Lane’s Favourite “A” Bands

RORY: Let’s see – “Drummer with strong beat seeks band into the Accelerators, the Adolescents, the Adverts, Agent Orange, the Angelic Upstarts, the Agnostic Front, Ash . . .”

The Accelerators: Rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina, formed in 1982 by singer Gerald Duncan. They released three albums, and broke up in 1991, but Duncan recruited new musicians and brought out another album before retiring in 2000, then making a comeback in 2007 for a final fifth album. They had a bit of a following on college radio, and received some positive reviews.

The Adolescents: Punk rock band formed in Fullerton, California in 1980 by bassist Steve Soto. Part of the hardcore punk movement in southern California in the early 1980s, they were one of the main punk acts to come out of Orange County. They went through constant line-up changes, and released nine albums before Soto’s death in 2018, then another in 2020. Their self-titled debut album was one of the best-selling from the California hardcore scene, selling 10 000 copies.

The Adverts [pictured]: English punk band who formed in 1976 and broke up in 1979 after the accidental electrocution of their manager. They were one of the first punk bands to have chart success in the UK – their 1977 single “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” reached #18 on the UK charts, and was considered one of the best punk singles of the 1970s. Bassist Gaye Advert (born Gaye Black) has been described as the first female punk star, which might be another reason Lane is drawn to them.

Agent Orange: Punk rock band formed in Placentia, California in 1979 – like The Adolescents, they were leading lights in the 1980s southern Californian hardcore punk scene, and were also founded by Steve Soto. They were one of the first bands to mix punk with surf rock, for a distinctively Californian punk sound. They brought out three studio albums, and are still going, despite the deaths of three of their bassists.

Angelic Upstarts: English punk rock band formed in 1977, described as one of the most politically-charged and thought provoking of the era. Their politics are anti-fascist and socialist working class, pioneers of the Oi! subgenre that unites punk and skinhead cultures. They have released twelve studio albums, with the most recent in 2016. Their debut single, “The Murder of Liddle Towers”, was included in Mojo‘s list of the best punk rock singles of all time.

Agnostic Front: Hardcore punk band formed in New York City in 1980 by lead guitarist Vincent “Vinnie Stigma” Cappuccio. They are considered an important influence on the New York hardcore scene, as well as pioneers of the crossover thrash genre that fuses thrash metal and hardcore punk. From the beginning, they have had a strong connection with skinheads, like the Angelic Upstarts. They’ve had twelve studio albums, most recently in 2019.

Ash, previously discussed. This is now the third time this band has been mentioned. It is a favourite of both Rory and Lane.

Just from the bands starting with A, we can see that Lane’s favourite bands tend to be hardcore punk and alternative/indie rock.

“I even cleaned the table”

LORELAI: This is an uncontaminated area. I even cleaned the table using something other than the sleeve of my sweater and spit.

Although there are several jokes in the show about Lorelai’s poor housekeeping skills, their home never looks dirty, or even very messy – cosy clutter and a light layer of dust is about the worse we ever see. (It’s hard to make a television set, which is not lived in, really look like a dirty house).

It does make sense that Lorelai is not keen on housework – besides being a single parent working full-time (and until recently, studying part-time), which is reason enough. She worked as a maid for several years, and her job is to run the inn and keep it looking nice now, so it’s believable that she wouldn’t feel like taking care of the house as well when she gets home from work.

Dead Souls

RORY: Oh, geez. Let the record show that when my application to Harvard arrived, we were watching The Brady Bunch Variety Hour … Man, this morning I was reading Dead Souls – it couldn’t have come then?

Dead Souls, a 1842 novel by Russian author Nikolai Gogol, widely regarded as a classic of Russian literature. The novel chronicles the adventures of a mysterious traveller and the people he encounters, and was intended to represent a modern-day Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Gogol himself saw his work as an “epic poem in prose”, and within the book characterised it as a “novel in verse”. Gogol intended the novel to be the first part of a three-volume work, but burned the manuscript of the second part shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence, it is regarded by some as complete. It is very possible that Rory is reading Dead Souls for English Literature at school.

Robert Reed

RORY: I feel dizzy.

LORELAI: Are you sure that’s not just the sight of Robert Reed in the tight clown pants?

Robert Reed, born John Robert Rietz Jr (1932-1992), actor best known for playing father Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch, and its various specials and spin-offs. From the very beginning, Reed was unhappy with his role as Mike Brady, feeling that the show was far too silly for a serious classically-trained Shakespearean actor such as himself. Although he got on very well with the rest of the cast and behaved professionally at all times, he often argued with the creator and producer over the scripts (he was allowed to direct a few episodes to appease him). Despite this, he appeared in all the specials and spin-offs, and actually really loved doing The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, as it gave him the opportunity to sing, dance, and have fun.

Note that the comment about his “tight clown pants” is yet another reference to clowns and circuses on Gilmore Girls.

The Application for Harvard

RORY: Oh my God … It’s here … My application to Harvard.

This episode is focused on Rory receiving her application for Harvard University, and the stress she goes through as a result. The US university application process is somewhat different to many other countries, so it’s necessary to understand a little bit of how it works.

It’s not the case that you simply send off your academic results to the university and if you make the cutoff point, you get in. You are also expected to tell the university about yourself, about your interests, goals, and contributions you’ve made to society, and supply letters of recommendation from teachers and community leaders to bolster your case.

Most importantly, you need to write a short essay, usually around 600 words or so, that somehow convinces them you’re more than academically gifted, you’re also a wonderful person who deserves a college education, but are far too modest to actually say that. As these essays tend to end up very much alike, they also need to be fascinating enough to keep the admissions officer reading them! But they can’t be too edgy or creative either, because then you’ll seem too weird for the college to handle. Stressful or what?

There are also opportunities to have an in-depth personal interview with an alumnus of the university, who hasn’t read your application, and doesn’t know anything about you except your name and contact details. It’s basically a job interview, but instead of trying to get a job, you’re trying to get into college, answering questions about all your positive traits that will serve to make the college a better place, while letting them see what kind of person you are.

The harder a university is to get into, the more rigorous and exacting the entire process is – you will need to have higher grades, more impressive goals and aspirations, and have made some kind of major contribution to the world. You will do well to have letters of recommendation from people who are leaders in their field, or actually famous. Your essay will preferably be of publishable standard. You will dazzle, astound, charm, and knock the socks off your interviewer. And that’s just to get in!

Rory’s application arrives in what appears to be mid-to-late September, but that’s just to fit in with the timing of the season in Gilmore Girls. In real life, Harvard usually sends its applications out around the start of August.

Holmes & Yoyo, Hee Haw Honeys

RORY: I know, [The Brady Bunch Hour‘s] on my top fifty best.

LORELAI: Yeah, right after Holmes & Yoyo and Hee Haw Honeys.

Holmes & Yoyo [pictured], comedy TV series that aired during the 1976-1977 season. The series follows police detective Alexander Holmes (played by Richard B. Shull), and his partner Gregory “Yoyo” Yoyonovich (played by John Schuck), who he discovers to be an android crime-fighting machine, designed as a secret weapon by the police department. Many of the gags involved Yoyo’s constant malfunctions. The series performed poorly and was cancelled after eleven episodes, the final two being shown during the summer. It was #33 on TV Guide‘s worst shows of all time list.

Hee Haw Honeys, a short-lived spin-off from variety show Hee Haw, previously discussed, which aired during the 1978-1979 season. It starred Kathie Lee Johnson (later Gifford) and members of the Hee Haw cast as a family who owned a truck stop restaurant where guest country artists would perform their latest hits. It was #10 on TV Guide‘s worst shows of all time list.

TV Guide

RORY: Did you see that TV Guide had this on their list of the worst fifty shows of all time?

TV Guide Maagazine, a bi-weekly magazine containing the TV schedules, as well as television news, celebrity interviews and gossip, film reviews, and crossword puzzles. It was founded by Lee Wagner of MacFadden Publications, and first printed in 1948 as the The TeleVision Guide, only for the New York area. It began printing nationally as TV Guide in 1953. Since 2015, it’s been owned by NTVB Media.

Gilmore Girls had featured in TV Guide in June 2002, with Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel on the cover, so this feels like a definite shout-out to the publication. As a self-deprecatory inside joke, Lorelai and Rory proceed to criticise the magazine’s opinions of TV shows, since TV Guide had just raved about Gilmore Girls.

Baby Face

This is the first song which is performed on The Brady Bunch Hour, sung by The Brady Bunch, which you can hear at the start of the episode.

“Baby Face” is a popular Tin Pan Alley jazz song from 1926, with music by Harry Askt, and lyrics by Benny Davis. The first recording was by Jan Garber and his Orchestra, with Benny Davis signing the chorus only. It was a #1 hit in 1926. The same year, the song was recorded in its entirety by “Whispering” Jack Smith, with Arthur Johnston on piano.

It has been covered numerous times, perhaps most notably by Little Richard, who went to #41 with his version of the song in 1958 – it went to #2 in the UK, his highest-charting single in Britain.

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour

This is the show Rory and Lorelai are watching on television when Rory’s college application from Harvard is delivered by the mailman during the cold open.

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is a variety show featuring sketches and songs, a spin-off from The Brady Bunch sitcom, previously discussed. It features the same cast as the original show, with the exception of Eve Plumb, who played Jan, previously mentioned. She was replaced with Geri Reischl, forever to be known as “Fake Jan”.

The premise of the show is that the Brady Bunch family have been chosen to star in a new variety television show, and moved to southern California. It was originally going to be a one-off one-hour special in November 1976, but high ratings meant it was extended for nine episodes and aired sporadically over six months, ending in May 1977.

There were many problems filming the show, and the erratic scheduling affected ratings. It’s considered an unmitigated disaster, and as this episode says, TV Guide rates it as #4 on the list of worst shows of all time.

Lorelai and Rory are watching the first episode (the pilot) of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.