Tipper

LORELAI: Thanks for the invite, I’m sure it’s gonna be great. Uh, so, uh, you guys have a good rehearsal. I’m gonna go on inside and write to Tipper. Great gal. See you guys later.

Mary “Tipper” Gore (born Mary Aitcheson in 1948), social issues advocate, activist, photographer and author who was the second lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. She was married to Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, although they separated in 2010.

In 1985, Gore co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center, which advocated for labelling of record covers of releases featuring profane language, especially in the heavy metal, punk, and hip hop genres of music.

Lorelai pretends she supports Tipper Gore to try to put Zack off being attracted to her. It doesn’t seem to work. Perhaps he didn’t listen.

Pamela Des Barres

LORELAI: Do you need any help, please?
RORY: I’m good, Pamela Des Barres.

Pamela Des Barres (born Pamela Miller in 1948), rock and roll groupie, writer, musician, and actress. She is also a former member of the experimental Frank Zappa-produced music group, the GTOs.

Des Barres is best known for her 1987 memoir, I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, which details her experiences in the Los Angeles rock music scene of the 1960s and 1970s, and she was the model for the Penny Lane character, played by Kate Hudson, in Almost Famous.

Pamela was married to English actor and singer Michael Des Barres from 1977 to 1991. You may recall that Michael Des Barres played the role of Claude in “A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving”.

Rory calls Lorelai this as a tease because Zack is flirting with her. Lorelai does everything she can to deflect this unwanted attention, even though she was flattered when Dean’s dimwitted friend Todd fancied her, and he was a few years younger than Zack is now. She must be feeling a lot more confident about herself now.

“Good lawyers make for good neighbors”

TAYLOR: All the more reason to have a professional take a little looksee, huh? I mean, there’s a reason they say good lawyers make for good neighbors.
LUKE: Who the hell said that?

Taylor (deliberately?) misquotes the famous 1914 Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall”, which says, “Good fences make good neighbours”. Although widely quoted as a pithy piece of commonsense wisdom, the person who actually says this line in the poem is not viewed sympathetically by the poem’s narrator. (Just as Taylor is not viewed very sympathetically by the writers of the show).

Originally published in Frost’s second collection, North of Boston, it is one of the most commonly analysed and anthologised poems in modern literature.

Office Depot

TAYLOR: Luke, this is business. It needs to be done properly and legally.
LUKE: It’s a standard lease form, Taylor. I bought it at Office Depot.

Office Depot, office supply company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. It was founded in 1986 and has 1400 retail outlets and annual sales of over $11 billion.

There was an Office Depot in West Hartford in 2003, and others in surrounding towns where Luke could have bought the lease forms – the store really does sell them.

A Wash

LORELAI: If I clean up Hug-a-World, does that cancel out me not getting rid of the boxes?
RORY: I’ll consider it a wash.

A wash, an idiom meaning that something is equal, with neither side having an advantage. It dates to the early twentieth century, and originally meant something disappointing, “a washout”. The meaning has gradually changed to mean that the situation is neither positive nor negative.

Uzbekistan

RORY: I learned my seven continents on Hug-a-World, don’t you remember? We used to squeeze it as tight as we could and then wherever our pinkies would end up, that’s where we were going to go together when I grew up.
LORELAI: Yes, many a trip to Uzbekistan was planned that way.

Uzbekistan, a country in Central Asia which is part of the Turkic world. It is a doubly landlocked country, being not only landlocked itself, but surrounded by other landlocked countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. It’s capital is Tashkent, and the city of Samarkand in the country’s south is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, with a fascinating history, part of the Silk Road route. It’s been a drawcard for adventurous travellers since at least the 19th century.

Hug-a-World

The educational toy shown is a Hugg-a-Planet, a globe of the world made into a soft squashy comfort pillow. They have been manufactured since 1982.

Rory says this is dirty old faded childhood toy has been in the garage for years, but we saw it, looking new and clean, in the living room in “A Tisket-a-Tasket”. I suppose it’s possible she bought a new “Hug-a-World” in the meantime, but then why does she want to wash and keep the old one?

Sanford and Son

LORELAI: We’re Sanford and Son.

Sanford and Son, sitcom television series that ran on from 1972 to 1977, about a father and son named Fred and Lamont Sanford who run a junk yard business together in Los Angeles. It was based on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son, which initially aired in theUK from 1962 to 1974.

Known for its edgy racial humor, running gags, and catchphrases, Sanford and Son has been hailed as the precursor to many other African American sitcoms. It was a rating hit throughout its six-season run.