was obviously Mary Ann who made the lollipops. I mean, granted that the Prof is a genius and all, but when I comes to any sort of food preparation, I know who I’d want in charge. Just look at her coconut-creme pies!
And for the record, by the way, it also wasn’t the Professor who made the radio transmitter. That was the Skipper, who remembered some of his old Navy training after getting konked on the head. The receiver they used, meanwhile, was the one from the boat, and not built by any of the characters.
There’s an aticle on the net by SF writer Adam Troy-Castro (hope I got the dash in the right place) that explains all the terrible secrets behind the mysterious goings-on on Gilligan’s Island.
Not sure if he covered the lollipops, though.
Sir Rhosis
Well, I looked up the recipe for making lollipops, and it doesn’t seem that complicated to me. According to this recipe, you just need sugar, hot water, com syrup, and flavoring. There’s probably some sugarcane growing on the island somewhere, and not only coconuts but assorted berries you could use for the flavoring. I don’t know exactly how you make corn syrup, but I’ll bet if Mary Ann and the Professor put their heads together they could come up with a reasonable approximation. Easy enough to make the sticks out of pieces of bamboo.
So I say they made them.
The Gilligan episode that always confused me was the one where they found the stone tablet from some ancient group of sea-farers showing how to get off the island.
At the end, the whole plan fell apart because the Prof. read the map from left to right, when its creators used a right to left based pictographic alphabet. The Skipper says, “So you mean it shows how to get TO the island?!?!?!?!” and everyone is sad.
I saw the size of THAT plot hole when I first saw the episode in reruns around age 4. Not that GI was ever smart, but that has to be the most glaring plot I have ever seen on TV, bar none.
I thought the taxi made out of bamboo and palms fronds was the coolest and most useless item they ever built.
I call them breasts.
Yummy.
Re: Getting to, not from the island.
Ocean currents would play a big part. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition used currents to go from South America to Polynesia. Early expeditions from Europe to North America also relied on ocean currents, resulting in a rather circuituous journey.
What was the deal with the S.S. Minnow? Why couldn’t they patch the hole and be back on their way?
This brings up the obvious question of where Mary Ann got the cream to make the coconut-cream pies with. Coconut “milk” probably doesn’t behave at all like real milk, and would be useless for making “cream.”
Furthermore, none of the 3 ladies on the island were lactating. And it would have been impossible to make any of them lactate. Lactation would require that one of them be pregnant. Gilligan and the Skipper sure couldn’t have gotten any of them pregnant, because we all know they’re a gay couple. The professor was an obvious eunuch, so that counts him out. Thurston Howell III was married to Lovey, and so would never think of diddling Mary Ann or Ginger – and at Lovey’s age, she’s probably post-menopausal and couldn’t get pregnant even if she wanted to. (Furthermore, at Mr. Howell’s age, he probably can’t get it up for Lovey anyway.)
That leaves the native female chimpanzee population…
Despite all the many jokes and jibes about the Professor being able to build a Pentium Processor out of shoe strings, buttons and coconuts but failing to fix the hole in the Minnow, didn’t the producers at least try to address this in an ep where they tried to make glue (no nails left), but Gilligan screwed it up?
Fortunately, too, as I recall the glue didn’t hold for more than an hour or so, and if they had set sail they would have sank too far away to swim back to the island.
Sir Rhosis
I guess they should’ve made the glue out of the milk from the lactating chimps, then.