Tag: Brand Names

“Talk into the clown”

[Dean walks up to the counter]
DEAN: I gotta place an order.
JESS: Talk into the clown.
DEAN: I am.

A reference to the clown head at Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurants that customers spoke into to place their order at the drive-through service. This option existed from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. It seems slightly odd this is a handy reference for someone born in 1984. Dean gets in a lot of insults to Jess in this scene.

Timex

PARIS: Paris is here. Couldn’t wait to jump in there and take over, could you?
RORY: Tell it to the Timex salesman.

Timex, global watch manufacturing company founded in 1854 as the Waterbury Clock Company in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1944, the company became insolvent but was reformed into Timex Corporation, now headquartered in Middlebury, Connecticut. The name was inspired by Time magazine and Kleenex, I guess because they are two successful products.

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.

Ramada

LORELAI: [on phone] Oh, no, sir, I’m afraid we don’t offer a complimentary breakfast … Uh, yes, sir, I realize the Ramada does.

Ramada is a large multinational hotel chain, and the first Ramada hotel was opened in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1954. The name is literally Spanish for “branch”, but ramadas (“porches, arbors”) were temporary open-air structures, popular in Arizona at harvest time. The company translates their name as “shady resting place”. It is now owned by Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

There are two Ramada hotels in Connecticut – one in Windsor Locks, just north of Hartford, and the other in Groton, where Lorelai’s relative once lived. Presumably the customer is considering remaining in Windsor Locks [pictured], which is at the airport. It’s a modest budget-priced two and half star hotel, and in reality they don’t offer a complimentary breakfast – they don’t serve breakfast at all, some days. It’s obviously nowhere near the luxury and charm of the Independence Inn.

Radisson

MICHEL: It was one of the premiere hotel schools in the world. You two, on the other hand, are going to take a two-hour course at the Radisson.

Radisson Hotels, international hotel chain headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The first hotel was opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1909, by Chicago heiress Edna Dickerson. A high-end luxury hotel, it was bought by the Carlson Company in 1962, and the chain had 32 locations by 1982, becoming one of the top hotel chains by 2013. It was bought out by Choice Hotels in 2022.

The Radisson Hotel in Hartford [pictured] is at 50 Morgan Street South, and it hosts conventions and other events. Does this mean The Learning Center holds it classes at the Radisson, or just this one? Somehow, Michel has turned a one-day course into a two-hour course.

New York to London

FRANCIE: I was just so surprised that Paris was canceling the meeting that it flew right out of my head. It was New York to London in three hours or less.

Francie is referring to the Concorde, previously discussed. A flight on the Concorde from New York to London was billed as taking 2 hours and 59 minutes – a shade less than three hours. It now takes seven hours to take the same flight route. That’s progress!