Category: S2Ep13: A-Tisket A-Tasket

Turkey-Calling Contest

DEAN: So buck tradition.
RORY: Are you kidding? Do you remember how mad Taylor was when I was sick and I couldn’t go to the turkey-calling contest?

Turkey calling is a type of contest held in North America, where contestants must try to mimic the sound of a turkey so successfully that judges cannot tell the difference between the human and a real turkey. They may use their voice (“natural turkey calling”), or use instruments made of wood, glass, metal, etc, and must perform five different calls.

Turkey calling contests are usually held during the turkey hunting season, in the fall, with Thanksgiving providing a natural occasion to include one. The other season for turkey calling contests is the spring, during the turkey mating season.

If Stars Hollow holds theirs at Thanksgiving, it isn’t mentioned in the Thanksgiving episode we see (that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen offscreen, of course). Also, Rory wasn’t sick the previous Thanksgiving – she seemed fine at the Chilton play, which occurred around the same time. That means that if it’s held at Thanksgiving, Rory must have been sick at Thanksgiving 2000, which took place between “Love and War and Snow” and “Rory’s Dance”. She and Dean had just begun dating then, so he would be able to remember her being too sick to participate.

Another possibility is that it’s part of the Autumn Festival, in early November. Rory wasn’t sick for the 2000 one, but is just possible she was sick the previous year, in 2001. We see her just before and after the festival but not on the day itself, so if she was sick, it would have just been a 24-hour bug (food poisoning from leftovers???).

This is the first mention we get of Taylor apparently insisting that Rory participate in every Stars Hollow activity, even though she didn’t go on the teen hayride in the pilot episode. It puts a slightly sinister spin on the enforced fun that Rory seems to have been pressured into.

“It’s tradition”

RORY: It’s tradition.
DEAN: I don’t believe this.
RORY: It’s true. My mother and I have been doing this every year since we moved here.

We now know that Lorelai has been taking part in the Bid-a-Basket Fundraiser since 1987, even though she was a maid at the inn at the time, and had only been in Stars Hollow for a few months. It seems she became heavily involved in the town almost immediately.

Rory says she has also been taking part since she arrived in town too, but she was only a toddler. Perhaps she means that she accompanied Lorelai on her picnic lunch dates, as a sort of chaperone to make sure things could never get too romantic, and because Lorelai either didn’t want to leave her with a babysitter, or had no babysitting options.

It’s unclear at what age Rory was deemed old enough to take part in the fundraiser with her own basket, but most likely not until she was sixteen and had a boyfriend to buy her basket. That would be since the previous year, 2001. So Rory’s grand “tradition” has probably been going for a whole twelve months.

It’s also “tradition” for the woman to bake a delicious picnic lunch, but Lorelai and Rory don’t bother sticking to that tradition. There’s so many places that Dean could poke holes in Rory’s narrative or call her out, but he never does.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy

DEAN: She’s not going with you.
JESS: Really, is that true?
DEAN: Yes, it’s true.
JESS: Excuse me Edgar Bergen, I think I’d like Charlie McCarthy to answer now.

Edgar Bergen, born Edgar Berggren (1903-1978), actor, comedian, vaudeville star, and radio performer. He was best known as a highly skilled and successful ventriloquist, working with a dummy called Charlie McCarthy. Their routines were very witty, and rather cheeky, with Charlie getting away with saying things that a person never could. Incidentally, Edgar was the father of actress Candice Bergen.

Jess is obviously saying that Dean is speaking for Rory, as if she is his puppet.

Lenny Bruce

DEAN: You think this is funny.
JESS: Well, it’s no Lenny Bruce routine but it has its moments.

Lenny Bruce, born Leonard Schneider (1925-1966), stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was known for his open, freestyle, and critical comedy, containing satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York state.

Lenny Bruce paved the way for counterculture era comedians, and his trial was a landmark for freedom of speech. He is considered one of the greatest American comedians of all time.

It makes perfect sense for bad boy Jess to be a Lenny Bruce fan. Lenny Bruce also appears as a character in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s television show, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, played by Luke Kirby.

Jess and Dean Get Into a Bidding War

Dean puts a $5 bid on Rory’s basket, even though Taylor set the bidding at $3. He is expecting that to be the end of the matter, but is shocked when Jess begins bidding against him. Eventually Jess gets Rory’s basket for $90 – Dean, who has only come prepared with a small amount of money, expecting to win the bid straight away, cannot compete.

Rory’s is actually the most expensive basket we see at the auction, even though it’s tiny with only a few leftovers in it. Even Taylor tries to dissuade the boys from bidding so much, despite the fact the money is being raised for charity.

This interaction is an homage to the box social auction scene from the 1955 musical film, Oklahoma!, based on the 1943 stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was based on the 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs.

The film focuses on the love triangle between virginal farm girl Laurey (Shirley Jones), charming cowboy Curly (Gordon MacRae), and unchivalrous farm hand Jud (Rod Steiger). Laurey goes to the box social with Jud to teach Curly a lesson, and the two men end up in a bidding war for Laurey’s picnic hamper at the auction. It seems as if Jud has won, but then Curly sells everything he has in order to raise enough money to get the winning bid.

The clean cut Dean and outsider Jess are clear analogies to Curly and Jud, but unlike the film, Dean has no way of instantly raising the money to get the highest bid. It does suggest that Rory accepts the lunch date with Jess because she’s fed up with Dean, as Laurey accepts Jud’s invitation because she’s tired of the way she’s being match-made with Curly. It also hints at Jess’ obsession with Rory, as Jud becomes obsessed with Laurey.

However, in the film, Laurey and Curly end up married, and Jud is killed in a fight with Curly. Perhaps this is meant reflect a bit of wishful thinking from Dean!

[Picture shows Laurey and Jud in Oklahoma!]

Lane’s Plan

LANE: Well, I invited my cousin David to come and bid on my basket, you know, to keep my mother happy … Then when he gets it, we tell my mom we’re gonna go eat over at the park, where Henry’s gonna call on the pay phone at exactly two o’clock for the ‘all is clear’ sign. Then David, with the twenty bucks I give him, will disappear, Henry will arrive, and we’ll finally have our first official date.

With a dating plan this complex and filled with shenanigans, what could possibly go wrong? Henry met Lane in March 2001, so he’s been waiting nearly a year for his first date! And it’s ridiculously complicated. You have to give him points for incredible patience and understanding with Lane’s situation.

“The day after trash day”

LORELAI: You know what’s wonderful about this festival? … That it always falls on the day after trash day. Therefore, all the stuff that you forgot to throw out that you would normally be stuck with for another whole week, you can instead put in a pretty basket and auction off for charity.

The Bid-a-Basket Fundraiser is on a Sunday, so now we know the trash is collected on Saturday in Stars Hollow.

Miami Beach Blue

SOOKIE: And I like your living room. Though that house across the street has sort of that creepy Miami Beach blue, which means that during the day you really can’t look out your window, but at night it’s not so bad.

Miami Beach is a coastal city in Florida, located on natural and artificial islands which separate the beach from Miami. It has a population of around 83 000, and has been one of the most popular resorts in the US since the early twentieth century.

I’m not exactly sure what Sookie means by “Miami Beach blue”, but Miami Beach has a famous Art Deco Heritage District, the largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world. Many of the buildings are painted or picked out in pale blue, in line with the city’s beachy aesthetic, and she may be thinking of that.

I don’t know why this is considered “creepy”. All I can think of, and it’s really quite a stretch, is that the house in the famous 1991 “Ghostbusters” case of Stambovsky vs Ackley was painted pale blue.

The legal case involved a woman named Helen Ackley selling her house in Nyack, New York, to a man named Jeffrey Stambovsky, without disclosing to him that the house was reputedly haunted – he refused to sign the contract when he found out about the haunting. The courts ruled in favour of Mr Stambovsky.

The only reason I am even mentioning it is because the film Ghostbusters was referenced in the same scene, the mentalist Kreskin, previously discussed, was among those who tried to buy the house, and because when Helen Ackley eventually sold the house to a different buyer, she moved to Florida, so it all seems to fit, in some extremely nebulous way.

It seems possible that Sookie took note of the pale blue house when the story broke nationally, and for ever after, thought any kind of pale blue house was somehow spooky.

Ghostbusters

LORELAI: Oh, hey, one of them’s seen Ghostbusters 124 times.

Ghostbusters is a 1984 supernatural comedy directed by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Akroyd, Ramis, and Bill Murray as a trio of eccentric parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City.

The film was released to critical acclaim, becoming a cultural phenomenon. It was the #2 film of 1984, one of the most successful comedy films of the 1980s, and the highest-grossing comedy ever at the time. It’s theme song, “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr, was also a #1 hit. It is considered to be an iconic 1980s movie, and one of the most important comedy films ever made.

With its dedicated fan following, it launched a multibillion dollar multimedia franchise, including an animated television series and its sequel, video games, board games, books, comics, clothing, music, and haunted attractions.

The 1989 sequel Ghostbusters II was less successful. It was rebooted in 2016 with an all-female main cast, and amusingly, Melissa McCarthy, who plays Sookie, was chosen as one of the stars of the film; it was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews. A second sequel to the 1984 film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, was released in 2021.

Watching the film 124 times between 1984 and 2002 doesn’t even seem that out there – it’s less than once a month. As usual, Lorelai’s obsessions with films are seen as cool and quirky, while anyone else’s are sad and pathetic!