"Welcome to a special edition of Junkyard Wars, where our usual challenge to engineers to build awesome machines out of everyday scrap will be going just a little further. Today, we're on an uncharted desert isle in the Pacific for a one-on-one showdown. Our two contestants will be racing to build a matter-transporter device out of nothing but indigenous materials - and the one who finishes last gets left on the island. Permanently."

"On the Red Team this week is Commander Montgomery Scott, who likes to go by 'Scotty'. His practical experience on the starship Enterprise is sure to come in handy building a transporter, even if working with coconuts and bamboo isn't what he's used to."

"Facing him on the White Team is Professor Roy Hinkley, who goes by 'The Professor'. He has the home-field advantage here, since he's been marooned on this island for quite a while now. He's a whiz with natural materials, but post-quantum engineering may be a stretch for him."

"It's almost match time, and the tension is building, ha ha." A pair of flung coconuts knocks the host cold, and the contestants get to work.

So Shane, which of these two talented tinkerers teleports to triumph?

SHANE: It's not a matter of what's getting assembled, but who's getting disassembled. Scotty will have the Professor in pieces before the first commercial break.

Scotty is the chief engineer of the most complex and powerful amalgamation of equipment of the 23rd century, and keeps it running perfectly despite weekly perils infinitely greater than tropical storms or the occasional headhunter. Aliens attack, computers go berserk, William Shatner's toupee comes loose, but Scotty holds it all together. Sure, he complains all the while that he can't hold it much longer, the engines weren't built to take the strain, that she's gonna blow, but we all know that's just to raise the dramatic tension. By the closing credits, everything's under control, and he's on the Bridge having a laugh with Kirk and Bones at Spock's expense.

Okay, he's using primitive parts, but his opponent's using primitive science. The Professor's pretty clever, in a community-college sort of way, but Scotty knows everything he does, plus three hundred more years worth of technological and theoretical advances. That's like a two-masted wooden frigate fighting a nuclear aircraft carrier. The only suspense is whether the frigate will ever see the F-18s coming before it's turned into sawdust.

And even if his engineering skills were in doubt (and they aren't), the show's producers would be cheating like mad in his favor. He's a great character, lovably irascible, with an accent the whole family can enjoy imitating. They'll want him to advance to the next round to face MacGyver. The Professor's just one cog in an ensemble, one they didn't even mention in the theme song for the first season. Reality TV can't subsist on dull characters, but they won't have to.

For once, Scotty beams himself up.

STEVE: Shane, I'm surprised on your take on this match. Have you been brainwashed by Trekkies while attending conventions? Have they slipped you a little something under the table? Or does your cable company only carry The SciFi Channel and not TV Land?

First, I think it's important to educate you a little on the Professor, whom you've completely "misunderestimated". Professor Roy Hinkley had six college degrees by the time he was 25. He is a workaholic, and an uber-geek. He only went on the infamous three-hour tour to work on a book about ferns, not for rest & relaxation. The professor is so diligent and single-minded of purpose that he's stranded on an island with a movie star and doesn't even seem to notice. This is a man who gets things done.

Sure, Scotty is certainly your man when surrounded by transtators, communicators, and phasers which do all the work for him. But put him on a remote island and he might as well be Mr. Howell. He'd just end up staring blankly at a pile of coconuts wondering where he can find some antimatter and a pair of dilithium crystals. Meanwhile, the cannibals in the bushes behind him are sizing up a nice meal.

On the other hand, the Professor combines a sure knowledge of the fundamentals along with the ability to grasp new ideas and end up with a working product. He's done it time and time again: lie detectors, a Geiger counter, jet-pack fuel, radiation suits, generators, and a telegraph. All from coconuts and bamboo. This guy knows how to make do with the materials at hand. And transporter technology? After a small dose of keptibora berry extract, Scotty will be blabbing the secret technical details like Geraldo blabbing secrets in Iraq. Then it's just a matter of time (half an hour at most).

Really, the only real challenge the Professor has in winning this match is keeping Gilligan away until he's finished.

SHANE: In other words, he's doomed. We both know Gilligan is good for one thing: ruining his fellow castaways' attempts to leave the island. We also know that the many, many visitors this island had over the years never had any trouble getting off within thirty minutes. The conclusion is so obvious, Steve, and you blundered into it so easily, it's no wonder Brian kept you around all these years. Easy wins for him.

And where do you get all this obscure and suspect information about the Professor? Studying ferns from a boat chugging along half a mile from shore? Not the scientific method I learned. Even if this dubious stuff is true, knowing it betrays a bizarre obsessiveness that is supposedly the exclusive hallmark of Star Trek fans. We've finally found someone worthy to break the Star Trek must lose jinx, and about time. Thanks for volunteering.

Anyway, Scotty can produce his own victory. For experience with primitive objects, recall his effortless facility with an ancient 1980s Macintosh in Star Trek IV. (Yes, he tried to use the mouse as a voice interface, but that was obligatory in a comedy.) For craftiness, remember the tribbles he beamed into the Klingons' engine room. For pure engineering genius ... well, he's Scottish! They breed engineers faster than sheep there. And keep that filthy-minded wisecrack to yourself.

And Scotty won't have the least respect for his opponent. What kind of mechanical whiz, stuck for years on a desert island, will use his skills to produce Geiger counters and radio batteries, and never build a decent still? Not Scotty, that's for sure. It'll be a point of pride to humiliate the Professor with a warp-speed win, and beam back to the Enterprise for a wee draught of single-malt. Or eight.

Scotty will raise a toast, while the Professor is just toast.

STEVE: Shane, I can see you're just not getting it. If he had troubles with a Macintosh, what's he going do with some sea shells and bananas? Scotty is so completely out of his element here that he'll wish he had just been transformed into a Styrofoam cube and crushed.

And since when have the Scots been "Engineering Geniuses"? I can't seem to recall a single great accomplishment by a Scottish engineer. German? Sure. Japanese? Sure. Dutch? Sure. American? Of course. But Scottish? They're good for bagpipes, golf, and sheep, but keep them away from high technology. The only famous Scotsman I can think of is Mel Gibson as William Wallace. The Braveheart Jihad™ be damned.

In the end, the Professor will have a transporter completely rigged up from bamboo, some space probe fragments, and a few spare parts from the radio. Gilligan will run the pedal-powered generator to operate the whole thing. Amidst a flurry of sparks, smoke, and Gilligan pedaling at 2x speed (for humor effect), the Professor will instantly find himself back in Hawaii. Scotty, seeing his utter failure, drinks himself into a coconut rum-induced coma.

Years later, after being rescued by the merciful Professor, Scotty eventually turns up again, a grizzled fat old man. He is occasionally seen as a bit actor in some cheesy remake movies, but he's never the same again.

The Results

Scotty (2396 - 66.9%)

bamboo-zles

The Professor (1188 - 33.1%)

Current Match | Related & Similar Matches
History Section | Tell a friend about this match

RESPONSE OF THE WEEK GRUDGIETM

This is, in the end, a matter of alcohol. Scotty is demostratably not on duty. As shown on "The Trouble with Tribbles", Scotty will attempt to get hammered. The Professor is also finally free of those vacuous idiots he's been stranded with for so long on a network show. He too, will want to get smashed.

So the first thing both contestants will make is a still to make whiskey. Scotty, being scottish, will make some fine single malt whiskey in the fine tradition of scotsmen everywhere. The Professor is, unfortunatly, an American and so can only produce that ghastly stuff that in other countries escapes being defined as antifreeze by being an odd colour. They share their results.

So after a 'bit of a wee dram' both get on to the actual task at hand. The Professor however spends most of this time trying to get at Scotty's remaining stash of fine single malt. Scotty, however, is no stranger to working 'under the influence' and so works up a transporter in jig time.

So Scotty goes back to the Enterprise and the Professor stays on the island and is eventually rescued by beautiful Amazons in need of a man to 'put up a few shelves'. So everyone is happy.

- dworkin

ROTW Silver Medal GrudgieTM

I love Scotty as much as any Trek-worshiping geek, but if the Enterprise is any sign of his technical skills, he's no engineer. Panels blowing up and taking out the bridge crew (apparently Scotty neglected to read up on this amazing invention called a surge protector), Intruder-Friendly computer systems that gladly let any bozo take over or threaten to blow up the ship, and the various malfunctions of the week - the thing's practically a death trap! And the transporter, dear God let's not get into THAT thing...

All things considered, I have a feeling the real reason the Enterprise didn't do a Hindenburg in space was Spock hanging around. Now SPOCK certainly would kick the Professor's butt; anybody who can rig up a device to view alternate futures with 1930s tech has got plenty of skill to win this one. But without him, I'm afraid Scotty is stuck whining that he "canna break t' laws of physics, Cap'n!", and really, what kind of attitude is that for somebody from a science fiction show?

- "Mad Dog" Mike

ROTW Bronze Medal GrudgieTM

A hard core military man armed with futuristic technology versus some lunatic living in a cave armed with a pile of rocks? Hmm... Haven't we already seen this match on CNN?

- SXS

Scotty is the only red shirt who ever survived. I think that alone warrants his win.

- Smooth Jimmy Apollo

(1) Scotty can't handle ancient technology without McCoy there to help him (Computer? Computer? Hel-lo Computer?). No bones about it. Scotty is helpless to create in this environment; he'll be off trying to talk to the radio.

(2) No matter what they do, no matter what the Professor invents, the Castaways can't leave the island (it's a kind of EntropicalTM Island with a built in feed-back loop).

(3) Gilligan always sees to it that entropy is satisfied.

Therefore, the Professor invents the transporter technology but Gilligan, I don't know, like trips on something and somehow Scotty ends up with the transporter device in his hands and is instantly transported off the island.

The bad news is that it transports Scotty onto the Voyager (AKA the Starship Minnow). Entropy must be satisfied . . .

- Dr. Stones

A victorious Scotty beams back aboard the Enterprise. The Professor sighs and goes back to the village. It's a throwaway episode for both Star Trek and Gilligan's Island, and everything returns to the status quo.

Scenario 2: The Professor wins.

The Professor beams back home, and decides not to report the rest of the crew's location to the Coast Guard, out of revenge for those years he had to babysit Gilligan and the Howells, and wasn't even allowed to THINK about touching Ginger. The Enterprise goes off without its beloved technician. A depressed Scotty decides to find a way to escape this island, with help from the locals. What happens as a result of this?

The Enterprise is rocked with fire from a Klingon Warbird. "Get... those shields to... full power... Replacement Technician Jonesy!" Kirk shouts. But Technician Jonesy, a lowly red-shirt, has tragically been impaled by a really sharp potato chip. Spock actually lets his Vulcan veneer slip and rolls his eyes as the Enterprise is destroyed... again.

"Golly, Mr. Scott, do you really think that this experiment of yours will help us all get home?" an enthusiastic Mary Anne asks.
"Aye, lassie." Scotty answers. "By creatin' a subductive current of magma beneath this island, we will shift the natural movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, and cause us to create a convergent zone with the nearest continent in a matter of days!"
Gilligan, to a torrent of canned laughter and wacky music, ambles onto the scene with a large red can. "If we're going on a trip, we'd better make this place look nice!" He says, and starts watering flowers. The wacky music increases in tempo as we see the can has "CAUTION: Airplane Fuel" written on it. The castaways start shouting at Gilligan, who, startled, drops the can into a convinient hole that leads to the heart of the volcano.
"No!" Scotty shouts. "She canna take anymore pressure!"
Skipper has just enough time to hit Gilligan with his hat one last time before the island explodes in a hail of lava and flame. Eerily, the canned laughter and comical music continue, looping forever...

So, one way everything returns to normal (BORING), and the other way both Star Trek and Gilligan's Island are destroyed (YAY). Go Professor!

- Oxymoron - The guy who writes my taglines was let out of his box to kick BIGMRG74.

So...

Although Scotty won't make any errors, the Professor is a fish-out-of- water when it comes to matter-teleportation technology. He gets a headstart by stealing Scotty's datapad and copying schematics from it. But what he doesn't know is what PART of those intricate detailed blueprints of the Enterprise are the transporters! The Professor inadvertently copies the schematics to the Enterprise's heavy ship-to-ship phaser batteries and creates a very powerful nadion cannon.

During a testing phase, the Professor stands in front of the fully- charged, coconut-shelled heavy phaser "transporter", activates it, and vaporizes the entire island and all on it. Star Trek loses, the red-shirt dies, a Scotsman dies a noble death in the line of duty at the hands of the ignorant, and that unholy thing that is Gilligan's Island is forever removed from the world of Grudge Match!

And there was much rejoicing! Yay!

- CrazyScotsman

I thought the readers would like to know this guy had a Pentagon .MIL address. Go figure. - Ed]

- 014, twice as good as 007

Truly, with the endorsement of the God-like being we mortals can only perceive as Weird Al, how can the Professor lose? It's Amish vs. Hippies all over again.

- Stretch Dude, Lover of Stuff What Ain't Around No More

- Bill McKay

- rjpeters70

- Wise Ass

- Travie Yak

- Emmy the Homicidal Maniac (You can call me Mmy!)

First, for those who underestimate his ability to work with futuristic or alien technology, remember that he was chosen by Exeter, and had to build an Interocitor to get chosen. Although proven to be useless for teleportation, it does show that Scotty isn't the only one here who knows science well beyond our current ken.

Second, let's consider this. Between the Skipper's "glandular problems" and Gilligan's addiction, if the Professor couldn't figure out a way to keep their sugar binges under control, the castaways would have turned to cannibalism after a day. But the island has coconuts (good for sweet flavors and very fatty oils), fruits, roots to be made into flour... in short, all the ingedients needed for making donuts. And Scotty obviously could never resist any kind of sweet. The Professor could simply wait for Scott to finish, whip out some fresh donuts, and Scotty would, in an eyeblink, try to beat Homer's land speed eating record.

With Scotty distracted, it would be a snap for the Professor to simply take his opponent's teleporter, and finally leave the island.

- 32_Footsteps, the Eve of Destruction

- Grudge-Pops™: Not for use by pregnant women

To try and prove you did, I was gonna come up with something so outstanding and amazingly funny that you couldn't help but read it. But then the thinking made my head hurt and I got kinda hungry...

So I concluded that if all else fails, Scotty could whip out his phaser, set it to kill and win reguardless........

- Maxx

[I thought I'd take this moment to make a comment. Yes, we do actually read all of the responses. But the Iron Fist (tm) hates two things above all others: (A) Unfunniness and (B) Repetition. For those of you wondering, the phrases "couldn't fix a hole in a boat" and "Star Trek Must Lose" automatically put you into category (B). This response actually falls into category (A), but since we were being called out, this was a perfect opportunity for this note. -Ed]

No shit.

Professor wins.

- Mr. Floppy - but, when it came down to it, why did they always have the power?

- Mr. Keyboard

I woulden't trust Scotty to fix my calculator, let alone expect him to build a transporter out of coconuts.

- LukeB

- Albatross

- -The Mattly One

One was an educatin' man
One's from outer space
Together they would battle here
A transporter race
A transporter race

The weather, it was really nice
The beach was really great
If not for a vicious battle at hand
We'd celebrate Spring Break
We'd celebrate Spring Break

This match takes place on the shore of this uncharted desert isle,
An Engineer, (that "Scotty" dude)
The Professor, (Dressed in white)
With (T-M) Steve,
With Mr. T and Call Me Shane
Here on Junkyard Wars

...

So this is the tale of our combatants here
They'll think for a long, long time
Trying to make that transport thing
From bamboo and some vines

Professor and that Scotty guy
Will do their very best
To make their matter go away
Off the tropic island nest

No cores, no scans, no tricorders
Not a starship dohickey
Like Plan 9 from Outer Space
It's primitive as can be

So join us here this match, my friend
Something's sure to hatch
Transporters made from coconuts?
Here on this Grudge Match

- Mark Wentz - What's the big idea having two ditty-inducing matches in a row?

- no! no! NO! i can't have that beer right now, i need all my braincells, even the weak ones!! we'll kill them off afterwards so head doesn't hurt so with so much learnin' in it!!!

The squeaky clean family atmosphere of mid-sixties television has left many viewers with a very inaccurate idea of the Professor's true nature. Though they get a fairly good look at his inventive wizardry, which extends well beyond the capabilities of any ordinary human scientist or technician, they get almost no sight of his personal and sexual dominance over the other six castaways. You can't show a charismatic champion like him pumping his mighty DNA into every possible orifice of the island's other six residents -- a spiritual duty that the professor accepts willingly and practices frequently -- on TV, not back then. But you do get to see the almost reverent deference with which people accustomed to having their own way -- captains of the sea and of industry, and women accustomed to pampering indulgence -- turn over every leadership decision entirely to the Professor.

Those who have access to the real story know that there is only one reason why this group continually failed to leave the island: because the Professor chose to keep them there. The situation there suited him just fine.

In this contest, it may be that neither can complete the task without the other's help. Scotty needs the Professor's knowledge of pre- industrial techniques, and the Professor may need Scotty's knowledge of transporter theory (may, I say -- don't rule anything out). So the question comes down to who can coerce cooperation from the other. Scotty may be able to swing his fists, but the art of personal dominance is not one he is practiced in. The professor will have him thoroughly "turned out" in two days at the most. Scotty will be his willing bitch and beg for the Professor's manly ministrations, just as everyone else has before.

A completed bamboo-and-coconut transporter will follow shortly, and then Scotty will be left to fend for himself... if the Professor decides to leave. He may well choose to use the device to bring in more people. And who are we to say he'd be wrong?

- Mr. Glag

I know this from first-hand experience: I am an engineer and a geek, but I used to be a funny geek. I used to write for the Grudge Match. No more -- I gave up the humor to focus on my career. Now no women will date me. Dogs and small children flee from me in terror. In short, my life has been a festering hell since I left the Grudge Match.

Really, Scotty has no reason to want to win this one. His dating competition is a voilent fat man, an old, rich, married, lazy bastard, and some goofball wearing a red shirt (who will no doubt be killed within the first ten minutes of the next episode). And could anyone possibly fail to score with Maryanne? I think not.

And speaking of festering hells, do you think I see one penny of the millions in profits they are making from the bobble-headed Mr T doll? Do you have any idea how humilitating it is to show up for WWWF reunion, only later to find yourself on the front of the "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life" T-shirt? And when ABC visited you guys in your WWWF Ivory Towers(tm?) to ask for advice on who to send to Iraq, did you guys think of me? No, you guys suggested Geraldo for God's sake. Was I the only one at the WWWF who was old enough to remember Al Capone's vault? And secrets? Did I ever blab to your wives about the WWWF internship program for troubled sorority co-eds? Sheesh, you could have at least thrown me a bone.

- -- Jeff

1. Kirk once killed Mrs. Howell on an episode of "Boris Karloff's Thriller" (thank you, SciFi Channel!)
2. Kirk was then killed by Mrs. Howell's scary cursed painting
3. Kirk is superior to Scotty

Therefore... Mrs. Howell's scary property is superior to Scotty.

4. Mrs. Howell brought too much stuff for a three hour tour
5. Most of that stuff is really ugly
6. Ugly = scary
7. Mrs. Howell's scary stuff is all over the island
8. The Professor isn't dead

Therefore...The Professor is stronger than Mrs. Howell's scary stuff

Therefore... The Professor can, and will, beat Scotty. Scotty will be killed by a haunted peinoir or makeup table or parasol sometime after the second commercial break.

- Les Chausettes de Morte

STEVE : And since when have the Scots been "Engineering Geniuses"? I can't seem to recall a single great accomplishment by a Scottish engineer. German? Sure. Japanese? Sure. Dutch? Sure. American? Of course. But Scottish? They're good for bagpipes, golf, and sheep, but keep them away from high technology.

Lets see now... according to this page, Scots and Scotland have been responsible for the following scientific/engineering accomplishments...

Pneumatic Tyres
Decimal point notation
First cloned mammal
Tarmac roads
Penicillin
RADAR
Refrigerators
The Steam Engine (and first steel ship, launched on the river Clyde)
The Telephone
The Telegraph
plus many more...

And most importantly considering who the competitors are...
TELEVISION! (John Logie Baird, 1922)

There's also the matter of precedent. Star Trek characters usually go places, seem to get stuck, but then find a way off. Wheras Gilligan's Island characters stay on the island. So who do you think will escape first?

- GKScotty

- FortyTwo

- Mr. Silverback- There are only 72,200 Yahoo results for the phrase "Scottish engineers."

Sorry, but I can't see a "both stranded, and eaten by local cannibals" button.

- Hyper_Intelligent_Fish (There is no Jihad on the island)

- MonkeyDog
zing!

THE FINAL WORD...

Scotty only thinks he is winning, but he is not. All lies. Star Trek the infidel must lose. Praise be to the Professor.

- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Gilligan's Island Information Minister

If you liked this match, check out these other past matches:

Pee-Wee Herman v. Gilligan
Wilma & Betty v. Ginger & Mary Ann
Star Trek Humor @ WWWF Grudge Match

Home | History | Suggestions | FAQ | Stats | Links
Awards | Commentators | Real Life | Fun Stuff | Studio Store

Next Match: Cryptozoology
ETA: Monday, April 28th, 2003