Footnotes to the TV series
SOOKIE: Jackson just got in his apple crop! We can make cider ice cream!
The apple season finishes in Connecticut at the end of October at the latest, and it now seems to be around the middle of November. I think Sookie must mean that Jackson actually got his crop in some weeks earlier, especially as she’s planning on using cider, which takes at least two weeks to make.
SOOKIE: A Musso Lussino 480!
LORELAI: Somebody sent me a Fascist ice cream maker?
The episode begins with Lorelai receiving a mysterious late wedding gift from someone who apparently doesn’t know her wedding with Max was cancelled. When Sookie and Rory persuade her to open it (in case there’s a card inside), it turns out to be a Lello Musso Lussino 480 ice cream maker.
This is a top-shelf ice cream maker, made in Italy, producing restaurant-quality ice cream in half an hour for the domestic market. It’s extremely expensive, costing almost $1000 today. Lorelai jokes that it’s a Fascist ice-cream maker, because its name sounds slightly like Mussolini, and of course Lorelai has to refer to it as Il Duce.
We never discover who sent Lorelai the ice cream maker. It seems reasonable to guess that it was Emily, trying to give Lorelai her gift anonymously. It’s certainly the kind of expensive gift she would pick out, and it’s thoughtful, because this ice cream maker is quick and easy to use – she knows Lorelai and Rory are not at home in the kitchen. It seems telling that just after she told Lorelai about the wedding gift she chose, refusing to say what it was, she asked them if they wanted ice cream.
LORELAI: Mmkay, I couldn’t make up my mind so I got The Shining and Bringing Up Baby. Now, I know you’re thinking, one’s a movie about a homicidal parent and the other one’s . . . hello.
The Shining, previously discussed.
Bringing Up Baby, a 1938 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks and starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. The story is about a palaeontologist who has a series of predicaments with a scatterbrained heiress and her tame leopard, Baby. The film was a box-office flop when it came out, but its reputation improved when it began to be shown regularly on television in the 1950s. Since then, it has received critical acclaim for its zany antics, perfect comic timing, and excellent cast. It’s now considered one of the greatest films ever made.
Lorelai is going to say that The Shining is about a homicidal parent, while Bringing Up Baby is about a “baby” capable of killing its “parents”. By the end of the scene, Lorelai has made up her mind – they are watching The Shining, one of of her favourite films. It’s a possible sign she’s feeling a little homicidal herself, or at least in no mood for a lighthearted comedic romp.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 