Princeton University and Ivy League College Consultant

PARIS: My panelists are Jim Romaine, admissions officer at Princeton University, and Ivy League college consultant, Rose Samuels.

Princeton University, previously discussed. Paris’ boyfriend attends Princeton – I don’t know whether that had any bearing on Paris getting their admissions officer on their panel. I wouldn’t put it past Paris, though.

Jim Romaine and Rose Samuels are of course fictional characters, played by Philip Pavel and Karen Bankhead respectively.

In real life, an admissions officer at Princeton University, Stephen LeMenager, had just been removed (in August 2002) after gaining unauthorised access to student’s files on a Yale admissions website the previous April. The investigation and subsequent scandal may have been what put the idea of using Princeton in this episode – they could have had a representative from any Ivy League university, after all.

Ivy League college consultants, also called independent education counsellors, work with students and their parents to decide which schools a student should apply to. They also guide them through the application and essay-writing processes. Top tier college consultants can cost a small fortune, so this is yet another area where being very wealthy can help you on your path to college.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium

PARIS: I was working with the losers in the AV club to project it on a giant video screen. And all Mr. Hunter said was, “Paris, this isn’t The Beatles at Shea Stadium.” Nice anachronism, huh? Like they had video screens in ’63. His references are as topical as his suits.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium, previously discussed.

The Beatles actually performed there in 1965, not 1963. They must have realised that they made a mistake, because on Netflix, there is re-recorded audio correcting the error to 1965 instead.

“I even cleaned the table”

LORELAI: This is an uncontaminated area. I even cleaned the table using something other than the sleeve of my sweater and spit.

Although there are several jokes in the show about Lorelai’s poor housekeeping skills, their home never looks dirty, or even very messy – cosy clutter and a light layer of dust is about the worse we ever see. (It’s hard to make a television set, which is not lived in, really look like a dirty house).

It does make sense that Lorelai is not keen on housework – besides being a single parent working full-time (and until recently, studying part-time), which is reason enough. She worked as a maid for several years, and her job is to run the inn and keep it looking nice now, so it’s believable that she wouldn’t feel like taking care of the house as well when she gets home from work.

TV Guide

RORY: Did you see that TV Guide had this on their list of the worst fifty shows of all time?

TV Guide Maagazine, a bi-weekly magazine containing the TV schedules, as well as television news, celebrity interviews and gossip, film reviews, and crossword puzzles. It was founded by Lee Wagner of MacFadden Publications, and first printed in 1948 as the The TeleVision Guide, only for the New York area. It began printing nationally as TV Guide in 1953. Since 2015, it’s been owned by NTVB Media.

Gilmore Girls had featured in TV Guide in June 2002, with Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel on the cover, so this feels like a definite shout-out to the publication. As a self-deprecatory inside joke, Lorelai and Rory proceed to criticise the magazine’s opinions of TV shows, since TV Guide had just raved about Gilmore Girls.

“She’ll make Jimmy Carter look like Martin Sheen”

FRANCIE: She’s gonna support the hemline issue, and any other issue that I bring up for the rest of the year. Otherwise I’ll make her so ineffectual, she’ll make Jimmy Carter look like Martin Sheen – do you get me?

James “Jimmy” Carter Jr (born 1924), 39^th president of the US from 1977 to 1981 for the Democratic Party. He is generally seen as an ineffectual president, the end of his presidency marked by emergencies such as the Iran hostage crisis, the energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Nicaraguan Revolution. His post-presidential activities are rated higher – he has worked with Habitat for Humanity, and set up a centre for improving human rights, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 (after the events of this episode, but announced around the time of its broadcast). Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived American president, the oldest living president, the one with the longest post-presidency period, and the longest-married president, as he and his wife Rosalynn have been married for 76 years.

Martin Sheen, previously discussed, the actor who played President Josiah “Jed” Bartlett on political drama series The West Wing (1999-2006), created by Aaron Sorkin (at one point, there was a rumour going around that Gilmore Girls was actually written by Aaron Sorkin, using Amy Sherman-Palladino as a pseudonym!). Jed Bartlett was an amalgam of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton – Clinton was a friend of Sheen, who often visited the White House.

Jed Bartlett was an outstanding president in the series – brilliantly intellectual, quick-witted, compassionate, stoic, and driven by integrity. He is regarded as one of the greatest fictional American presidents of all time, and Sheen won a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for the role.

Francie is saying that unless she gets her way on everything, she’ll shut Paris down until she becomes so ineffectual that in comparison, the low-rated Jimmy Carter will seem as brilliant as fictional president Bartlett.

Liza Weil, who plays Paris Geller, was in an episode of The West Wing in January 2000, the same year Gilmore Girls began airing. Dakin Matthews, who plays Headmaster Charleston, was in the same episode.

Lorelai in Hiding

LORELAI: All right . . . we’re gonna have to move … Take off in the middle of the night, leave everything behind, assume different identities. I’ll join a local community theater and I’ll drive you to soccer. It’ll work for many years until the FBI comes to get me, and by that time, you’re on your own.

Lorelai jokes that rather than tell Kirk she’s not interested in dating him she will leave town and begin a new life (this is sounding a bit like when she dumped Max by immediately fleeing Stars Hollow to hide out in another state!).

Lorelai says that she will join a local community theatre – in fact, she takes part in amateur dramatics in Stars Hollow too, and received rave reviews for taking the lead in Fiddler on the Roof. Lauren Graham began her acting career by doing two years of summer stock in Michigan, suggesting that this may be an inside joke.

By the end, Lorelai seems to have forgotten the original reason she became a fugitive, saying that the FBI will eventually track her down, as if she has committed a crime, rather than simply moved towns to avoid Kirk.

Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer

A popular song written by German composer Hans Carste with lyrics by Hans Bradkte, first recorded as “Du spielst ‘ne tolle Rolle” by Austrian singer Willy Hagara in 1962. It was recorded in 1963 by Nat King Cole, with English lyrics by Charles Tobias, who gave it a nostalgic theme. Cole’s version went to #6 in the US, and #3 on the Middle-Road Singles Chart. It is the opening track on his album of the same name.

It is from the song that the episode gets its title, and serves as the inspiration for and soundtrack to Taylor’s First Annual Stars Hollow End of Summer Madness Festival. In keeping with the theme of madness, a barbershop quartet sings this song on a sanity-eroding permanent loop at the festival. It is performed by Mick Foster and Tony Allen in the show.

Sookie’s House

[Lorelai and Rory walk out of some bushes near Sookie and Jackson’s house]

LORELAI: See, three minutes faster. I also found a way to get to Al’s Pancake World that shaves a good forty seconds off our normal route.

Another inside joke about the difficulties of getting to Sookie’s house – even though the set used for Sookie’s is right next to the set for Lorelai’s home.

Lorelai and Rory are going to pick up Sookie and Jackson to go to the festival, which makes no sense. Sookie and Jackson live in the opposite direction to the town square, which Lorelai and Rory live close to. It would make more sense for Sookie and Jackson to walk to Lorelai and Rory’s house, and then onto the festival together. As it is, they would all have a long walk together from Sookie’s house to the town square – but Lorelai and Rory have to do it twice.

As it turns out, Lorelai and Rory have wasted their time, because when they get to Sookie’s, she and Jackson are having a fight, so they quietly walk back into town without them. Sookie has filled the house with tons of “manly” objects from Kim’s Antiques, including a stuffed grizzly bear (this must have all cost a fortune!).

Jackson demands that she get rid of it all and put the house back the way it was. Easier said than done – I can’t imagine Mrs Kim tamely taking everything back and refunding the money! Anyway, however implausibly, we can assume their ridiculous fight is over for this episode.

Jamie

JAMIE: So, where’s Paris?

RORY: Hm, not quite sure. Last time I saw her, she was beating the will to live out of our nation’s representatives.

JAMIE: She is a hammer, isn’t she?

RORY: Actually, she’s the entire toolbox.

In this episode we meet Jamie, who becomes Paris’ boyfriend. Paris thinks of herself as unappealing to the opposite sex, and her crush on former classmate Tristan was not reciprocated. But it is Jamie who pursues Paris, and on paper at least, he looks like her dream man. Attractive, intelligent, ambitious, and sharing her passion for aggressive debating techniques, Jamie isn’t scared off by Paris’ strength and outspokenness – in fact, that’s what draws him to her.

Paris is so unused to anyone being interested to her that she gets asked on her first date by Jamie (a victory dinner after their debate together) and accepts before realising what’s happened when Rory explains it to her. Paris predictably has a meltdown before the date, just like the one she had before her date with Tristan, and becomes so insecure that she makes Rory hide in the closet just in case a glimpse of Rory will make Jamie change his mind. Rory points out that Jamie has already seen her, and isn’t interested, but Paris is in no mood for logic.

Even though Paris only asks Rory to step into the closet for a moment while Jamie is there to pick Paris up, Rory gets in with a flashlight and a book, as if she’s planning to spend the whole evening there!

Jamie is at Princeton, meaning that the Young Leaders program is for college students as well as high school students (something which probably wouldn’t happen in real life). He is presumably two or three years older than Paris, because if he was one year older, he wouldn’t have started at Princeton yet.

Jamie is played by Brandon Barash, in his first television role. He has gone on to have roles in The West Wing, 24, NCIS, Bones, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives.

Doug Ose

SENATOR BOXER: Uh, Paris, do you know Republican Congressman Doug Ose from California? You don’t? Great. You two will have so much to talk about.

Douglas “Doug” Ose (born 1955), businessman and politician who served as the US representative for California’s 3rd congressional district from 1999 to 2005. He is a member of the Republican Party. One of the wealthiest members of Congress, he was an enthusiastic supporter of tax cuts. Like Barbara Boxer, he is from California where Gilmore Girls was filmed, and likewise portrays himself in this episode.