So there’s only one person left on Gilligan’s Island. If you had Ginger in the castaways’ pool, then congrats. TV was better when there were only five or six channels and everyone huddled around the set on a Wednesday night to watch seven knuckleheads on a desert island trying to get reception from a radio made out of a coconut. But the real legacy of a show like Gilligan’s Island is that the two single girls on the show gave rise to one of the most important debates in popular culture.

As such it’s a good time to provide a few answers to life’s most important questions.

Question: Mary Ann or Ginger?
Answer: Mary Ann. The implied question here is who would you rather be stranded on a desert island with. Classic male pig question. Mary Ann would be much more likely to be nice to you. Ginger would ask, “What’d ya bring me?” While Mary Ann would much more likely say, “Can I get you something?” The girl-next-door with the pigtails beats the fancy Hollywood actress every time.

Q: Coke or Pepsi?
A: Coke. Pepsi is the jealous little brother who knows he’s second-best and spends his entire life obsessing about it. If you go to a restaurant and ask for a Coke and they say, “Is Pepsi alright?” the Coke orderer will always say, “No, that’s okay, I’ll have ice tea.” If a Pepsi dude goes to a restaurant and asks for a Pepsi and is told, “We only have Coke,” he’ll say, “Sure, Coke’s cool.” Pepsi is Michael Jackson dancing around looking for attention, Coke is iconic, like Mean Joe Greene tossing his jersey to the little kid. Get it?

Q: Beatles or Stones?
A: Beatles. The Stones were always trying to be a tough version of the Beatles. The Beatles were always trying to be, well, The Beatles – completely organic. The Beatles were four dudes brought together by Divine Intervention, they are first-name guys, John, Paul, George, Ringo; the Stones were a bunch of different guys over the years and even Stones fans have trouble naming them. Put ’em together and there’s a ton of good songs, but The Beatles are Sinatra and the Stones are Tony Bennett, good, but just not the Chairman of the Board.

Q: Dogs or cats?
A: Dogs. The best cat is Garfield and he’s a self-absorbed jerk. The best dog is Snoopy, Joe Cool, and he has a pool table in his dog house, can do impersonations of other animals and he has a typewriter, writing novels sitting on top of his dog house. When a cat is something other than a pain in the ass his owner says, “He’s a really neat cat, he acts just like a dog.” A cat is a residential ornament that shits in the house. A dog is a member of the family that you can pet and tell your problems to, and the dog will act as if he cares.

Q: Paper or plastic?
A: Plastic. No tree needs to lose its life to make a fuckin’ grocery sack. There are umpteen more bodies of water on earth than there are forests and who cares if a few plastic trash bags end up in that water. A plastic bag comes with two free handles. You can use one to pick up the dog crap or you can repurpose one as a tailgate ice chest or a snazzy suitcase should you become homeless. With plastic grocery bags, you can shlep groceries into the house ten bags at a time. If all you have is paper bags, they rip and jars of pickles break through the bottom and break. At one point you could use an old paper bag to make a homemade cover for your geometry book, but since kids will never go back to an actual schoolhouse, that’s not a thing anymore.

Q: Van Halen or Van Hagar?
A: Van Hagar. Van Halen with Sammy Hagar has everything the band had when the singer was named David Lee Roth only the Van Hagar albums had better songs and better instrumentation. David Lee Roth was always just a dude who could help the other band members get laid. Of course, there’s always a place in the band for a tall skinny guy with a hairy chest and a bulge in his pants, but while Van Halen is a great band with any lineup, Sammy Hagar gave the band new musical possibilities. Thanks, Sammy.

Photo credit: buckofive on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA