Tag: Comedy

Rory’s CDs

Stan Frerberg

Stan Frerbeg (1926-2015), actor, comedian, musician, puppeteer, and radio personality. He was one of the talents recruited by Capitol Records in 1951 for their spoken word division, doing satirical recordings about popular culture. He also did musical parodies of popular songs.

Rory’s CD might be The Stan Frerberg Show: Direct from the Famous CBS Broadcasts, which was released as a four-disc box set on CD in 1997, published by Smithsonian Historical Performances. The other possibility is that it is The United States of America Volume 2, The Middle Years, comedy sketches based on figures from American history, released on CD by Rhino in 1996.

Ash

Ash, Northern Irish rock band formed in 1989 by vocalist and guitarist Tim Wheeler, bassist Mark Hamilton, and drummer Rick MacMurray. Their first full-length album was released in 1996, and titled 1977 [pictured]; it is regarded by NME as one of the greatest albums of all time.

Their song “Girl from Mars” from the album has already been used in Gilmore Girls, appearing at the end of the episode “Nick and Nora, Sid and Nancy” to illuminate Jess’ attraction to Rory. It’s a callback to the moment that Rory and Jess first made a real connection with each other.

Sinéad O’Connor

Sinéad O’Connor, now named Shuhada Sadaqat (born 1966), Irish singer-songwriter. Her 1987 debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, charted internationally, while her 1990 second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, received glowing reviews and was her most successful album – the lead single, “Nothing Compares 2 U” (written by Prince) was the #1 song of 1990.

O’Connor has released ten studio albums, many of them going gold in the UK or US. Her most most recent album at this point was Faith and Courage, released in 2000. It received positive reviews and was a commercial success.

Buster Keaton

PARIS: Did you see the brilliant hose hook idea over at table five? A hook on your belt for your garden hose. There’s a Buster Keaton routine waiting to happen.

Joseph “Buster” Keaton (1895-1966), actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films of the 1920s, in which his trademark was performing comedy stunts with a stoic, deadpan expression – his stunts were so physical he once broke his neck without noticing. The General (1926) is regarded as his masterpiece [pictured]. Keaton received an Academy Honorary Award in 1959.

Jerry Lewis in “The Diner Guy”

LUKE: Yeah, I can’t serve and be on the phone.

LORELAI: But your reenactment of Jerry Lewis in The Diner Guy is gonna wow the critics.

Jerry Lewis, born Joseph Levitch (1926-2017), comedian, director, actor, screenwriter, singer, humanitarian and producer. Nicknamed “The King of Comedy”, Lewis is regarded as one of the most significant American cultural figures of the 20th century, was widely known for his “kid” and “idiot” persona and his contributions to comedy and charity, making him a global figure in popular culture over an eight-decade career. He debuted professionally in 1946 working with Dean Martin as Martin and Lewis, and they performed together until 1956.

Although Jerry Lewis never did a film called The Diner Guy, several of his films had titles such as The Geisha Boy, The Ladies Man, and The Errand Boy, so The Diner Guy would actually fit right in.

Mel Brooks

LORELAI: What do you mean, why? The 2000 Year Old Man, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie – you don’t think Mel has earned the right to have his face on my butt?

Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky in 1926), actor, comedian, and film-maker, with a career spanning over seven decades. He is known as the creator of broad farces and parodies, considered some of the greatest comedy films ever made, and was one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s. As well as winning an Emmy, a Grammy, and an Oscar, in 2001 he won a Tony Award for The Producers, previously discussed. He has been awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, a British Film Institute Fellowship, a National Medal of Arts, and a BAFTA Fellowship.

The 2000 Year Old Man is a comedy sketch created by Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks in the 1950s and first publicly performed in the 1960s. Brooks plays a 2000-year-old man, interviewed by Reiner in a series of comedy routines that were turned into a collection of records and also performed on television.

Young Frankenstein, 1974 comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks, and co-written by he and Gene Wilder, who stars in the title role. It’s a parody of the various classic horror film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, in particular, the 1931 film version. Young Frankenstein was the #3 film of 1974 and received critical acclaim. It is considered one of the funniest comedies ever made, and was later made into a stage musical. Mel Brooks considers it his best, but not his funniest, movie.

Silent Movie, 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed, and starring Mel Brooks as a Hollywood director down on his luck. He and his sidekicks, played by Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman, come up with a plan to make the first silent movie in forty years. The film itself is silent, with intertitles instead of spoken dialogue. The film received positive reviews, and remains highly-regarded.

John Cleese

RORY: [follows him] Please don’t walk away like that.
DEAN: Sorry, I’d do a silly walk but I’m not feeling very John Cleese right now.

John Cleese (born 1939), British actor, comedian, screenwriter, and comedian. He is most famous for being a founding member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the surreal comedy sketch show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, initially broadcast on BBC1 from 1969 to 1974.

Although Monty Python had little success in the US during their first American tour, Monty Python’s Flying Circus began airing on the PBS station KERA Dallas in 1974; other PBS stations followed and by 1975 it was the most popular show on these stations. It helped open the door for other British comedies in the US. Monty Python’s Flying Circus also aired on MTV in 1988.

Dean is referring to one of Cleese’s most famous sketches, “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, in series 2, episode 1, entitled “Face the Press”. In the sketch, John Cleese plays a civil servant responsible for developing silly walks, and spends the sketch walking in various silly ways in a thoroughly serious and determined manner.

Rory and Dean may have watched a DVD of the original show, or of the 1982 documentary, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, where the Monty Python team performed both classic sketches and new material. It was the last time the “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch was performed in public. John Cleese had a hip and knee replacement in 2010, so that he was unable to perform the silly walks again.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy

DEAN: She’s not going with you.
JESS: Really, is that true?
DEAN: Yes, it’s true.
JESS: Excuse me Edgar Bergen, I think I’d like Charlie McCarthy to answer now.

Edgar Bergen, born Edgar Berggren (1903-1978), actor, comedian, vaudeville star, and radio performer. He was best known as a highly skilled and successful ventriloquist, working with a dummy called Charlie McCarthy. Their routines were very witty, and rather cheeky, with Charlie getting away with saying things that a person never could. Incidentally, Edgar was the father of actress Candice Bergen.

Jess is obviously saying that Dean is speaking for Rory, as if she is his puppet.

Lenny Bruce

DEAN: You think this is funny.
JESS: Well, it’s no Lenny Bruce routine but it has its moments.

Lenny Bruce, born Leonard Schneider (1925-1966), stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was known for his open, freestyle, and critical comedy, containing satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York state.

Lenny Bruce paved the way for counterculture era comedians, and his trial was a landmark for freedom of speech. He is considered one of the greatest American comedians of all time.

It makes perfect sense for bad boy Jess to be a Lenny Bruce fan. Lenny Bruce also appears as a character in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s television show, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, played by Luke Kirby.

Abbot and Costello

RUNE: Ah, methinks you’re right Squire Bracebridge, thus and verily.
JACKSON: And verily thus.
LORELAI: They’re the Old England Abbot and Costello.

Abbot and Costello, comedy duo previously mentioned. They were William “Bud” Abbott (1897-1974) and Louis “Lou” Costello (1906-1959). Their work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s, and the highest-paid entertainers in the world during World War II. Their popularity waned in the early 1950s and the partnership ended soon afterwards.