Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: We must be getting close, we’re running out of rows.
SOOKIE: And 1000. Okay, we’re here.
In real life, the theatre the concert scenes were filmed at, The Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, is a small intimate venue, and not 1000 rows high (in fact nothing is 1000 rows high). Sookie is just joking – we can see they are only in Row 22.
LOUISE: I find your mother completely fascinating.
RORY: Funny – so does she.
LOUISE: It’s almost more like having a big sister.
Amy Sherman-Palladino reportedly wrote Lorelai and Rory to have a relationship that was more sisterly than like mother-and-daughter. Sherman-Palladino had a sister who died very young, and her imaginings of what their relationship might have been like (best friends who looked alike) was part of the basis for that between Lorelai and Rory. She also thought that if she ever had a child, she would want to be more like a friend than a parent, so that was another imagining which went into the relationship between Lorelai and Rory.
Madeline says that they can’t study at her house because her brother has measles.
Measles is a highly contagious viral infection causing fever, cough, runny nose, inflamed eyes, and a red rash. It can be fatal. Madeline must be vaccinated against the disease or she would have it herself, and the household should have been quarantined so that Madeline shouldn’t be (and possibly isn’t) living at home while her brother is infectious.
Measles were declared to be eliminated in the US in 2000 by public health officials (this doesn’t mean nobody got measles that year, just that there were so few cases and such high vaccination rates that they weren’t any threat to the general population).
Madeline’s brother getting measles in 2001 is highly unusual, and it really makes you wonder why vaccination rates are so low in the Gilmore Girls universe – in real life, Connecticut has one of the highest rates of child vaccination in the world. It seems more in line with California, where Gilmore Girls is filmed, where vaccination rates tend to be lower.
The Bangles concert takes place at the Pastorella Theatre in New York City, a fictional entertainment venue. In Italian, pastorela means “shepherdess”, and a pastorella can mean any musical or literary work with a pastoral theme, a church composition for the Christmas season, or a medieval poem or song involving love for a shepherdess. The Pastorella Theatre therefore has a name connected with music.
In real life, The Bangles appeared at the Irving Plaza at 17 Irving Place in Union Square, Manhattan when they played in New York during their reunion tour; the date was October 2 2000. For the concert venue in this episode, the exterior shots are from the Warner Bros. Theater in Burbank, while the interior shots are from The Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
RORY: Because it’s a charity rummage sale.
LORELAI: I know.
RORY: That you helped organise.
LORELAI: Okay.
RORY: And volunteered to run.
LORELAI: It was very, very hot in that room that day; I was dehydrated. They could’ve talked me into anything.
An in-joke. The set for Patty’s Place, used in the show for town meetings, was extremely hot and stuffy for the cast. The writer (Elaine Arata) must have thought that if the town meetings in Stars Hollow really were that hot and uncomfortable, the characters might have agreed to almost anything just to get out of there.
This episode marks the beginning of Sookie and Jackson’s relationship, and from now on we can feel completely secure that Sookie’s relationship needs are taken care of, and that any star-crossed lovers dating plot-lines will belong to Lorelai and Rory, the protagonists of the story.
As Sookie was originally going to be played by Alex Borstein (Drella), and Borstein was then married to Jackson Douglas, who plays Jackson in Gilmore Girls, it is likely that that it was always planned for Sookie and Jackson to be a couple eventually.
MRS. KIM: They [the girls] could be anywhere, they could be doing anything. Smoking, or drinking, or buying drugs!
LORELAI: They’re at the movies. There’s no drugs there. They don’t even have the real Red Vines.
Red Vines is a brand of red licorice candy made by the American Licorice Company. The current flavour has been used since 1952.
Lorelai and Rory seem to be very fond of them as Lorelai said Dean had saved their movie night when he gave Lorelai the Red Vines she had forgotten at the supermarket. Red Vines are also one of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s favourite candies. The Black-White-Read Bookstore apparently only sells generic red licorice.
LORELAI: That’s very Richard Simmons of you [that Luke put nutmeg in the coffee].
LUKE: Well, what can I say. Chicks dig a man with a feminine side.
Richard Simmons (born Milton Simmons in 1948) is an American fitness instructor, actor, and comedian. He ran his own gym for many years, and promoted weight-loss through exercise programs, often appearing as a guest on television chat shows.
Simmons is well known for his flamboyant, energetic personality, and his signature outfit of candy-striped short-shorts and singlet top decorated with crystals. His sexuality has long been a subject for speculation, but has never been confirmed either way.
Apparently Lorelai is just saying that putting nutmeg is coffee is “gay” (or at least sexually ambiguous). Not one of her finest moments. Luke’s comment about being a man with a feminine side may be an in-joke, as his character was originally a woman named Daisy.
RUNE: That’s Lorelai?
JACKSON: Yes.
RUNE: Did you see how tall she is?
Lauren Graham (Lorelai) is 1.75 m tall (just under 5 foot 7 and a half inches), while Max Perlich (Rune) is 1.62 m tall (around 5 foot 3). There’s a height difference in Lorelai’s favour – somewhat increased by heels – but Rune ridiculously compares her to a basketball player, an East German maid, and a freak of “bearded lady” proportions.
(The East German comment refers to the decades-long systematic doping of East German athletes with steroids and testosterone for the purposes of cheating, leading to some impressively large and strong athletes. The program ended in 1989 with the fall of communism, but unfortunately the men and women involved – some of whom were only eight years old at the time – are still experiencing physical and mental health disorders because of the doping. Lorelai is in the right age bracket to be an East German maid who was doped as an athlete in the 1980s: picture shows 1980s East German athlete Marita Koch, who holds the world record for the 400 m, partly due to steroid use).
Lorelai rarely has any trouble attracting men, so having a date openly and constantly insult her physical appearance must be a bizarre experience for her.
LORELAI: Maybe you could do them [the Baked Alaskas] in the actual shape of Alaska.
SOOKIE: Interesting.
LORELAI: Or you could do little baked Alaskas and Hawaiis.
SOOKIE: Because they joined the union last.
It would be very difficult to make Baked Alaska in the shape of Alaska and Hawaii as Alaska has a multitude of islands around its coastline, and Hawaii is a group of islands. I’m sure it can be done, with some artistic licence. Lorelai is joking though.
Alaska was purchased by America from Russia in 1867, and became a US territory in 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the US in January 1959.
The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown during a coup d’état in 1893, and the country was annexed by the US in 1898, becoming one of its territories. In August 1959 Hawaii was admitted to the union, becoming the 50th state of the US.
Hawaii is the state where Lauren Graham (who plays Lorelai Gilmore) was born, which might be why it is mentioned here. It also happens to be where Keiko Agena (Lane Kim) was born.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 