Ranger Bob

LORELAI: Everything about me repulses that man [Luke]. My coffee drinking, my eating habits. Remember when I called him Ranger Bob last week? He hated that!

Lorelai may be referring to Forest Ranger Bob Erickson (Jack De Mave) from the family television series Lassie, which follows the adventures of a long-coated collie dog, and aired from 1954 to 1973.

The show was inspired by the 1943 movie Lassie Come Home, about a dog who travels from Scotland to Yorkshire to be reunited with the boy she loves (Roddy McDowall), based on the 1940 novel of the same name by Eric Knight. Sequels followed, and so did appearances by Pal, the dog who played Lassie, at fairs and rodeos throughout the US in the 1950s. All the subsequent Lassies were played by Pal’s descendants, and like Pal, they were all male.

Ranger Bob was from the years between 1964 and 1970 where Lassie helped the US Forest Service, with Bob Erickson becoming part of the show in 1968 as one of Lassie’s carers. Ranger Bob worked alongside Forest Ranger Scott Turner (Jed Allen), but it would be perhaps too self-referential for Lorelai to call Luke “Ranger Scott”, as Luke is played by Scott Patterson. Calling Luke “Ranger Bob” may have been referencing his healthy outdoor lifestyle and love of camping.

Reruns of Lassie were shown on Nickelodeon from 1984 to 1996, and the show is still on American television today.

Everyone is Interested in Lorelai and Luke

Once word (instantly) gets around town that Lorelai has had a marriage proposal, all the townspeople are inordinately interested in seeing how Luke takes the news.

This is taken to exaggerated levels when a line of people, most of whom we have never seen before, form a line and begin following Lorelai to the diner. They then proceed to press their faces against the diner’s windows so they can watch Luke hear the news. They won’t be able to hear anything from the street, but apparently they don’t care.

For normal people, only friends and family (maybe) are interested in your wedding news; for Lorelai and Luke, they are the celebrities of Stars Hollow that even strangers find completely fascinating.

Rory tells Lorelai that “everyone knows” that Luke “has a thing for Lorelai”, which means that Rory knows too, and still discouraged Lorelai from seeking out a relationship with him.

InStyle Weddings

RORY: What’cha reading?
LORELAI: Oh God, do not sneak up on a person like that.
RORY: InStyle Weddings. Very interesting.

InStyle Weddings is a quarterly periodical put out by InStyle magazine, previously mentioned as one of Lorelai’s favourite magazines. It features celebrity weddings, as well as wedding tips and ideas.

Lorelai is reading the Spring 2001 issue, which featured actress Courtney Thorne-Smith on the cover, who had married scientist Andrew Conrad in June 2000. Famously, by the time the magazine came out, Thorne-Smith had already filed for divorce. This is another sign to Lorelai that marriage doesn’t always last.

In real life, it wouldn’t have been possible for Lorelai to buy the magazine as late as May.

Ivana Trump

BOOTSY: So, apparently they shoot a gland from a pig’s head in Ivana Trump’s rear end twice a month to keep her looking young.
LORELAI: Wow, hope she’s not kosher.
BOOTSY: I don’t know, doesn’t say here.

Ivana Trump (born Ivana Zelníčková in 1949) is a Czech-born American businesswoman and former model who was the first wife of Donald Trump, now the US president. They were married in 1977 and divorced in 1992, and he was her second husband. She has married twice more.

After her divorce from Trump, Ivana began selling her own line of clothing, jewellery, and beauty products through home shopping channels, wrote several novels and a self-help book on surviving divorce, had her own advice column, and bought up interests in Croatian media.

The story about pig’s gland being injected into her butt every two weeks seems to be fictional, but in line with the ideas of what silly, vain, and very wealthy socialites might get up to. Ivana Trump is not Jewish, and therefore not kosher.

The reference to the much-married Ivana may be a hint to Lorelai that marriage does not always last.

This is our introduction to a new character, the news vendor Bootsy (Brian Tarantina). We never learn Bootsy’s real name, or why he was given the nickname Bootsy. The name might remind you of singer William “Bootsy” Collins from Bootsy’s Rubber Band; in his case, his mother nicknamed him Bootsy because “he looked like a Bootsy”.

“Sally Field movie”

LANE: It’s gonna be just like that Sally Field movie when her husband took them to Iran and wouldn’t let them come back, except that I won’t have to keep my head covered.
RORY: Okay, calm down.

Lane is referring to the 1991 drama film Not Without My Daughter, directed by Brian Gilbert, and based on the book of the same name by Betty Mahmoody. It stars Sally Field as an American woman whose Iranian husband took she and their young daughter to Iran for a short holiday, but refused to let them return. The movie was a box office bomb and poorly received, strongly criticised for its stereotyped portrayal of Iranian Muslims and their culture.

There are a number of hints and references to marriage going wrong in this episode, and this is one of them.

“Sending me to Korea for the summer”

LANE: My mother and father are sending me to Korea for the summer to visit my cousins.
RORY: So?
LANE: They’re sending me to Korea and they won’t tell me when I’m coming back.

Mr and Mrs Kim have bought Lane a one-way ticket to (South) Korea for the summer, leading her to panic they never intend for her to come home. This story line was based on an incident from the childhood of Helen Pai, the real life inspiration for Lane Kim. Her parents did exactly the same thing, but as with Lane’s case, it turned out all right.

The American flag in the background is surely a symbol of where Lane’s heart lies, and also shows that she will return home. In Korea, the colour yellow can be symbolic of good luck, so Rory giving Lane the yellow daisies wishes her good luck on her travels.

All in the Family

LORELAI: You know how on All in the Family when Edith would be yapping about something and Archie would pretend to make a noose and hang himself or shoot himself in the head?
RORY: Yeah?
LORELAI: I don’t know. Something about this moment just made me think of that.

All in the Family, previously mentioned, is an American sit-com which aired 1971-1979, based on the British sit-com Till Death Us Do Part. It stars Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, a blue-collar worker from Queens who is prejudiced, but essentially decent. His wife was Edith Bunker, a sweet and rather naive woman played by Jean Stapleton. Among the most popular television programs of its era (at times the #1 show), it is regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.

All in the Family is still on American television in reruns to this day, and this is another TV show that Lorelai and Rory may have seen on Nick at Nite.

Sally Struthers, who played Babette on Gilmore Girls, played the Bunkers’ married daughter Gloria Stivic, and went on to have her own spin-off show, Gloria, from 1982-1983. Liz Torres, who played Miss Patty on Gilmore Girls, had the role of Theresa Betancourt, a nursing student who rented Gloria’s old room from the Bunkers in Season 7.

“Why don’t you want to think about this?”

RORY: Why don’t you want to think about this?
LORELAI: Because I haven’t made my mind up about the yes or no part, so I don’t want to start fantasizing about dresses and flowers or doves and tulle until I do, so please change the subject.

The fact that Lorelai needs to think about whether to say yes or no is a sure sign that she doesn’t really want to marry Max. If she did, she would be jumping at the chance, or at least coming up with ways to justify saying yes.

(You can see in the background that Lorelai has donated her yellow daisies to the entire town, and they even seem to have set up a little red wagon in the town square from which to either sell or give away the flowers to passers-by. It’s a typically big-hearted gesture by Lorelai which serves to make her more of a star and the centre of attention. It’s also practical, as she could hardly take all the daisies home).

“Any other subject in the world for 200”

RORY: Oh! You should walk down the aisle to Frank Sinatra with a huge bouquet of something that smells really good.
LORELAI: Pot roast.
RORY: And you should wear a long veil with your hair up.
LORELAI: Ugh, I’ll take any other subject in the world for 200, Alex.

Lorelai is referring to the game show Jeopardy!, previously discussed. The host is Alex Trebek, and Lorelai mimics the game play of the show, with contestants choosing a particular subject for a certain amount of money (such as $200).

Lauren Graham, who played Lorelai Gilmore, went on Jeopardy! as a contestant in a celebrity episode of the show.

Balkans

RORY: You should get married in Italy.
LORELAI: All the way from home, same topic. There’s tons of stuff going on in the world. Big stuff.
RORY: Like?
LORELAI: Balkans.
RORY: That was ages ago. Read a paper.

Lorelai is referring to the Yugoslav Wars, a series of ethnically-based wars and insurgencies that took place in the Balkans, those countries in and around the Balkan Peninsula in Eastern Europe – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey.

Lorelai may be referring specifically to to the Kosovo War, which went from 1998-1999 – hence Rory saying that it was ages ago (two years ago from the time of this episode). Insurgencies in the area continued longer, and there was still armed conflict in Macedonia in 2001 when this episode aired, not ending until August, so possibly Rory has not kept up with international events either, or doesn’t think of Macedonia as part of the Balkans.

It’s interesting that Lorelai immediately mentions a war during the conversation about her marriage proposal; a possible sign of things to come. This parallels Rory mentioning the war in Lebanon just before she broke up with Dean.