A little escape with Gilligan

Sep. 17—I've been back in touch with Skipper and his Little Buddy lately.

For some reason "Gilligan's Island" came up, and my wife and I decided it would be fun to watch the episodes that ran in the mid-1960s when we were kids.

When you were a kid back then, the choices of what to watch in the evening or on the weekend was pretty much dictated to you. Now kids go through endless lists of shows and movies on streaming services, but with only three networks broadcasting in the '60s, you had three choices of what to watch at any given time.

The shows you tuned into at that young age made an indelible impression, whether it was "Hogan's Heroes," "Ironside," "Brady Bunch," "The Saint," "Addams Family," "The Man from Uncle," "Green Acres," "Get Smart," "I Dream of Jeannie" or "Bewitched." And, of course, there was the main event of the week, "The Wonderful World of Disney" and its movies that aired Sunday evenings.

The streaming services let you find most of those old shows and movies. But I found you will probably have to pay a little extra for them.

Netflix, where everything they offer is free with their subscription, doesn't carry most of those titles. But Amazon Prime video, where you get a lot of content for free with your subscription and others you rent or buy, has most of the old titles — for a rental or purchase fee.

Amazon excels at monetizing everything it does and they know that baby boomers, who have a nostalgia hankering and more disposable income than others, will pay a few bucks to watch the old shows they grew up on.

Like many of the shows at the time, "Gilligan's Island" is on the surface a goofy, mindless escape. But like many shows of the era, they had a little deeper meaning. Producer Sherwood Schwartz, who came up with Gilligan and a variety of other shows, helped introduce Americans to rather radical issues by couching them in humor.

When he came up with the idea for "The Brady Bunch," it almost never got made because a blended family hadn't ever been portrayed on TV. Schwartz said in an interview that he'd read a newspaper story in 1966 that noted 30% of marriages involved children from previous relationships, but TV shows only featured shows with happily married couples and single widows and widowers.

"Gilligan's Island," too, had a little deeper meaning than the goofy pratfalls and bumbling characters. Schwartz said he aimed to explore the complexity of seven people from very different backgrounds forced together on an island and learning to survive as a team.

Watching old shows, especially movies, is popular with people of all ages, according to recent studies.

After watching the frenetic pace, violence and multiple plot twists and constant action of current movies, an old movie that delves deeper into conversation and story development is a satisfying alternative.

The colors of old movies, particularly westerns, are also unique with their earthy hues of browns, golds, blues and greens — a Southwest desert pallet.

Even if you have to contribute a little to Amazon's fortune, taking a nostalgic break to watch a little "Gilligan's Island" or "The Wild Bunch" is time well spent.

Tim Krohn can be contacted at tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com or 507-720-1300.