Footnotes to the TV series
The dog Buttercup is an interesting mixture of Cocker Spaniel, Golden Retriever, Rottweiler, and Bouvier des Flandres. (The actual dog does not resemble this description very closely).
Bouvier des Flandres is a large woolly herding dog breed from Belgium; its name means “cowherd of Flanders” in French. President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy owned a dog of this breed named Lucky.
Lorelai is drawn to a dog named Buttercup who was found on Highway 26. There are several Highway 26s in the US, but none of them are even remotely near Connecticut.
There was a Highway 26 to the east of Hartford in the 19th century, but that is most likely just a coincidence.
Lorelai and Rory spontaneously decide to check out a pet fair which is being held in the town square. From the signs, we can see it is sponsored by Petfinder.com, the largest pet adoption website in North America, founded in 1996. They hold frequent pet fairs in states all over America, linking with towns and cities that have rescue shelters – from this we know that Stars Hollow must have its own rescue shelter.
Lorelai longs to get a dog, a wish which comes true several seasons later.
The episode opens with Lorelai and Rory playing a word game to determine which of them has to clean out the refrigerator. Each having to pick in turn a disease to match a letter of the alphabet, Lorelai picks “narcolepsy” for the letter N – a callback to the previous episode, when Dean was re-named “Narcolepsy Boy” after falling asleep with Rory at Miss Patty’s. Even though she made peace with Dean and Rory, Lorelai is still not letting this one go.
Later in the episode we see Lorelai cleaning out the refrigerator, so presumably she lost the contest. She may have had to forfeit as a result of rushing over to the pet fair and saying, “Puppies!” on the letter P, instead of a disease.
The episode title may be a reference to the 1990 documentary film Paris is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston. The documentary is about the drag ball culture in New York City, and the drag competitions which take place at the balls. The documentary film received rave reviews and several awards at film festivals; it remains relevant in discussions on LGBT, youth, class, and racial issues.
The film’s title comes from drag performer Paris Dupree (1950-2011), who gave a drag ball with the name. It may have been partially inspired by Adolf Hitler’s reported question during World War II, “Is Paris burning?”, when he wished the city to be completely destroyed rather than re-taken by the Allies.
This episode centres on Paris Geller, who we learn more about in this episode, and who does indeed “burn down” or destroy the relationship between Lorelai and Max. She does so to deflect public attention from her own problems, thus playing a role like the drag performers in the film.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 