Footnotes to the TV series
Sookie gives Rory a bag of these cookies as a gift for Dean. Rocky road is a type of candy which has marshmallows and nuts melted into milk chocolate. It seems to originate in 19th century Australia, although the UK and US have their own versions of rocky road which slightly differ from the Australian one. Rocky road cookies are cookies with choc chips, marshmallows and nuts in them. Despite her sweet tooth, Rory doesn’t like them.
LANE: I just met my soul mate.
RORY: Right, Rich Bloomingfeld. Does he still wear the Star Trek shirt?
Star Trek is a multibillion-dollar media franchise based on the sci-fi television series which ran from 1966 and 1969, and which is now referred to as The Original Series. A cult phenomenon for decades with a massive cultural impact, there have been numerous Star Trek films and TV series made over the years, as well as books, comics, games, and magazines.
In 2000, the most recent TV series made was Deep Space Nine, which ran from 1993 to 1999. It is not clear whether Rich Bloomingfield wore a shirt which had either the most recent series, or the original series of Star Trek on it, or if it was a shirt made to resemble a Star Trek costume.
LORELAI (sees Lane in her band uniform): Hey babe. Sergeant Pepper.
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a 1967 album by English rock band The Beatles. It was released to immediate commercial and critical success, going to #1 all around the world, and ending as the #1 album of the year in the UK and #10 in the US. It won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year – the first rock album to do so. It is one of the highest-selling albums of all time, and regarded as one of the best, and most influential, albums ever made.
The album cover depicts 66 images of famous people, including actors, singers, scientists, comedians, writers, sportsmen, and gurus. The Beatles themselves are shown wearing military-style band costumes; Lane’s scarlet band costume is vaguely similar. The album cover won a Grammy Award.
SOOKIE: Okay, how does this sound? Maple sugar snowflakes on all the pillows.
LORELAI: Oh, that’s sounds wonderful!
Sookie is making candy from maple sugar, and using a mould in the shape of a snowflake. You can buy this candy commercially as well as making it yourself.
MICHEL: The thrilling sensation of getting lost in a blizzard, of freezing to death in the woods, and having to eat your friend’s buttocks to stay alive, that is lost on many people.
Michel is no doubt referring to the 1993 drama film Alive directed by Frank Marshall. Based on the 1974 book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read, it depicts the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team and their family and friends whose plane went down in the Andes Mountains in October 1972. Trapped for more than two months in below-freezing temperatures, once the rations ran out the survivors had to eat their dead companions in order to stay alive.
The film’s subject was so well known in the 1990s that it was not necessary to have seen it to immediately understand any reference to eating people as relating to the movie. Unlike Michel’s comment, the film actually handled the cannibalism with great sensitivity.
LORELAI: Ah, we’ll need to pull out the sleds, people might want to sled. Ooh, and the parkas, we’ll need the parkas.
A parka is a thick heavy waterproof jacket with down (or synthetic down) lining and a hood, often trimmed with fur or faux-fur. Originally they were traditional garb for Inuit women, so that they could breastfeed a baby in the freezing conditions of the Arctic.
Apparently the Independence Inn keeps spare parkas for the use of guests who might have forgotten to bring their own, or been surprised by unexpected cold weather.
LORELAI: Sorry I woke you up.
RORY: That’s okay. It’s all fodder for the tell-all.
This casual comment from Rory suggests that her writing a book about Lorelai is a long-standing joke between them. In A Year in the Life, Rory does actually begin writing the book.
Lorelai lists all the wonderful things which occurred during snow.
Her best birthday: Lorelai’s birthday is in April. It doesn’t usually snow heavily in Hartford in April, but you can get some light snow, especially early in the month. Once in a while a very chilly spring can produce a significant snowfall in April.
Her first kiss: We don’t know when this occurred, just that it must have been during cold weather.
Rory’s first steps: Babies usually start walking at around 9-12 months of age. For it to snow on the day, Rory must have started walking around her first birthday, in October or November 1985.
Rory’s birth: Rory was apparently born in a snow storm. Although it’s normal to get the first snowfall of the year in Hartford in late October, a snow storm would be highly unusual. In real life, there was no snow storm in Hartford in October 1984.
LORELAI: Wait, close your eyes and breathe. [Rory does] I smell snow … Can’t you smell it?
RORY: You know, it’s like dogs and high-pitched noises. I think it’s something only you can smell.
In fact plenty of people can “smell” snow coming, so Lorelai is by no means unusual. Most scientists believe that we can’t literally smell snow as cold weakens our sense of smell, but interpret changes in air pressure etc as an odour. Others think maybe some people can actually smell the unique chemical composition of snow. Either way, Lorelai can definitely sense the approach of snow.
This is when we first learn of Lorelai’s life-long love of snow. Of course in reality it’s always fake snow as they are filming in California.
We learn from his phone message that as well as teaching at Chilton, Max teaches a night class twice a week in Stamford, a city in Connecticut about an hour and a half drive south from Hartford, on the coast.
The fact that Max sees the sign to Stars Hollow on the way suggests again that it around the Wallingford area, as you would drive past Wallingford going from Hartford to Stamford using Interstate 91. It isn’t actually a turnpike though as it is toll-free at that point: the Connecticut Turnpike (I-95) goes further on from Stamford toward New Haven.
Max possibly teaches in the English department at the Stamford campus of the University of Connecticut, a public university. We learn a bit later that one of the nights he teaches class is on Fridays, so with Lorelai attending classes twice a week and Max teaching classes twice a week, it’s going to be hard for them to find a free day in the week to date.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 