LORELAI: Ugh. There have been very few moments in my life where I have actually wished I had one of those enormous cream pies you can just smash in someone’s face, but this is definitely one of them.
Cream pie attacks and fights have been a staple of slapstick comedy since the days of the English music hall. English comedian Fred Karno (1866-1941) is credited with popularising the pie-in-the-face gag, and they were often used in films by his proteges, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy. A cream pie in the face is a staple of traditional clowning. The cream pies are, these days, usually canned whipped cream or shaving cream in an aluminium pie plate.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 