UVA professor and Weekly Standard contributor Paul A. Cantor recently reflected on the passing of TV legend Sherwood Schwartz, who died last week at age 94. Writing in the Washington Post, Cantor shares his correspondence with the creator of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch. (Cantor, who wrote Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, says, in part, that the island sitcom “reflected the political confidence of 1960s America in the midst of the Cold War.”)

“Gilligan is the perfect democratic hero because he has no claims to superiority,” Cantor writes in the Post. “The Professor has wisdom; the Millionaire has money and social status; the Skipper has a kind of military authority as captain. Gilligan is the pure common man. And, of course, the only time the castaways hold an election, he is chosen as president. Throughout the series, Gilligan represents the triumph of the ordinary over the extraordinary.”