Sookie’s Basket

pasta with four kinds of pesto

salad

pineapple-cranberry chutney

3 different types of cookies, including heart-shaped ones covered in pink icing

a tart topped with fresh fruit

a lemon meringue pie surrounded by ladies fingers

miniature wedding cake

bottle of champagne

candles

flowers

probably a lot more we don’t see

the basket itself is an edible pretzel with a goat cheese filling!!!!

How did this go for only $35??? Incidentally, this helps to partially justify Lorelai and Rory’s complete lack of effort. If Sookie can work for hours to make a beautiful picnic basket and it only earns $35, what exactly is the point of slaving in the kitchen for the Bid-on-a-Basket Festival?

Kirk Wins the Bid for Sookie’s Basket

TAYLOR: Thirty-five going once, thirty-five going twice . . . sold to Kirk for thirty-five dollars.
KIRK: Yes, finally! You know, if it hadn’t have been for me I could’ve had it for twenty-five.

After Andrew withdraws from the bidding, Kirk wins Sookie’s basket, spending ten dollars more because he bid against himself. It seems as if Kirk didn’t really want either the food or Sookie, but simply the joy of winning something.

Sookie is naturally devastated, because Jackson didn’t talk about how he felt, but sulked and took petty revenge against her in public.

Andrew? Jackson?

TAYLOR: Andrew?
SOOKIE: Jackson?

Jackson is piqued because Sookie hasn’t picked up on his hints he wants to move in with her, and petulantly refuses to bid on her basket. With nobody else making a move, Andrew from Stars Hollow Books puts in a bid for it. At this point, Andrew appears to be single, but it’s unclear whether he wants the delicious basket, or Sookie herself. He certainly doesn’t seem worried about upsetting Jackson.

The point where Andrew and Jackson’s names are said together is almost certainly a joking reference to Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), lawyer, soldier, and statesmen who served as the 7th President of the United States, from 1829 to 1837.

John Cleese

RORY: [follows him] Please don’t walk away like that.
DEAN: Sorry, I’d do a silly walk but I’m not feeling very John Cleese right now.

John Cleese (born 1939), British actor, comedian, screenwriter, and comedian. He is most famous for being a founding member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the surreal comedy sketch show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, initially broadcast on BBC1 from 1969 to 1974.

Although Monty Python had little success in the US during their first American tour, Monty Python’s Flying Circus began airing on the PBS station KERA Dallas in 1974; other PBS stations followed and by 1975 it was the most popular show on these stations. It helped open the door for other British comedies in the US. Monty Python’s Flying Circus also aired on MTV in 1988.

Dean is referring to one of Cleese’s most famous sketches, “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, in series 2, episode 1, entitled “Face the Press”. In the sketch, John Cleese plays a civil servant responsible for developing silly walks, and spends the sketch walking in various silly ways in a thoroughly serious and determined manner.

Rory and Dean may have watched a DVD of the original show, or of the 1982 documentary, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, where the Monty Python team performed both classic sketches and new material. It was the last time the “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch was performed in public. John Cleese had a hip and knee replacement in 2010, so that he was unable to perform the silly walks again.

Shipping Off to ‘Nam

DEAN: Don’t go.
JESS: Oh geez man, she’s not shipping off to ‘Nam.

Jess sardonically compares Dean’s distress over Rory going on a picnic with him to someone being sent to the Vietnam War (1955-1975).

Although the US had been involved since World War II in a very limited capacity, the first US ground troops arrived in Vietnam in 1965, reaching a peak in 1969, by which time more than half a million Americans were stationed in Vietnam. This was also the year in which the dreaded draft lottery began, where young men were called up for service based on their birthdate.

Opposition to the war played a key role in sparking the Civil Rights Movement and the hippie counterculture, as well as wide-ranging changes in popular culture. The last American troops pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, by which time there had been more than 58 000 US casualties.

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.