Christopher

LORELAI: He calls like once a week and we see him at Christmas, sometimes Easter. It’s all very civil.

This is the point where we discover that Rory has had some contact with her father throughout her life, seeing him at least once a year and sometimes twice a year. The weekly phone call, like the one to Emily, seems something of a polite fiction – it seems greatly out of character for Christopher to phone so regularly. Most likely he phoned whenever he thought of it, which probably wasn’t that often.

Shirley Temple

LORELAI: Here. [hands Rory a drink]
RORY: What is it?
LORELAI: Shirley Temple.
RORY: What are you drinking?
LORELAI: A Shirley Temple Black.
(Lorelai lets Rory smell her drink.)
RORY: Wow.
LORELAI: I got your Good Ship Lollipop right here, mister.

Shirley Temple (1928-2014) was a multi award-winning box office-topping American Hollywood child star who began her career at the age of three. In 1934, she became famous starring in the film Bright Eyes, written specifically as a vehicle for Temple. On the Good Ship Lollipop is Temple’s musical number from the film, which became her signature song.

Later in life after leaving Hollywood, Shirley married a wealthy businessman named Charles Black so that her name became Shirley Temple Black. Strongly interested in conservative politics, she was US ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslavakia, and was the first female Chief of Protocol of the United States.

The Shirley Temple Lorelai hands Rory is a non-alcoholic cocktail, made for children and named after the child actress. Traditionally it’s made from ginger ale with a splash of grenadine, decorated with a cocktail cherry. Modern versions may be made with lemonade, lemon-lime soda or orange juice. Shirley Temple herself disliked the cocktail, finding it too sweet.

Lorelai indicates that her own drink is the grown-up version of a Shirley Temple (or just a very grown-up cocktail). It is possibly a Dirty Shirley, a Shirley Temple with vodka or rum added to it.

Edith Wharton

EMILY: Well I wanted everything to be perfect. What do you think?
LORELAI: I think Edith Wharton would have been proud, and busy taking notes.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose work centres on the lives on the American upper classes in the late 19th century. Her novels and stories are noted for their ironic tone, and the critical eye she turns on a world which was fading away. Most of the wealthy people in Wharton’s works lead quietly miserable, empty lives, which is probably a dig from Lorelai at Emily.

The Waltons

LORELAI: And while some have called it [giving birth] the most meaningful experience of your life, to me it was something more akin to doing the splits on a crate of dynamite.
RORY: I wonder if the Waltons ever did this.

The Waltons (1972-1981) was a wholesome family drama TV series about the Walton family in rural Virginia, and their experiences living through the Great Depression and World War II. It was based on the film Spencer’s Mountain, from a novel of the same name by Earl Hamner Jr., who would go on to be an executive producer on the TV series. Extremely popular, the Waltons won several Emmy Awards.

The Waltons had a couple of things in common with Gilmore Girls. Both shows were set in small towns with quirky townsfolk, and the protagonist of The Waltons, John-Boy Walton (based on Earl Hamner Jr.) went to university in a nearby town and became a journalist, just like Rory Gilmore. Both shows were filmed at Warner Brothers studio, and the set for the Waltons’ house was used for The Dragonfly inn in Gilmore Girls.

Denny’s

RORY: So do I look older?
LORELAI: Oh, yeah. You walk into Denny’s before five, you’ve got yourself a discount.

Denny’s is a chain of American diner-style table-service restaurants that are open all the time, not closing at night or on holidays unless forced to by state or local regulations. Founded in 1953, there are more than a thousand Denny’s restaurants in the United States. There is a Denny’s in Hartford that Rory could walk into before five o’clock.

Some Denny’s restaurants do give senior discounts, but as they are franchised there is no across-the-board senior discount program. I can’t find anything about them giving senior discounts before 5 (is that am or pm?). They do have a 55+ menu though, which is cheaper and with smaller portions.

Cinderella

LORELAI: Let me see. Maybe we should really embrace the whole tulle thing. Go totally modern Cinderella.

Lorelai is referring to the 1950 animated Disney film Cinderella, based on the French fairy tale by Charles Perrault. Cinderella was a massive critical and commercial success for Walt Disney, and was the #3 film of 1950. It is considered one of the greatest animated films of all time.

In the film, Cinderella wears a silver-white ballgown which is made blue in promotional materials; reproductions of the dress made for children and teens tend to be made from tulle.

Neither Lorelai nor Rory ends up wearing a tulle dress to Rory’s first birthday party, so I’m not sure what happened to the dresses Emily bought them. As Lorelai tells Emily they wore them to the party, maybe she tore all the tulle off and they wore the slip dresses that were underneath? Or perhaps Lorelai is simply lying.

At the very least, the lacy green cardigan that Rory wears wasn’t made by her mother – Lorelai wore it to Friday Night Dinner in Kill Me Now, and Rory must have borrowed it.