Engineering News, September 5, 2005

September 5, 2005 Vol. 77, no. 2F

SMARTEST CASTAWAY: Alum and Duke professor Andy Schuler starred in the reality show “The Real Gilligan’s Island” this summer. He played, what else, the professor! (Photo Credit: Andy Schuler)

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale . . . a tale of a professor

Hey there little buddy. If you could play a character on “Gilligan’s Island,” who would you be? The Skipper? Ginger? For Andy Schuler (Ph.D.’98 CEE), an assistant professor of civil engineering at Duke University, it was the professor, of course. After a fortuitous phone call, he found himself in TBS’s reality show “The Real Gilligan’s Island” on an “uncharted” island off Mexico. He was cast as none other than the professor, played by actor Russell Johnson in the original series which ran from 1964-1967.

“The professor really was one of my heroes growing up, and how many people get the chance to walk in their hero’s shoes, particularly when that hero was on a cheesy sixties sitcom?” says Schuler.

Schuler says his journey from engineering professor to TV professor and back again was “a fun, but surreal experience.” It all started last summer when he read an email about the show’s call for auditions. “It sounded interesting and I was curious, so I responded within a few minutes,” he recalls. “I thought it would be a fun and different thing to do.” He called the phone number and was encouraged to send in digital photos and a video. “They liked what they saw and heard so they flew me out to L.A. for a screen test.” The next thing he knew, he had a plane ticket to Mexico and 10 days off work for the filming.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he says. “I thought we might be shipwrecked and have to build huts and trap animals so I brushed up on my survival skills. But when we got there, they’d built a whole set just like Gilligan’s Island.”

On the reality show, two complete sets of castaways — two real-life skippers, first mates, millionaire couples, movie stars, farm girls, and professors — competed as teams, then individually, to be the only castaway left on the island and the winner of a quarter million dollars.

Schuler didn’t win — he lost in a catapult game, but he says he was in it mostly for the experience. During his run, Schuler found himself in a love triangle (one of the Gilligans liked one of the Mary Anns, who liked him), and he became good friends with Gilligan Zach, one of his teammates. They hung out on the beach together and made traps to catch fish. “It was a blast,” he says.

It was also strange. “We were all in costume walking around the set trying to act normal, but there are movie crews, cameramen, and sound guys everywhere. You have a conversation with someone, but you’re miked so it’s all recorded. It was big brother watching you every moment. The whole reality thing is a mix of real moments and edited moments. I was pretty happy with how I was portrayed on it. At the end of the day, it is a business.”

Schuler is now back on the job. He says his students and colleagues teased him a little when he got back, though most were interested in his experience. But Schuler says his flirtation with TV is probably over. “I don’t have an agent and am not planning to try out for anything else,” he says. “Being a [real] professor is one of the greatest jobs in the world.”

See photos of Schuler on the show at www.tbs.com/shows/therealgilligansisland/.

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