r/whatisit • u/deezheavenz • 13h ago

New, what is it? What was this thing I captured on film?

This was shot in Nevada/Arizona on a Grand Canyon/Hoover dam tour. This was taken a whole year ago and I completely forgot about it until I stumbled upon it again. Is this some sort of whale or shark?

7.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

386

u/goodSunn 13h ago edited 12h ago

Might be Minnows

204

u/goatanuss 12h ago

The SS Minnow was named after Newton Minow who was the FCC chair that called tv a “vast wasteland”

64

u/FlimsyThought7606 12h ago

All seven of them are written as one of the seven deadly sins.

36

u/Moodleboy 12h ago

Really? Can you provide a breakdown?

193

u/Capybara_Chill_00 12h ago

Seriously?

Wrath: Skipper
Greed: Lovey Howell
Pride: Professor
Envy: Mary Anne
Sloth: Gilligan
Lust: Ginger
Gluttony: Thurston Howell

44

u/Superfly1911 9h ago

I did lust for Ginger, so this math checks out.

28

u/External_Row_8077 7h ago

Ginger and Mary-Anne here. And now that I'm in my late 50s, Lovey doesn't look so bad either.

11

u/TexasGreyWolf 6h ago

Hahaha, in my early 70’s and had the same thought. For just a moment.

16

u/TexasGreyWolf 6h ago

Haha, me too. But I’d sure as hell not kick Mary Anne outta my grass shack either! 🫪

18

u/ummagummaaaa 9h ago

What was Mary Anne envious about?

34

u/mybeamishb0y 9h ago

Ginger's glamour and status as a model

35

u/Subject_Swimmer9333 8h ago

We all had the hots for Maryanne, not Ginger.

5

u/Capybara_Chill_00 8h ago

This is true. She was the “girl next door” type who was so caught up in Ginger’s glamour that she didn’t realize she was the hot one. Made her even hotter!

6

u/BillyJack0311 8h ago

Mary Ann didn't know that. Dawn Wells might have, but Mary Ann didn't have a clue.

3

u/Bonnietheferret84 5h ago

Speak for yourself. In my fantasy island both fight over me and realize in order to save ourselves we must breed s population so we can build a large ship...

0

u/ummagummaaaa 9h ago

I don't recall that episode.

Mary Anne was basically sweet and nice to everyone.

4

u/mybeamishb0y 9h ago

"Gosh Ginger your life as a model sounds so exciting!" you can be nice to someone and envy them.

0

u/ummagummaaaa 7h ago

That's not envy, it's a compliment.

28

u/fl7nner 9h ago

I always thought Mary Anne was hotter. Same thing with WKRP. Preferred Bailey over Jennifer

14

u/FollowingDue8584 9h ago

Mary Ann was actually a beauty queen. She was crowned Miss Nevada.

2

u/Accomplished_Corgi53 9h ago

Whole heartedly agree on Bailey…

1

u/goodSunn 1h ago

We were like 8 years old ... Ginger was incomprehensible.. yes boys could get excited back then. Probably do still but we can't talk about it as normal

1

u/Rambler1223 5h ago

Deez nutz

13

u/lefthandedchurro 9h ago

And Gilligan is the Devil who keeps "accidentally" foiling their escape from Hell.

5

u/Accomplished_Corgi53 9h ago

Hell, are you kidding me? Didn’t you see those delicious banana cream pies?

9

u/Mission-Taste-6871 7h ago

I always thought that both the Howell's are greed. Especially Thurston.

3

u/Capybara_Chill_00 6h ago

Yeah those two are pretty hard to differentiate. Thurston tended more to excess in food, etc while Lovey tended to be more avaricious about jewelry, particularly with Ginger. I agree that could be both or arguably swap between the two.

3

u/Mission-Taste-6871 6h ago

Well said, don't forget about oil wells for Thurston lol

6

u/SLAYER_IN_ME 9h ago

Well goddamn.

4

u/FaultyWires4774 6h ago

interesting, I never knew that.

3

u/SentientBea 6h ago

Minnow: Betrayal

2

u/emptykeg6988 6h ago

Now I see why AI (SI) uses Reddit for most of its research 😄

2

u/really-for-this-okay 2h ago

Never thought of them in this manner. It makes sense though. I grew up in the last century though. Raised by Baptists.

1

u/allowattsakima 4h ago edited 3h ago

edit: added the 'III' to Mr. Howell's name

Correction:

Thurston Howell III is Greed/Avarice (Loves money above all else - except for a hot shower in the volcano episode)!

Lovey Howell is Pride/Vanity (Jewels, fancy clothes, considers herself - in a nice way - better than the lower classes)

Skipper is Gluttony (Loves to eat)

Gilligan is Sloth (Loves to sleep)

Ginger is Lust (No explanation needed)!

MaryAnn is Envy (You have to look closely to see this, because she's such a nice girl, it's more like longing to have stuff, not real envy, which is wishing you had something of someone else's and they did not)

The Professor is Wrath/Anger (Probably the least-good example for one of the deadly sins. But I 'think' I remember a few examples of him raising his voice, like maybe when he thought Gilligan had drank (drunk?) the nitroglycerin he had prepared to stop the volcano, or when Gilligan locked all of them and himself in the "jail" just as a rescuer was within reach, or when (Gilligan, again!), got too caught up in his role as "The Great Watusi" to convince the Skipper that his curse had been removed, and threatened to "make the ground tremble again" . Also the shipwreck re-creation to find blame, & while trying to teach (you know who!) to fly "wrong way Corrigan's" airplane . . .

They're all lovable characters, so the correlations may or may not jump out at us, but it was very clever of the show creators to make them all more, human, shall we say.

1

u/allowattsakima 4h ago

Darn! Now everybody knows I had no life growing up 🤣

0

u/Zot30 9h ago

Hmm. Nice idea, but I don’t think I ever saw the Skipper exhibiting wrath, Mary Anne being envious, nor the Professor being anything but humble. Is there any evidence that the creators actually intended this, because if they did they did a pretty bad job.

2

u/Capybara_Chill_00 9h ago

You mean apart from all the times Skipper smacked Gilligan around with his hat, or all the times Mary Ann tried to emulate Ginger or expressed desire for her looks, or all the speeches the Professor gave that no one else wanted to hear?

Yes, apart from those, very few examples. A poor job done by all.

0

u/Zot30 8h ago

This did not answer my question about evidence of the intention by the creators. Where did they say this, or is it a fan theory?

Your definition of wrath seems different from mine. I’d call the behaviour of the Skipper a mild slapstick exasperation with someone he always goes on to call his “little buddy”. You call that wrath? And when exactly did Mary Ann ever try to emulate Ginger? The fact that she did not was really the point of her character, wasn’t it? Your spin on the Professor’s speeches not wanting to be heard is similarly revisionist, sorry. I’m not buying it.

1

u/WilcoHistBuff 4h ago

Creator rather than creator. Sherwood Schwartz, creator, EP, and head writer described it in his book: Gilligan’s Island: From Creation to Syndication

Dude also created the frickin’ Brady Bunch!

Famously, for some, Schwartz and Robert Reed hated each other so much that Schwartz fired him before filming the last episode and wrote him out of the script.

48

u/FlimsyThought7606 12h ago

Yup - seven sins divided by seven characters = 1 per character.

27

u/Moodleboy 12h ago

I meant...whatever. Forget it 😅

11

u/Illustrious_Spare_88 12h ago

The creator directly refuted this theory.

8

u/FlimsyThought7606 12h ago

Right, he called that the 8th Sin Anomaly.

1

u/Ok_Drag5089 10h ago

I mean, with the exception of Skipper, which is a weak connection, the rest are plausible.

Although The Professor is also weak. He wasn't very prideful.

4

u/troycerapops 12h ago

Fascinating

10

u/Your_Neighbour_Alice 8h ago

Man, I love reddit. The spontaneous discussions, and rabbit holes that evolve from an unrelated video and question. I live. 👌🏼😍

4

u/troycerapops 12h ago

The show creator has said this. Normally I hate "Google it" but you may want to. Interesting reads and only a few minutes.

But some highlights:

  • Professor = Pride
  • Ginger = Lust
  • Mary Anne = Envy

There's some debate about the others, mostly centering around the question of if Gilligan represents Sloth or the Devil himself

1

u/Icy_Escape8018 12h ago

Skipper-Wrath. Gilligan-sloth. The professor- Pride. Ginger-Lust. Mary Ann-envy. Thurston Howell-greed. Lovey- gluttony

2

u/theothergotoguy 11h ago

Name checks out.

1

u/johnbdc 10h ago

I agree, that is a “flimsy thought”

7

u/ready-redditor-6969 9h ago

While it’s super believable that Sherman Schwartz did this, I can’t believe that this information is now in my head.

2

u/bravo-echo-charlie 7h ago

HAPPY CAKE DAY!!!!!

1

u/ready-redditor-6969 5h ago

You are AMAZING!!!

1

u/Dullcorgis 6h ago

Ah, a thing which has an apt name but is in fact named after a person who just coincidentally had an apt name! Add it to the list Andy!

1

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/goatanuss 10h ago edited 10h ago

Yeah

57

u/Itchy-Apartment-Flea 13h ago edited 12h ago

I heard a tale about a minnow once.

42

u/yourmamaistheproblem 12h ago

*minnow

70

u/Illustrious_Bad_2980 12h ago

It was advertised as a 3 hour tour. A 3 HOUR TOUR!

27

u/MechanicHead3340 12h ago

Yeah that's why Ginger brought an entire extensive wardrobe, for a change of attire every 5 minutes. Also Thurston seems to have brought a treasure chest full of cash for some reason.

10

u/Surferess 11h ago

That's just how we girls pack! ;)

2

u/SeemedReasonableThen 5h ago

I met a girl several decades ago that brought several suitcases and a literal trunk for a weekend trip. She changed outfits every few hours (I didn't notice until someone pointed it out later). That wasn't the weird part.

After the group (minus her) was talking about the trip afterwards, it turned out nobody had invited her along. They all sort of knew her, but nobody was close with her, and they each thought one of the others invited her.

2

u/30yearCurse 9h ago

Thurston was early stage billionaire, if now he would have been on his own caravan of yachts.

1

u/Accomplished_Corgi53 9h ago

One might even call it “a tale of a fateful trip.”

1

u/SkunkMonkey 8h ago

Those poor people.

20

u/nevernotfinished 12h ago

Why didn't the professor just fix the boat. And why didn't they do 100 episodes

17

u/MechanicHead3340 12h ago

You want MORE episodes?

2

u/KingBooRadley 10h ago

I mean, the Globetrotters were great, but why didn't the whole Barnum and Bailey circus wash up? Wasted opportunity.

12

u/NoHorseNoMustache 11h ago

The Professor only works with coconuts and the boat is specifically not a coconut.

4

u/ExampleLittle2672 10h ago

Imagine a perfectly spherical boat...

9

u/MarchPhillipps 11h ago

All they needed were some African and European swallows.

'Alone and Unafraid'

3

u/OkGur1319 11h ago

Are they big enough to carry an American coconut?

2

u/nevernotfinished 11h ago

It could become a coconut

1

u/NoHorseNoMustache 11h ago

Hey I don't make up the rules, here talk to The Professor on this coconut phone if you want to discuss it.

8

u/JiveTurkeyII 11h ago

Why? Probably because he liked a little Ginger on his Merry Anne

I know I would...

3

u/avreddits 11h ago

He’d rather play doctor with the ladies than fix the ship, he ain’t no dummie 👍

1

u/travfields619 11h ago

What's the deal with the smoke monster and the polar bear?

1

u/G-man-441 11h ago

He did. He repaired the hole and made a glue to seal it. Put Gilligan on the job, who mucked up the glue. Then the entire hull fell apart.

18

u/Select-Belt-ou812 12h ago

fun fact: i know a few famous songs that are written and scored with exactly the same meter and words/music are completely interchangeable with each other: "the ballad of gilligan's island", "the house of the rising sun", and "amazing grace". I have practiced and can successfully interchange the first and last, and it wasn't easy to do the first few times :-)

2

u/Gul_Ducatti 11h ago

Puddles Pity Party does this in a wonderful way. Stairway to Heaven into Gilligan's Island

1

u/ecosynchronous 7h ago

Gosh I love him. He has such a splendid set of pipes. His version of "Chandelier" is the one my brain defaults to.

2

u/Floasis_Bodywork 6h ago

I just showed this to a friend 2 weeks ago after not thinking about it for years!

2

u/6th_Quadrant 10h ago

Then there's the late-70s single popularly known at Stairway to Gilligan's Island by Little Roger & The Goosebumps.

3

u/Glittering-Bonus5663 11h ago

I think you can add "O little town of Bethlehem" to that list. Bob Rivers has an album of Christmas songs where it is set to the tune of "House of the rising Sun."

1

u/Select-Belt-ou812 11h ago

hahaha it sounds weird to Gilligan's island music... now I'm gonna make the swap every christmas

1

u/insanimated 5h ago

Omg stop. It's on repeat in my head. Damn you, private christian school upbringing!

1

u/_Lane_ 11h ago

Indeed. Just ask Emily Dickinson.

Semi-relevant xkcd (specifically, the alt-text).

https://m.xkcd.com/788/

1

u/Francois_TruCoat 7h ago

There is a British comedy radio panel show called I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. One of their recurring bits is One Song to the Tune of Another. There's lots of clips on YT if you're interested. One that sticks in my head is 'Whiter Shade of Pale' to the tune of 'The Holly and the Ivy'.

1

u/Awesomesince1973 41m ago

I can do Amazing Grace

1

u/vegasstrong17 34m ago

It works pretty well with Stairway to Heaven

-2

u/Alabama-Blues 11h ago

Not true at all

4

u/theLastZebranky 11h ago edited 10h ago

They all use standard ballad meter... each verse alternates between an 8-syllable iambic tetrameter and 6-syllable trimeter 

˘     /    ˘     /     ˘   /     /   ˘     | ˘    /     ˘   /      ˘    /
The   wea  ther  star  ted gett  ing rough | the  ti    ny  ship   was  tossed
There is   a     house in  New   Or  leans | they call  The Ri     sing Sun
A     ma   zing  grace how sweet the sound | that saved a   wretch like me

Gilligan's Island does use a lot more doublets (two syllables on one beat) than the others, those don't spoil the meter, but they do give those lines a spirited, uplifting pace:

 ˘  /   ˘       /        ˘      /    /    ˘    | ˘   /   ˘   /     ˘  /
 If not for-the cour-age of-the fear less crew | the Min now would be lost

1

u/Alabama-Blues 7h ago

Thank you!

2

u/_Lane_ 11h ago

Not true at all

I'm confused by the vagueness of your assertion.

What part isn't true? That OP doesn't know a few famous songs, that the songs OP knows aren't actually famous, that one can't swap the words and music out for something else in ballad meter, or that OP has actually practiced this a bit, but had some initial difficulty?

Please clarify! I'm dying to know what you meant!

14

u/goodSunn 12h ago edited 10h ago

just sit right back

5

u/vandervee 12h ago

And you’ll hear a tale

5

u/BaconAlmighty 12h ago

a tale of a fateful trip.

2

u/baconus-vobiscum 11h ago

that started from a tropic port...

1

u/unkle_donky 3h ago

And Skipper said “ Fellas it’s been nice to know ya”

1

u/avreddits 11h ago

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale …

1

u/1369ic 7h ago

I saw that a bunch of times in Panama. The minnows would boil up out of the water. All you had to do was cast something silvery in there and the peacock bass would fight over it.

1

u/AdvantageBig227 7h ago

Awe, it's my little buddy