Tag: Brand Names

Saran Wrap

EMILY: “We’re in here?” That’s how you answer the door?
LORELAI: Well I was all out of Saran Wrap.
EMILY: I don’t even want to figure that one out.

Saran wrap is a brand of plastic wrap or clingfilm made for wrapping food; it is such a dominant brand that the brand name is often used for the item itself (like Kleenex).

Lorelai’s comment to Emily is a probable reference to the 1991 comedy-drama film Fried Green Tomatoes, directed by Jon Avnet and based on the 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg; Flagg was one of the screenwriters for the movie. The film did well at the box office and was generally well received by critics.

In one of the scenes, a character named Evelyn (Kathy Bates) tries to revive her marriage by greeting her husband at the door dressed only in Saran wrap. She got the idea from the best-selling 1973 self-help book The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan, the #1 non-fiction book of 1974.

Morgan, who gave out marriage advice grounded in evangelical Christianity with a distinct anti-feminist bias, suggested that women greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy outfits, with Saran wrap being one idea. (It doesn’t work for Evelyn and her husband).

You can see this as either a reference to the film or the book, but it seems far more likely that Lorelai saw Fried Green Tomatoes in the 1990s than that she has read the 1970s book (and if she did, it was probably after seeing the film).

Sookie’s First Aid Kit

As she was first characterised as highly accident-prone, it makes sense that Sookie is always equipped with some basic first aid equipment, which she offers to Lorelai when she hurts her back while making Rory’s dress.

Ace bandage: Ace is a popular American brand of elastic bandages, first produced in 1918 – the name stands for All Cotton Elastic. The brand was bought by 3M in 2009.

Percodan: The brand name of a strong painkiller which combines aspirin and the semi-synethetic opioid oxycodone, manufactured by Endo Pharmaceuticals. It’s only available on prescription, and is now considered a fairly old-fashioned medication, with use declining.

Vicodin: The brand name of a strong painkiller which combines paracetamol with the semi-synethetic opioid hyrocodone. It’s only available on prescription, and can be addictive; it is sometimes (illegally) used for recreational use.

Darvocet: The brand name of an opioid painkiller manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company. It was taken off the market in 2010 due to concerns about fatal overdoses.

Muscle relaxant: A drug used to treat muscular pain and spasms, nearly always with sedative effects. They can be addictive, and are only meant to be prescribed for short-term use. Sookie’s reluctance to use “the very mild” drug’s name suggests that it may be Diazepam, previously known as Valium.

You can’t help wondering if Sookie’s clumsiness might have been increased by a dependence on prescription painkillers.

Coke

RORY: I’m gonna go get another Coke.

Coca-Cola, a fizzy soft drink made by the Coca-Cola company since 1886. The name comes from two original ingredients: kola nuts (for caffeine), and coca leaves (for cocaine). The current formula is a trade secret, but the coca leaves now have most of the cocaine removed from them, and there wasn’t really much to start with. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of caffeine.

Coke was the go-to soda on Gilmore Girls, and apparently Alex Bledel’s coffee cup had Coke in it, since she doesn’t drink coffee. However any time I saw them drink coffee the cups looked empty, so I’m not sure how much actual liquid ever got drunk.

Legos

LANE: I mean, you seem to have this really great life going and I don’t really fit in there.
RORY: That’s not true, you totally fit in.
LANE: Yeah?
RORY: I’m talking Legos.

Lego is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group, founded in Denmark in 1949. Lego pieces are interlocking plastic bricks, figurines and various doo-dads that can be fit together in a variety of ways, taken apart, and reused again and again. They are one of the most powerful brands in the world.

(It is usual in the US to refer to the plural Lego bricks as Legos, which sounds grammatically wrong in the rest of the world).

Rory is implying not just that she and Lane fit together tightly like Lego bricks, but that their relationship is capable of change. Life might break them apart, but they will always find new ways to re-assemble their friendship.

World Series

LORELAI: I, uh . . . we had one date. It was a great date, World Series level.

The World Series is the annual championship series for Major League Baseball in the US, contested since 1903 and held in the autumn. For this reason it is sometimes called the Fall Classic.

It sometimes confuses people outside the US as to why it is called the World Series when only one nation is involved. One theory is that it was named after the newspaper The New York World, but this is disputed. Most likely it was just a zippy promotional name.

Pager

In this episode we see that Rory has a pager, which Lane contacts her on. In a later episode it is possible to see that it is an American Online (AOL) pager.

A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages, or receives voice messages sent from a telephone. They came into use in the 1950s, and became widespread during the 1980s. Their use declined markedly during the 2000s with the rise of mobile phones that allow text messaging and voicemail.

Bank of America

Max tells Lorelai that his former fiancee now lives in Thailand, working for the Bank of America.

The Bank of America is the second largest financial institution in the US, and was founded in 1904, existing under its present name since 1930. It has branches in all states of the USA, and more than 40 countries worldwide. The Bank of America has a branch in Bangkok, Thailand, near the US Embassy.

Lava Lamp

TAYLOR: Well, excuse me, Andrew, but some of us have businesses to run that don’t involve peddling drug paraphernalia to kids.
ANDREW: It was a lava lamp, Taylor.
TAYLOR: There is no use for a lava lamp unless you’re on drugs.

Lava lampa are novelty decorations first invented in 1963 by a British accountant named Edward Craven-Walker. The lamp has a special wax mixture inside a glass vessel filled with translucent  liquid; as the lamp heats the wax rises, then falls as it cools in a way which suggests the flow of lava. The actual manufacture of the lamp is a trade secret, so I can’t tell you any more than that. In the US in 2000, lava lamps were made by Lava World International: elsewhere they were, and still are, made by Craven-Walker’s company Mathmos, although he died in 2000.

Taylor is right that lava lamps have been a big part of drug culture, and in the 1960s were a symbol of the counterculture and psychedelia. However you don’t have to be on drugs to own one, and they have a sort of kitschy retro chic. We later learn that Lane Kim owns at least two lava lamps, possibly bought from Andrew’s store, Stars Hollow Books.

Pink Moon

(Dean looks around Rory’s bedroom, and picks up a CD)
DEAN: Wow. Very clean. How much does it suck that they use Pink Moon in a Volkswagen commercial?

Dean is referring to the song Pink Moon by Nick Drake, earlier identified as one his favourite singers.

This is by far the most pretentious and hypocritical thing the usually down-to-earth Dean ever says in Gilmore Girls. Nick Drake had been obscure for decades when his song Pink Moon was used in a Volkswagen commercial. Without the commercial, Dean would never have even heard of Nick Drake, and as the commercial only came out in December 1999, he had been a Nick Drake fan for less than a year.

I can only imagine he was trying to impress Rory with his hipness, by making out that he had somehow known about Nick Drake previous to the commercial, to the point where he could feel betrayed that they used his music to sell Volkswagen. I’m not buying it.

In turn, Rory clearly went out and bought the Pink Moon album just because Dean liked it, then pretends that she knows and cares all about it to the same extent. But the show lets us know that, whereas that isn’t the case with Dean’s statement.