Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
Here is an amusing political game you can play if you, like me, are already weary unto death of the national clown car that is filled with Republican presidential candidates. This game requires you to imagine the members of that cray-cray circus taking what they think is a short break from their antics. They board a tiny ship for what has been advertised as a three-hour tour.
Much to the consternation of that wacky bunch - and much to my own delight - the weather starts getting rough. Alas, their tiny ship is tossed, ultimately going aground on an uncharted island. Looks like the candidates will miss the 2016 election and, if we’re real lucky, the 2020 and 2024 elections as well.
Wait a minute, you exclaim. That sounds suspiciously like the basic plot of Gilligan’s Island, the popular television show that starred Bob Denver. Why, now that you mention it...
The object of this game is to match seven Republican candidates to the characters they might play on a modern remake of Gilligan’s Island. Here are the Gilligan’s Island characters:
First Mate Gilligan
The Skipper
Thurston Howell III (the millionaire)
Eunice Lovelle Wentworth Howell (his wife)
Ginger (the movie star)
The Professor
Mary Ann
Allowing for inflation and several decades of politicians who took money from the poor to give to the rich, Howell would most likely be a billionaire today. Maybe Gilligan and the Skipper are Gulf War veterans suffering from PTSD. Perhaps Ginger is one of those insane anti-vaxxer. Maybe the Professor is self-certified. Maybe Mary Ann won the cruise because she could not have otherwise afforded it on the minimum wage paid by her three jobs. You can speculate on the contemporary quirks of the castaways all you want, but none of that is essential to the game. I just mention this stuff because it came to me and I don’t want it stuck in my head. So, now, it’s stuck in your heads. You’re welcome.
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
Here is an amusing political game you can play if you, like me, are already weary unto death of the national clown car that is filled with Republican presidential candidates. This game requires you to imagine the members of that cray-cray circus taking what they think is a short break from their antics. They board a tiny ship for what has been advertised as a three-hour tour.
Much to the consternation of that wacky bunch - and much to my own delight - the weather starts getting rough. Alas, their tiny ship is tossed, ultimately going aground on an uncharted island. Looks like the candidates will miss the 2016 election and, if we’re real lucky, the 2020 and 2024 elections as well.
Wait a minute, you exclaim. That sounds suspiciously like the basic plot of Gilligan’s Island, the popular television show that starred Bob Denver. Why, now that you mention it...
The object of this game is to match seven Republican candidates to the characters they might play on a modern remake of Gilligan’s Island. Here are the Gilligan’s Island characters:
First Mate Gilligan
The Skipper
Thurston Howell III (the millionaire)
Eunice Lovelle Wentworth Howell (his wife)
Ginger (the movie star)
The Professor
Mary Ann
Allowing for inflation and several decades of politicians who took money from the poor to give to the rich, Howell would most likely be a billionaire today. Maybe Gilligan and the Skipper are Gulf War veterans suffering from PTSD. Perhaps Ginger is one of those insane anti-vaxxer. Maybe the Professor is self-certified. Maybe Mary Ann won the cruise because she could not have otherwise afforded it on the minimum wage paid by her three jobs. You can speculate on the contemporary quirks of the castaways all you want, but none of that is essential to the game. I just mention this stuff because it came to me and I don’t want it stuck in my head. So, now, it’s stuck in your heads. You’re welcome.
Amazingly, there are over 30 people running to be the Republican Party’s candidate for President of the United States. Really. But, for the purpose of this game, I’m only going to list the ones you have heard of:
Jeb Bush
Ben Carson
Chris Christie
Ted Cruz
Carly Fiorina
Lindsey Graham
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
John Kasich
George Pataki
Rand Paul
Rick Perry
Marco Rubio
Rick Santorum
Donald Trump
Scott Walker
Though I haven’t figured out all my seven choices for the candidate and cast match-ups, I’m leaning towards Bobby Jindal as Gilligan, Rand Paul as the Professor and Lindsey Graham as Mrs. Howell. Keep in mind that there are three female roles in the show and only one woman candidate. You’ll have to do some crossplay to fill out your list. Which brings me to the word of the day.
From Wikipedia...
Crossplay, a portmanteau of crossdressing and cosplay, is cosplay in which the person dresses up as a character of a different gender. Crossplay's origins lie in the anime convention circuit, though, like cosplay, it has not remained exclusive to the genre.
Needless to say, I can’t wait to see what my beloved bloggy thing readers come up with re: this silly little game.
Please, please, please post your match-ups to our comments section. Or, if you find that frustrating, you can email them to me or post them to my Facebook page and I’ll add them to the comments section for you.
Get your friends and family members to play the game with you. Make this an Internet meme or a Twitter hashtag. The important thing is to have fun with it...because once these campaigns get up to speed, fun might become a very scarce commodity.
I’ll be back soon with more stuff.
© 2015 Tony Isabella
From my Facebook friend Arthur Adams, who isn't the Arthur Adams who is a comics artist:
ReplyDelete"Jeb Bush as Mister Howell. Same wealthy sense of entitlement, and he explains George W's idiocy as being "a YALE man!"
From my pal John Petty:
ReplyDelete"OK, here are my entries:
"Skipper: Chris Christie, as no one can fill Alan Hale Jrs. clothes like Christie can. And, Christie's habit of constantly yelling at people stands him in good stead as the Skipper.
"Gilligan: Ted Cruz, although he's nobody's "Little Buddy." Like Gilligan, Cruz can't seem to get anything right, and has managed to sabotage every effort of the Republican party to move into the 21st century. Unlike Gilligan, Cruz isn't even remotely likeable.
"Mr. Howell: Donald Trump. Both are amazingly wealthy men without the slightest concept of how the rest of the world lives. Out of touch with the very people they want to control, both, ultimately, were exposed as buffoons.
"Mrs. Howell: Carly Fiorina, as the rich woman that no one knew much about, or cared much about. In the end, the most disposable character on the island.
"The Professor: Ben Carson, as both are highly educated, scientifically trained men who were, when all is said and done, useless in the ability to achieve their goals. Just as the Professor could never get the group off the island, Carson will likely never succeed in getting a single electoral vote.
"Maryann: Marco Rubio, the young, fresh-faced member of the group who doesn't really understand what's going on, but who bakes an infinite number of coconut pies trying to prove her worth to the group and attempting to earn a spot at the grown-up table.
"Ginger: Rand Paul, the diva-like ingenue who believes the world should rightly revolve around her. She clothes herself in the garb of a superstar, a title that is seemingly self-annointed. SHe contributes nothing on the island, and simply wanders around in inappropriate clothing thinking endlessly of the career she might have one day. While Ginger did an unending Marilyn Monroe impression, Paul is doing an unending Presidential impressions.
"Occasionally, Gilligan was shown with a little monkey pal he had befriended on the island. In this recasting, the monkey is played by Mike Huckabee, an avowed opponent to the theory of evolution just because of the irony."
MORE FROM ARTHUR:
ReplyDelete"With the size of the Republican field, you could add some of the visitors to the island. At least some of the ones that made multiple appearances -- Wrongway Feldman, the Mad Doctor. Maybe Rand Paul for the Mad Doctor, since one of his plots was to rob all the gold in Fort K'Nox (as he pronounced it), and Paul wants to return to the gold standard. (Did anyone else visit the island more than once, other than various tribes of headhunters?)"
Rick Perry seems the obvious choice for Wrongway Feldman
DeleteMORE FROM ARTHUR:
ReplyDelete"Holy cow... I looked up visitors to the island -- I *never* knew the Mad Doctor and the Japanese sailor were played by the same actor!"
From Vincent Mariani...
ReplyDelete"Christie's the obvious choice for Skipper, but three outside-the-box, but perfect castings, are RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as Gilligan, and Mitt and Ann Romney as the Howells. I know...they're not candidates, but c'mon."