Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: What happened to your bike?
CHRISTOPHER: A crazy game of key exchange at the car wash.
Christopher’s joke is possibly a slight allusion to “key parties”, where wife-swapping takes place depending on whose car keys the woman picks out of a bowl. A foreshadowing of what’s to come?
CHRISTOPHER: Whoa! Hold it right there. A lady never runs out to meet a gentleman caller who hasn’t been announced.
A callback both to The Glass Menagerie, previously discussed, and to the advice Emily gave Rory, when she wanted to run out to Dean before he’d knocked at the door. Christopher lets Rory know that he’s lived in Emily’s world, and knows its rules, but that he also takes an ironic, playful attitude to them. He’s letting Rory know that he understands exactly how to behave at her debut, but will be an ally for her in not taking it too seriously, so that she’s relaxed about it rather than stressed.
Then again, Lorelai is running right behind Rory – is his teasing comment secretly aimed at Lorelai?
RORY: Remember that I’ll be watching BattleBots with you for a month.
BattleBots is an American robot combat television show, where competitors design and operate by remote control their own armoured machines, which fight in an elimination tournament. It first aired in 2000.
Here we discover this is a favourite TV program of Dean’s, and that Rory needs a bribe to induce her to watch it with him. Considering that Dean tamely watches everything Lorelai and Rory do, with no complaint, it seems a bit much she can’t put herself out to watch something he enjoys unless he does her a favour.
On the other hand, Dean is Rory’s boyfriend – he shouldn’t really need any “payment” to be her escort for her debutante ball. It should be something he wants to do for her, especially considering that Emily would be more than happy to organise a suitable escort for Rory in his stead. I feel as if Dean is having things both ways: going to the ball only reluctantly and with a lot of moaning, yet if Rory went with someone else, he’d be very jealous and sulky about it.
While discussing preparations for the ball, it transpires that Rory will be wearing a crinoline under her dress, and Dean will need to wear a cummerbund.
A crinoline is another word for a hoop skirt, previously discussed.
A cummerbund is a broad sash worn around the waist, these days usually with a dinner jacket or tuxedo. Originating in Persia, they were adopted by British officers stationed in India, and adopted as an alternative to the waistcoat. A cummerbund is worn for black tie events in North America.
DEAN: It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
RORY: And doesn’t Neil Young look cool? … If you’ll notice, he’s wearing a tux.
DEAN: Neil Young looks cool because he’s Neil Young, not because he’s wearing a tux.
Neil Young (born 1945) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, musician, and activist. His career started in the 1960s, and includes membership of critically-acclaimed rock band Buffalo Springfield, folk-rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and solo work backed by his band Crazy Horse. His distorted electric guitar playing has earned him the nickname “Grandfather of Grunge”. He has won several Grammy and Juno Awards, and been named one of the great musical artists in history, defined by his guitar work, deeply personal lyrics, and signature high tenor vocals.
Neil Young has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – in 1995 as a solo artist, and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. He has served to induct others into the Hall of Fame six times: The Everly Brothers (1986), Woody Guthrie (1988), Jimi Hendrix (1992), Paul McCartney (1999), The Pretenders (2005), and Tom Waits (2011).
However, Neil Young doesn’t seem to have worn a tuxedo for any of his appearances at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, preferring a more casual (and occasionally more cowboy) look. When he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1982, he did dress in evening wear: not a tuxedo, but tailcoat, ruffled shirt, waistcoat and bow-tie [pictured].
It seems awfully unlikely, but just possibly they are watching an old video of this somehow (or it appears in a documentary or clip show???), and Dean mistakes it for the Rock and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. It feels as if Rory and Lane might have put it on expressly to persuade Dean that men can still look cool in formal wear.
We never see Rory ask Dean to be her escort for the ball, but we can safely assume he agreed with the greatest reluctance, because the first time we see him in this episode, he seems bewildered, dismayed and rather sulky as he discovers just what escorting Rory to her debut entails.
In real life, it is not recommended debutantes ask their boyfriends to be their escorts. Not only would a break-up put everything in jeopardy, but relationship dramas can create an unwelcome distraction. Some debutante committees even ban them outright, and it’s common for the committee to pair girls up with a suitable escort of their choosing – usually a boy or young man who has experience of cotillions and debutante balls. The DAR would have probably chosen someone rather like Tristan to be Rory’s escort (which could have been an interesting take on the episode).
As Rory is a very late entry, perhaps she has organised her own escort, along with her own dancing lessons and so on.
LORELAI: Hey Little Debbie, your dad is definitely gonna be there.
Debutantes are often called debs for short. Lorelai turns this into Debbie in reference to Little Debbie, a brand of cookie and cake snacks that has a little girl on the logo.
It’s a product line of McKee Foods, and the company founders, O.D. and Ruth McKee named it after their granddaughter, Debbie, in 1960, even using her image to promote the products. Debbie McKee-Fowler is now the Executive Vice-President of McKee Foods.
LORELAI: Now, I know you would rather sit through Endless Love than ever be a part of this scene again.
Endless Love is a 1981 romantic drama, based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Scott Spencer. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and starring Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt, Tom Cruise makes his film debut, in a minor role.
It’s a drippy story of teenage love gone wrong, with high melodrama which includes arson, being committed to a psychiatric institution, and imprisonment. It received mixed reviews, with only Brooke Shields getting any praise, and the book’s author saying the screen adaptation had been “botched”. Despite this, the film was a box-office success. The film’s theme song, also called Endless Love, became a #1 hit for Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.
LORELAI: Now comes the reason for my phone call.
CHRISTOPHER: All your regular 976 numbers are busy.
976 numbers are premium phone numbers on a local level, as opposed to 900 numbers, which are national. Calling such a number will charge you by the minute. They were first used in the early 1970s. Although premium numbers could be used for such things as the time or the weather, they were especially associated with adult entertainment lines, which is what Christopher is implying.
Although the internet has almost killed off the old-fashioned sex line, they are still gamely struggling along.
CHRISTOPHER: Well, did you tell her about Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, Gloria Vanderbilt?
LORELAI: Yes, and she’s perfectly willing to marry Cary Grant, get offed by her crazy butler, and start designing blue jeans as soon as the ball ends.
Barbara Hutton, previously discussed. She was first dubbed the “Poor Little Rich Girl” at her lavish debutante ball in 1930. She married seven times. Her third marriage was to Hollywood actor Cary Grant in 1942; although he genuinely seemed to care for Hutton, they divorced in 1945. Grant did not seek or receive money from her in the divorce settlement. He was probably her best husband.
Doris Duke (1912-1993), billionaire tobacco heiress and socialite, dubbed the “Richest Girl in the World”. She was presented as a debutante in 1930, at a ball at the family home in Newport, Rhode Island. She was widely travelled, with an interest in the arts and horticulture. She was the first non-Hawaiian woman to take up the sport of surfing. A keen philanthropist, she donated money to AIDS research, medicine, and child welfare, including supporting the education of black students in the South. Duke died from a stroke, but rumours persist that she was murdered by her Irish butler, Bernard Lafferty (1945-1996). No charges were ever laid, and Lafferty died in his sleep only three years later. He wasn’t “crazy” so much as an alcoholic.
Gloria Vanderbilt (1924-2019), heiress, socialite, artist, actress, and fashion designer. During the 1930s she was the focus of a scandalous child custody case between her mother and her paternal aunt, Gertrude Whitney, which Gertrude won after Gloria’s mother was declared an unfit parent. Gloria made her debut in 1940. Vanderbilt studied both acting and art, managing to have successful careers in both, as well as becoming an author. A model at 15, she ventured into the fashion industry in the 1970s, and in 1976 launched a line of blue jeans which were an immediate success.
(The picture is Gloria Vanderbilt as a sixteen-year-old debutante).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 