• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 4 hours ago

Memories of two classic TV comedies come immediately to mind with the announcement that the new season of “Naked and Afraid” on Discovery will have its contestants stranded on a remote island after being dropped into cold water in the middle of the night.

The two shows are “Seinfeld,” which famously dramatized the dangers presented by cold water to male genitalia, and “Gilligan’s Island,” whose themes of survival and rescue get taken up again in “Naked and Afraid: Shipwrecked,” premiering August 2.

None of the 12 naked contestants on “Naked and Afraid: Shipwrecked” are named Gilligan, which means they stand a better chance of getting rescued or escaping from their predicament than the seven castaways of “Gilligan’s Island.” 

On that show, well-meaning Gilligan (Bob Denver) was the bumbling “first mate” of a Hawaii-based tour boat that was destroyed in a storm and tossed onto the beach of an uncharted island.

In each classic episode, Gilligan always managed to botch the rescue and escape plans of his fellow castaways.

On “Naked and Afraid: Shipwrecked,” 12 nude all-star contestants, who gained fame on previous seasons of the show, will be dropped into the water in the dead of night off a remote Philippines coastline where their nearest refuge will be an isolated desert island.

There, as in the famous theme song of “Gilligan’s Island” that played during the end credits, these naked survivalists will have no phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury -- and no pants.

In fact, a description of the show in a press release from Discovery on Monday sounds curiously the same.

“Far removed from civilization and with no food, no fresh water and no clothing, the survivalists must adapt quickly, relying not only on their individual skills, but also on their ability to innovate and salvage whatever they can from the environment,” Discovery says.

The castaways on “Gilligan’s Island” did much the same thing as they took what they could from the beached tour boat called the S.S. Minnow.

Among the items they were able to salvage were the passengers’ clothes, which distinguishes “Gilligan’s Island” from Discovery’s “Naked and Afraid” franchise, where going without clothes is the whole point.

“Naked and Afraid” premiered in 2013 and quickly emerged as the best naked-survival reality show on TV. It also happened to be the only one.

With pixelated private parts, male and female contestants roam remote jungles scavenging food and water off the land, followed by camera crews, who, it is assumed, are fully clothed.

The naked scavengers are then challenged to survive for as many days as they can. In the new “Naked and Afraid: Shipwrecked,” the naked contestants have 35 days not only to survive but also to get themselves off the island and back to civilization.

By contrast, “Gilligan’s Island” ran for 98 episodes over three seasons from 1964 to 1967 and -- spoiler alert -- its characters were never rescued. 

Meanwhile, the dunking of these contestants into dark and cold ocean waters at night raises questions about the physical well-being of the male contestants.

The effects of the interaction of male genitalia and cold water got a thorough going-over in a long-ago episode of “Seinfeld” from 1994, in the show’s sixth season.

Titled “The Hamptons,” the show portrayed the problem of “significant shrinkage” comedically, while at the same time, shedding much-needed light on this little-understood and embarrassing condition.

On the show, it was hapless George Costanza (Jason Alexander) who emerged from a cold swimming pool with shrinkage that was so substantial, his then-girlfriend would not make love to him, damaging his already low self-esteem.

Whether or not the naked male castaways on “Naked and Afraid: Shipwrecked” face similar challenges was not mentioned in the Discovery press release.