Prince Charming

LORELAI: Don’t even get me started on your Prince Charming crush, OK? At least my obsessions are alive. You have a thing for a cartoon.
DEAN: Ooh, Prince Charming, huh?
RORY: It was a long time ago. And not the Cinderella one, the Sleeping Beauty one.

Prince Charming is the generic name for the royal male love interest in a fairy tale. Rory tells Dean that her crush was on the prince in the 1959 animated Walt Disney film Sleeping Beauty, whose name is Prince Phillip (it’s the one in Cinderella whose name actually is Prince Charming). Sleeping Beauty was the #2 movie of 1959 and is today considered one of the best animated films ever made, although it was so expensive to make that the Disney studio posted a financial loss that year.

Sleeping Beauty has had several re-releases. It was re-released in theatres in March 1986, when Rory was 17 months old. Although Rory could have been taken to the cinema to see it, it was also released on video that year, and Lorelai (or the grandparents) could have bought it for her. Her crush on the prince could go right back to babyhood, and if they owned the video she might have watched it for years as a toddler and little girl.

Sleeping Beauty was next re-released in 1995, when Rory was aged ten or eleven. It is also possible that this was when she developed her crush on the prince. To me this makes more sense, as she was on the cusp of puberty and more likely to be thinking about boys in a romantic way.

Prince Phillip does very vaguely resemble Dean – or at least a cartoon version of Dean wouldn’t look completely unlike Prince Phillip. The fact that Rory liked the prince because he could dance is a foreshadowing of what is soon to come between her and Dean.

Oompa-Loompas

LORELAI: Oooh – Oompa-Loompas!
RORY: My mom has a thing for the Oompa-Loompas.
LORELAI: I don’t think finding them amusing constitutes a thing.
RORY: No, but having a recurring dream about marrying one does.

In Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas are small humans who work in Willy Wonka’s factory. Played by actors with dwarfism, they have orange skin and green hair, and wear baggy white overall shorts.

Lorelai’s rich dream life was an ongoing feature throughout the run of Gilmore Girls. Perhaps in this case the dreams were brought on by the feeling that she was “married” to Rory, by choosing her over a man (as the Oompa-Loompas are child-sized).

Weeping Willow

DEAN: I like it [Stars Hollow]. It’s quiet, but nice. I like all the trees everywhere.
LORELAI: Yeah, the trees are something. When Rory was little, she found out that one was called a Weeping Willow so she spent hours trying to cheer it up. You know, like telling it jokes and – No, I’m sorry that was me.

Another vignette from the childhood of the mysteriously fey and naif Rory. It’s amazing that at the same time she was talking to trees and waiting for fairies to arrive, her favourite TV show was Saved by the Bell, in which episodes sometimes covered issues such as drug abuse and homelessness.

“How the mighty have fallen”

LORELAI: You’re comparing me to my mother? … I’m Emily Gilmore? My, how the mighty have fallen.

A common expression meaning that those who were once powerful have now been reduced to a lowly status. The idiom comes from the King James version of the Bible, and is first found in Samuel 2 1:19, where it laments, The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

Lorelai always prided herself on being a “cool mom”, and now she discovers she’s actually a mother. A mother just like her own mother, Emily. Rory could hardly have said anything more hurtful to her. Bring on the tourniquet, her heart is bleeding.

Nancy Walker

Rory warns Lorelai she isn’t allowed to do any Nancy Walker impressions when she meets Rory’s new boyfriend.

Nancy Walker (1922-1992) was an American actress and comedian. Rory is most likely thinking of Walker’s role in the award-winning 1970s sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the show, Walker played Ida Morgenstern, the overbearing mother of Mary’s best friend Rhoda Morgenstern; she reprised the role in the spin-off show Rhoda.

Rory’s comment suggests that Lorelai had previously done impressions of Nancy Walker as a joke, pretending to be the sort of interfering mother that she tried so hard not to be.

James Dean

Rory warns her mother she doesn’t want her to make any jokes about James Dean when she meets Rory’s boyfriend Dean.

James Dean (1931-1955) was an American actor, an icon of teenage disillusonment and 1950s cool, best known for his 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. His early death in a car accident meant that his youth and beauty remained intact forever, and he is regarded as one the great stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

James Dean may have been one of the influences on the choice of Dean’s name in Gilmore Girls, especially since James Dean was from the Midwest and loved cars and motorcycles, just like Dean Forester. Along with Dean Moriarty from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the name suggests coolness and rebellion – nothing at all like Dean Forester really, but more what Lorelai feared Dean could be, as her comments about tattoos and motorcycles in the Pilot demonstrated.

General Hospital

LORELAI: I was watching General Hospital the other day and you know, they have a new Lucky ’cause the old Lucky went to play something where he could have a real name. So the old Lucky had this girlfriend, Liz, who thought that he died in a fire. So then they bring on this new Lucky and you’re all like “OK, I know that’s not the old Lucky because the new Lucky has way more hair gel issues” but still, Liz was so upset about his supposed death that you could not wait to see them kiss, you know?

General Hospital is an American soap opera which has aired since 1963, making it the longest-running soap opera still in production. It was most popular in the 1980s, thanks to the romance between popular characters Luke and Laura (Anthony Geary and Genie Francis), which ended with their wedding.

Lucas “Lucky” Spencer Jr. was a character on General Hospital, the son of the aforementioned Luke and Laura. His birth was announced in 1985, and he first appeared as a ten year old in 1993, played by Jonthan Jackson. Lucky would also be one half of a soap opera power couple, when he got a girlfriend in 1997 named Elizabeth “Liz” Webber, played by Rebecca Herbst.

Jonathan Jackson left the show in 1999, and it was rumoured that he was going to play Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Although that didn’t pan out, he got other film and television roles.

The character of Lucky was declared to have died in a fire, but they brought him back in February 2000 with Jacob Young playing the “new” Lucky, who had returned brainwashed by another regular character. After months of de-programming, Lucky and Liz made a stab at being a couple again, but decided to be good friends for a while. As Lorelai notes, he just wasn’t the same Lucky.

The episode where Lucky and Liz kiss aired on Friday November 3 2000. As Lorelai says she saw the episode “the other day”, this fits in with the day being Saturday November 4 or Sunday November 5 2000, as autumn festival.

It is interesting how a few of the names in General Hospital seem to have informed those in Gilmore Girls. Luke and Laura is suspiciously similar to Luke and Lorelai, especially since we later learn that Luke’s full name is Lucas, just like Luke Spencer and his son Lucky, and that Luke Danes has a sister named Liz.

Dean’s Favourite Musical Artists

LANE: He likes Nick Drake and Liz Phair and The Sugarplastic

Nicholas “Nick”Drake (1948-1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based folk music. He produced three albums between 1969 and 1972, none of which were a commercial success, partly because Drake was reluctant to perform live or give interviews to promote his work. Suffering from major depression, he committed suicide by overdosing on prescribed antidepressants at the age of 26.

He remained somewhat obscure, although his work was re-released after his death, gathering him new fans as a doomed romantic hero. By the 1980s he was cited as a musical influence by artists such as David Sylvian and Robert Smith, and had gained critical appreciation; a “best of” compilation album was released in the 1990s. His career had a posthumous revival after his song Pink Moon was used in a 1999 Volkwagen Cabrio commercial, aimed at young people. Since then he has sold more than 2 million albums and downloads.

We can assume that Dean was one of the young people who became instant Nick Drake fans after seeing the VW commercial. As we later disover Dean is a car fanatic, it makes sense that he would discover a favourite singer through a car.

Liz Phair (born Elizabeth Phair in 1967) [pictured] is an American indie rock singer-songwriter. Her first album, Exile in Guyville, came out in 1993 to critical acclaim, and was hailed as a landmark in alternative rock. Her 1994 second album, Whip-Smart, brought her mainstream attention, and is her most commercially successful album. In 2000 her most recent album would have been Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998).

Liz Phair was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in Winnetka, a wealthy village just outside Chicago – it was a favourite film location for director John Hughes, as seen in movies such as Home Alone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. Liz Phair may have been chosen as a favourite singer for Dean because she is connected with both Chicago and Connecticut, his birthplace and later home.

The Sugarplastic is an alternative rock band founded in 1989 by Ben Eshbach and Kiara Geller. Their first album came out in 1995, and their third album, Resin, in April 2000. The most genuinely obscure of Dean’s choices, he may have become a fan quite recently. His indie/alternative tastes in music make him seem like a worthy beau for Rory. For now …

“Smell a rose”

MRS. KIM: Maybe you should be less busy. Then you can remember to pick up chairs.
LORELAI: Right. Absolutely. Smell a rose, got it.

Lorelai is referring to the cliched advice to “stop and smell the roses”, meaning to slow down and allow yourself to notice and enjoy the beauty of life.

The saying appears to come from golfer Walter Hagen’s 1956 book of golfing memoirs, The Walter Hagen Story. In it he advises his readers: “You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way. ”

It was further popularised by American singer-songwriter Mac Davis, in his 1974 pop song Stop and Smell the Roses, from his album of the same name. Davis got the idea for the song from the bandleader on The Tonight Show, whose doctor had said the phrase to him.

Note the implication from Lorelai that she is so busy she only has time to smell one rose.

“My pod’s defective”

TAYLOR: You have lived in Stars Hollow for a long time, young man. It’s time you became one of us.
…
LUKE: Sorry, I guess my pod’s defective.

A reference to the 1956 sci-fi horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel and based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. In the film, residents of a Californian town discover that they are being replaced with exact duplicates of themselves, grown from giant seed pods as part of an alien invasion. The duplicates are devoid of emotion and have no sense of individuality. Ignored by critics on its release, this 1950s political allegory is now considered a classic sci-fi film.

The fact that both Lorelai and Luke use 1950s sci-fi films as a reference in their conversation is a sign of their compatibility. We earlier saw Luke is concerned for the environment, and the environmental message of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as the pod people are there to use up resources and destroy ecosystems, may have appealed to him.