Pat Reeder, Staff writer

I am beyond sad to have to report that Dawn Wells (Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island”) has died at 82 of causes related to COVID-19.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dawn-wells-dead-mary-ann-gilligans-island-was-82-1149549

The first crush of a generation of ‘60s-era boys and one half of the eternal “Mary Ann or Ginger” conundrum, Dawn Wells’ TV image as a sweetly sexy, sunny, optimistic, fresh-faced girl next door was no act. She said she built the character, and the core of Mary Ann was her and her values. Although her parents divorced when she was four, she insisted she did not grow up in a broken home, writing in her book, “What Would Mary Ann Do? A Guide For Life,” “I was raised by a very good mother and a great dad.”

She recalled that in middle school, she was chubby with severe acne, braces and bad knees from ballet lessons, but she was popular, proving that "the bell of the ball doesn't have to be a belle." Still, she blossomed into quite a belle, becoming Miss Nevada 1959 and competing for Miss America. Aside from “Gilligan,” she appeared in many TV shows, movies and plays. Later in life, she was active in a number of charities, including education for film students, helping the disabled, saving elephants and making clothes for the elderly.

Even though she tried to de-wholesome her image a little by doing “The Owl and the Pussycat” on stage after “Gilligan” ended, she never escaped that island, nor did she want to, returning for reunions, staying friends with her castmates and expressing gratitude to fans who never lost their love for her. When she fell in 2018 and word got out that she couldn’t pay her hospital bill, she was flabbergasted when a GoFundMe page raised $190,000 for her in one month.

Her late co-star Russell “The Professor” Johnson once noted that “Gilligan’s Island” was savaged by critics during the hip and turbulent ‘60s, but decades later, it’s still running everywhere in the world, and new families are watching it together and laughing at its clean humor. Even some of the critics later admitted to him that they’d watched it again and decided it really wasn’t that bad after all.

But how could any show be bad when it had Mary Ann and Ginger? (I’m glad to report that Tina Louise is still with us, although she is now the last surviving “Gilligan” cast member.) In fact, maybe what TV needs is more characters like Mary Ann Summers (yes, she had a last name.) Dawn Wells agreed.

In 2008, she told the Television Academy Foundation, "There hasn't been a Mary Ann on the air for I don't know how long. There hasn't been a good girl over 14, and Mary Ann was very much that…The Mary Ann-Ginger issue is always there. You had to be a real man to understand Ginger, and Mary Ann would've gone to the prom with you and been your best friend. A lot of guys would come up to me and say, 'I married a Mary Ann.' She had the values."

A good lesson for today’s TV sitcom producers. We are all sad to lose Dawn Wells, but Mary Ann will live on in reruns forever as the first crush of generations of boys still to come.

By "Huckabee" pop culture guru Pat Reeder (http://www.facebook.com/hollywoodhifibook)

Mike Huckabee

Our report on Jovan Pulitzer’s testimony about hacking into voting machines and being able to recognize ballot fraud brought in a ton of reader responses, most expressing some combination of outrage, frustration and dismay. Here are just a few that made specific points:

From Michael:

If there's nothing to hide, then why so much resistance? If I thought I won legitimately, I would be the first to say: check under the hood boys, kick the tires, take her for a test run, you'll find nothing wrong with her!

From Kelley:

Our family really enjoys your articles and TV programs! Thank you!

I hadn't heard of Jovan Pulitzer until in your article on 31 Dec. Why hasn't he been involved from the beginning, when the frauds of this election first were testified? Where has this guy been?!!

From Jan:

Good article. Thank you. And not at all surprising this could be done, if one stops to think about it and be honest with themselves. I truly don't know why so many choose to be deceived. After everything we have seen, it is willing blindness. I am sick of trying to convince people. It isn't simply the man the left loves to hate that is being deprived of due process. It is 75 million Americans. I am one, and I am taking it personally.

From Akujobi:

Quite revealing; I never had the election report in quite a simple and interesting way like this.

From Lincoln:

President Trump won and we need transparency. My brother fought 20 years for my freedom. My uncles gave their lives for my freedom. America deserves the Truth!!!

From Irene (who says 2020 wasn’t the first time):

Like it or not, believe it or not, there was fraud in the 2016 election. I have photos of my ballot, and after I hit straight Republican ticket and then reviewed, it came up with Hillary checked in the President space and Eugene De Pasqualle in auditor general and he was also a Democrat. My machine had to be reset 3 times before it showed straight Republican. I do have photos to prove what happened. I believe that was their first attempt.

From Kathy:

Pulitzer’s testimony was fascinating, and I applaud him for coming forward. Why didn’t they just give him the ballots then? They are hiding something, obviously. I would encourage all to watch the testimony in Georgia. All the witnesses are worth hearing.

From David:

I'm an IT professional. I fabricated bar code labels once for backup tape cartridges. I read all the specs on the bar coding, as well as the size of the barcode. I also noted that the paper was a factor, too. The issue is related to the reflection of the laser off the white paper. If the shade of paper is off, or it's got a shiny finish instead of a matte finish, that messes it up. Dominion would know this. To mess with ballots, producing out-of-spec paper ballots to send to Republican-dominated districts, is a sophisticated level of dirty trickery, indeed.

From Daniel:

...Blocking thorough investigation, whether or not elections were rigged, tell us the Republic is already lost in [a] media conglomerate-controlled state of disunion. I'm ready for a Constitutional Convention.

From David:

I am quite a bit on the mistrusting side of things these days as a result of all the shenanigans that have gone on. I am gonna bet that this guy will prove his point and it will be buried or claimed to be in error. That is, of course, if they actually let him look at a good cross section of ballots.

From Pamela:

This man’s credibility is astounding if you just look at his background! He’s able to detect a problem within seconds. I am a former Democrat; voter fraud without a doubt occurred!

From Nola:

I listened to the hearings last Wed. and if anyone can sit there and deny the FRAUD, they are ANTI-America! My concern is that they are getting rid of the fraudulent ballots or hand picking what they want examined!

From Paul:

They're not going to give you the ballots that they cheated with; they’ve been hiding the rigged ballots since November 3rd..

From Rhonda:

Only problem is that the very next night, they were caught moving pallets of ballots out and taken to a shredding company...someone caught them, so hopefully it's all documented and justice is served.

NOTE to Rhonda and others who wrote about the shredding of fake ballots: Yes, Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, reports that thanks to a tip, he was able to document the transport and shredding of fraudulent ballots in Georgia. He even has a map showing where the trucks allegedly went. He says this was done the very night of Wednesday’s meeting of the Georgia senate subcommittee on election fraud, which had recommended unanimously that Jovan Pulitzer be given ballots to examine. Here is that story in a commentary at THE SPECTATOR.

Byrne says he got samples of the ballots before the shredding, which he describes as military-grade shredding that turns paper not into strips but into tiny “spitballs.” On New Year's Day, he tweeted pictures of piles of boxes that he says are fake ballots, the labels on the boxes, and tall stacks of the ballots themselves. (Of course, the helpful folks at Twitter took it upon themselves to add the disclaimer [in red], “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”)

We are checking this out thoroughly and will have a detailed report for you no later than Monday.