Footnotes to the TV series
Rory apologises that the Cosmopolitan she gives Richard isn’t The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal is an American newspaper based in New York with a focus on business. In print since 1889, it has won numerous Pulitzer Prizes and has the highest circulation of any newspaper in the US. It is named after Wall Street in the financial district of Manhattan.
Rory gives her grandfather a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine to read at her birthday party, remembering how he read the newspaper and shared it with her at their first Friday Night Dinner. Richard recognises it as a thoughtful gesture, and dutifully reads the magazine.
Sookie asks Lorelai when her parents last visited, and it is confirmed that this is the first time Richard and Emily have been to Lorelai’s house in Stars Hollow. They visited a few times at the Independence Inn when Rory was a baby, but not otherwise.
LORELAI: Yeah. I’ve cursed in front of them twice and Miss Patty already tried to hit on my dad, and I’m sure my mom is going to call Child Protective Services.
The state government agency in charge of monitoring and providing support in cases of child neglect or abuse is called the Department of Children and Families. They have branches all over Connecticut, including in Hartford.
EMILY (ordering a drink): Stoli on the rocks with a twist.
Emily is referring to Stolichnaya, a brand of well known premium Russian vodka that was first produced in the 1930s. Judging by the expression on Lorelai’s face, it’s unlikely that she has any, and Emily probably gets something a little more downmarket.
LORELAI: Oh, no, Mom, you’re going to need one [a drink] and I have wine glasses that say Holiday Inn on them.
Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels, founded in 1952, and one of the largest hotel chains in the world. They were named after the successful 1942 musical Christmas film Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Lorelai presumably stole the glasses from a hotel while on vacation.
This 1999 song by Scottish rock band Travis plays as Rory greets Richard and Emily, who have arrived for her second birthday party. The song is from their album The Man Who, and it was their breakthrough single, giving them international recognition. It went to #10 in the UK, and in the US it was #35 on the alternative music charts, and #36 on the adult music charts.
LORELAI: All right, everybody, I need your attention, your attention please. This is a very serious moment. Two priests, a rabbi, and a duck —
RORY: Mom.
LORELAI: All right, I’m kidding.
The old joke Lorelai pretends to start telling goes: Two priests, a rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this, a joke?”. The punchline is because priests, rabbis, and/or ducks in bars are a common feature in jokes.
Everyone sings this traditional birthday song to Rory when her birthday cake is brought out. The song dates back to the 19th century, when Kentucky sisters Patty and Mildred Hall wrote a kindergarten song called Good Morning to All, publishing it in 1893. At some point (and by someone) the lyrics were changed to Happy Birthday to You, and early in the twentieth century the words and lyrics were published together.
Happy Birthday to You is said to be most recognisable song in the English language, and the highest-earning song in history, having made perhaps fifty million dollars. After a protracted legal battle, the song was declared to be in the public domain in the US in 2016, and copyright ended in Europe in 2017.
You can see in this scene that Rory’s cake has 16 candles – 8 on each side of the cake – confirming that this is her sixteenth birthday.
Lorelai’s birthday present to Rory is an indigo iBook Apple Macintosh laptop. The iBook line of laptops first came out in 1999, and were discontinued in 2006. The model Rory has was released in September 2000, and cost about $1500 at the time. Lorelai most likely bought it from the Apple store in Hartford, located in the mall. Throughout the show, Rory was shown to have remained loyal to Apple products.
So Lorelai bought Rory a hip $1500 Apple Mac laptop that would be helpful for school for her birthday, and somehow convinced her wealthy, generous mother Emily that it would be a great idea to buy Rory a junky useless $12 bracelet for her birthday. Well played Lorelai, well played.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 