Rory’s Birth Date

When Tristan shows Rory the party invitation he received from Emily, we can see that Rory was born on October 8.

This isn’t possible according to the script – Rory started school late, and she would only have been at Chilton for a short time by October 8, less than two weeks at the absolute maximum. Several weeks have now gone by, where Rory has attended multiple Friday Night Dinners, learned to play golf, helped out at a wedding, got her first D, failed to turn up in time for a big test, attended a cat’s wake, discovered her mother and English Literature teacher made a date, and confessed to Dean that she is interested in him. Furthermore, October 8 was a Sunday, not a Friday, in 2000.

If you carefully follow Rory’s adventures since starting at Chilton, you can see that her birthday would actually be October 27. A birthday in late October is confirmed in future seasons.

If you are in a nit-picky mood, feel free to join me in tut-tutting that the party invitation said that Rory was born in the morning twice in the same sentence, but neglected to mention that it’s her sixteenth birthday – no way would Emily have done such a shoddy job.

One might also wonder how Emily was able to get the names and addresses of all Rory’s classmates to send them invitations – did Headmaster Charleston let her access the school database just for her granddaughter’s birthday party?

Damien’s

EMILY: Well good. I’ll meet you at Damien’s tomorrow at three o’clock.

A fictional department store, perhaps an equivalent to the real life Filene’s department store in Hartford (originally G. Fox and Co.), which was sold to Macy’s in 2006. The scenes in Damien’s were filmed at the Burbank Town Center shopping mall in Burbank, California.

Jane

EMILY: This isn’t funny. I hardly get to see the girl and we only get to talk at dinner once a week and then it’s all about school and Jane.
LORELAI: Lane, Mom.

The fact that Emily mixes up Lane’s name and calls her Jane is a probable allusion to the MTV cartoon Daria (1997-2002), in which protagonist Daria Morgendorffer’s best friend is Jane Lane (I believe this to be source of Lane Kim’s rather unlikely first name).

Jane Lane is not Asian-American like Lane Kim, but her voice actress is Malaysian-born, and the character is drawn with some slight Asian characteristics, so that casual viewers sometimes assume she has Asian heritage. Besides both having black hair and being the less academic sidekick to an intellectual bestie, Jane Lane was a gifted artist, as a parallel to Lane Kim’s musical talent.

(By the way, if Emily only hears about Rory’s doings at Friday Night Dinner, whatever happened to that weekly phone call where she could catch up on Lorelai and Rory’s lives?)

Bong

EMILY: Yes, but I want to get her something special, something she wants, something …that you would get her.
LORELAI: Oh, OK, fine. You can get her the bong then.

A bong is a water pipe used to smoke marijuana, and more rarely, other substances. They have been used since prehistoric times, and known in China, Laos, Thailand, and Africa for centuries – the word comes from the Thai language.

In the US you can buy a bong, and I think you could have done so in 2000, but oddly they don’t like you to use the word in the store, preferring that you ask for a glass pipe or water pipe (or just point).

Apple

Lorelai eats an apple while she waits for the pizza to arrive. Much later in the series it is established that Lorelai doesn’t like apples, and only craved them when she was pregnant with Rory. Despite this supposed dislike of fruit, there is always a bowl of fresh fruit on the Gilmores’ kitchen table, including apples. Maybe it’s for Rory.

Justin and Britney

(Sees Rory on the phone)
LORELAI: “And Justin is just so dreamy. He can’t marry Britney, I’ll just cry and cry and cry.”

Lorelai mockingly supplies imaginary dialogue for Rory, based on a stereotype of what teenage girls talk about on the phone. She is referring to singers Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, who began dating in 1999, and who were frequently rumoured to be engaged. They broke up in 2002 and eventually married other people.

Rory is actually talking to the pizza delivery service.

Lucy, I’m home!

LORELAI (to Rory): Lucy, I’m home!

A catchphrase from the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy, starring real-life husband and wife Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. In the show, Ricky would call this out to his wife on returning home.

I Love Lucy was often mentioned on Gilmore Girls, and as one of the first female-centred TV comedies must have served as an inspiration to Amy Sherman-Palladino. Perhaps a little of Lucy’s warm-hearted, wrong-headed wackiness is even part of Lorelai’s character.

The Fly

LORELAI: You didn’t build one of those machines like in The Fly did you? We’re not going to find you wandering the streets wearing a raspberry head crying, “Eat me!”

The Fly is a 1958 sci-fi horror film directed by Kurt Neuman, based on the short story of the same name by George Langlaan. In the film, a scientist mutates into a human fly after accidentally mixing his atoms with that of a fly which flew into his matter transportation machine. At one point, he can be heard crying, “Save me!”.

The film was a commercial success, and is now regarded as a superior example of a 1950s B-Grade sci-fi film. Sadly, the director died a few weeks after the film’s premiere, never realising he had made the hit of his career.

Cumquat

JACKSON: For some time now I’ve been toying with cross-pollination. Finally I’ve got it. I figured out a way to cross a raspberry with a cumquat.

A cumquat is a small cold-hardy citrus fruit native to south Asia and the Asia-Pacific. They were introduced to Europe and North America from China in the 19th century.

In reality, it is not possible to cross a cumquat with a raspberry. It’s clearly just a joke by the scriptwriter, but if you were determined to make this a semi-believable situation, yellow raspberries do exist, and Jackson might have bred one with an especially sharp, citrus-y flavour, making him over-excitedly believe that he had somehow crossed a raspberry with a cumquat.