The S. S. Minnow is a fictional charter boat on the hit 1960s television sitcom Gilligan's Island. The ship ran aground on the shore of "an uncharted desert isle" in the south Pacific Ocean, setting the stage for this popular situation comedy. The crew of two were the skipper Jonas Grumby and his first mate Willy Gilligan, and the five passengers were millionaire Thurston Howell III, his wife Lovey Howell, movie star Ginger Grant, professor Roy Hinkley, and farm girl Mary Ann Summers. The shipwreck was first seen in the season 1 episode "Two on a Raft", which begins with the crew and passengers awaking on the ship. Several times in the course of the series they plan ways to repair the Minnow to get off the island. In the episode "Goodbye Island", Gilligan discovered glue that was believed to be waterproof and permanent. However, it was later revealed that the glue was temporary and before they could push the repaired ship out to sea, the entire vessel literally fell to pieces. There are many other references to the ship in the rest of the series, such as in the episode "Court-Martial", where an investigation was launched into the Minnow's disappearance, which at first determined that the Skipper was responsible, then later concluding that the Skipper wasn't aware that a storm was coming. It is also revealed in this episode that the reason for the Minnow'''s wreck was that Gilligan threw its anchor overboard without a rope attached to it. Origin of its name A minnow is a very small bait fish, but the TV boat was actually named for Newton Minow,Associated Press, "Nostalgic Ride", Express (Washington, D.C.), Sep. 16, 2008, p. 21. who Gilligan's Island executive producer Sherwood Schwartz believed "ruined television". Minow was chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1961, and is noted for a speech in which he called American television "a vast wasteland". The ship prefix S. S. is used for ships that are powered by steam. However, the show's writers did not follow this convention and in some instances depicted it having spark plugs or being diesel-powered. S. S. Minnow II The S. S. Minnow II was a successor boat purchased by the Skipper from insurance money for the first in the 1978 made-for-TV movie Rescue from Gilligan's Island. At the end of that movie, the cast and boat are wrecked on