Footnotes to the TV series
EMILY: And if you’d like, later on, you can make my asparagus talk.
LORELAI: Well, maybe next week.
Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis), a plant cultivated as a green vegetable since ancient times, and was introduced to North America by the Dutch in the 17th century. It is native to maritime areas of Europe and western Asia, and will grow in soil too saline for anything else. The young shoots of the plant are usually prepared as an appetiser or side dish
LORELAI: Apparently, Miss Patty showed his wife a picture of me, and she thinks I look like Elizabeth Taylor, which makes her Debbie Reynolds, and Stanley Eddie Fisher.
Actress Elizabeth Taylor, previously discussed and frequently mentioned. This is the second time Lorelai has been linked with Elizabeth Taylor (although, so has Miss Patty).
Singer and actor Edwin “Eddie” Fisher (1928-2010) was Elizabeth Taylor’s fourth husband. His first wife was actress and singer Debbie Reynolds (born Mary Reynolds, 1932-2016), a close friend of Elizabeth Taylor. Married in 1955, Fisher and Reynolds divorced in 1959 when it was revealed that he had been having an affair with Taylor. It caused a huge scandal at the time. Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor were divorced in 1964, and she and Debbie Reynolds reconciled and resumed their friendship some time in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
We learned earlier that Miss Patty carries a photo of Lorelai in her wallet in order to show it to men who might be interested in dating Lorelai. Now she’s apparently showing it to other women to make them jealous. What is it with this creepy obsession Miss Patty has with Lorelai?
RORY: Who’s Stanley Appleman?
LORELAI: Oh, he’s brand new in town. He works over at the hardware store, and the best part is, he used to be part of the touring company . . . of Riverdance.
Riverdance, theatrical show that consists mainly of traditional Irish music and dance. With a score composed by Bill Whelan, it originated as an interval act during the Eurovision Song Contest 1994. Shortly afterwards, it was expanded into a stage show, which opened in Dublin in 1995. Since then, the show has visited over 450 venues worldwide and been seen by over 25 million people, making it one of the most successful dance productions in the world.
Riverdance comes to Hartford every year. Did Stanley join the company while it was in Connecticut, or did he like the area so much he decided to stay there? How do you go from touring with Riverdance to working in hardware in a small town?
EMILY: She was sitting at the table giving all the peas voices.
LORELAI: With a little encouragement, I could’ve been the Senor Wences of the vegetable set.
Wenceslao Centeno, known professionally as Señor Wences (1896-1999), Spanish ventriloquist and comedian. His popularity grew with his frequent television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show during the 1950s and 1960s. Later, he became popular with another generation of fans on The Muppet Show.
TAYLOR: You would kick Tiny Tim’s crutch out from under him, wouldn’t you?
LUKE: If he asks for a free cup of coffee, gimpy’s going down.
Timothy “Tiny Tim” Cratchit, a character from the 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. In the story, Tim is the young son of Ebenezer Scrooge’s employee, Bob Cratchit, and a very sick boy who needs crutches to walk. Scrooge is shown that Tim will die in the future unless he receives medical help that Bob cannot afford on the salary he receives from Scrooge. This is one of several visions which cause Scrooge to reform, and the story states that Tiny Tim didn’t die, and that Scrooge became a second father to him (presumably paying for medical treatment).
Gimpy is a derogatory name for someone who walks with a limp. The slang dates to the 1920s, and may be a combination of gammy and limp, gammy being used to describe a bad leg.
TAYLOR: No, we have that money. The Tennessee Williams lookalike contest last month put us right over the top.
Thomas Williams III, known by his pen name Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), playwright and screenwriter. He is considered to be one of the foremost playwrights of the 20th century. Williams had his first success with The Glass Menagerie in 1944, followed by a strong of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). Much of his work has been adapted for the cinema. In 1979, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
It isn’t clear why Stars Hollow would hold a Tennessee Williams lookalike contest, although Williams’ literary agent did live in Connecticut, so there is a local link of a sort. Later on, it seems as if the town is keen to have fundraisers with a literary connection.
Taylor tells Luke they have enough money to restore the bridge now, and are currently raising money to buy a tarpaulin to cover the bridge, to ensure it doesn’t get further damaged during the winter before it can be restored. (Not only are tarpaulins not that expensive, Luke is able to locate and sew together numerous tarpaulins in a single night in the show’s final episode!). Despite this, Stars Hollow continues raising money for the bridge throughout the run of Gilmore Girls.
LUKE: Taylor, we have been raising money to restore that stupid bridge for eight years.
Stars Hollow has been raising money to restore the bridge since 1994. What exactly is so badly wrong with this bridge that it took so long? Would it not have been easier to simply build a new bridge?
LORELAI: And out of nowhere, Kirk comes dancing by, waving a McDonald’s hot apple pie in the air and of course Ho-Ho lunges for the pie and drops my hand and that was it. Kirk wins, I’m out. I’m gonna get that Ho-Ho someday.
McDonald’s fast food restaurants, previously discussed. They have had hot apple pie on their dessert menu since 1968. Until 1992, the apple pies were deep fried, but are now baked.
Ho-Ho, previously discussed.
Lorelai’s story reveals that Kirk is not above fighting dirty in order to win the dance marathon. He had great foresight to bring a McDonald’s apple pie with him to the marathon, and kept it hot (?) by some arcane means.
LORELAI: And Ho-Ho’s fading, so I’m trying to buck him up, saying “Come on, Ho-Ho. Stay with me Ho-Ho,” and then all of a sudden he starts yelling, “Stop calling me Ho-Ho, it’s making me hungry!”
LUKE: Oh, hey, look, there goes Tommy Tune.
Thomas “Tommy” Tune (born 1939), actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won ten Tony Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Luke tries to distract Lorelai from her story with his quip about a famous dancer, as if Lorelai might be interested in him as a partner. Lorelai seems to be very interested in getting a tall partner, and Tommy Tune is over six foot six.
LORELAI: Pale means sickly.
LUKE: Or sunscreen.
LORELAI: Or mad cow disease.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and inevitably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. It can be spread to humans if they eat meat from infected cows.
In humans, infection can result in Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), also known as subacute spongiform encephalopathy or neurocognitive disorder due to prion disease, an invariably fatal degenerative brain disorder. Early symptoms include memory problems, behavioral changes, poor coordination, and visual disturbances. Later symptoms include dementia, involuntary movements, blindness, weakness, and coma. About 70% of people die within a year of diagnosis. Pale skin isn’t one of the symptoms.
There was an outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK which lasted from 1986 to 2015, reaching a peak in 1993. There were a few cases in North America from 1993 to 2012, which had an impact on the US beef industry.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 