
LORELAI: So, uh, what do we do about the Batcave?
The Batcave, the underground headquarters of the superhero Batman.
Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: So, uh, what do we do about the Batcave?
The Batcave, the underground headquarters of the superhero Batman.
SOOKIE: Oh wait! What’s that? It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super Jackson and his atomic pea tendrils!
Sookie sarcastically compares Jackson to the comic book superhero Superman. The television series Adventures of Superman, 1952-58, with George Reeves playing the title character, was introduced each episode with a crowd of people saying the lines, “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!”.
Sookie and Jackson are still fighting over the produce he provides for the inn. Before they were dating, it seemed cute, as if fuelled by unresolved sexual tension. Now that they’re married, it seems stupid, as if their relationship hasn’t progressed, and more like workplace bullying.
PARIS: You have a problem with it?
FRANCIE: No, I’m just surprised. You seem so attached to those meetings.
PARIS: Well, I finally got a blankie. It’s much better.
Blankie, the baby-talk word for the security blankets that toddlers sometimes like to carry around for self-soothing. A famous example is the character of Linus in the Peanuts comic strip.
LUKE: Well, when he took the money out of wherever he had it, did a mask or a gun fall out?
GYPSY: No, but he was carrying it in a canvas bag with a big dollar sign on it.
In comic books, burglars or thieves are traditionally shown wearing masks, and carrying guns and big sacks with dollar signs on them.
RORY: [starts applying the purple dye] So have you mentioned dyeing your hair to the band yet? LANE: No, but they’ll be cool with it. They’ve all got tattoos. Dave and Zach have musical themes and Brian’s got Snoopy.
RORY: Poor guy.
LANE: Yeah, but he’s a slamming bass player.
Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s dog in the Peanuts comic strip, previously discussed and frequently mentioned. He is a black and white beagle. Comic strip creator Charles M. Schulz based him on his childhood dog Spike, who was a pointer crossed with an unknown hound – presumed to be a beagle, as Spike looked very beagle-like. The name came from Schulz’s mother, who had said if they ever got another dog, she would have named him Snoopy. In the comic strip, Snoopy has an older brother named Spike who lives in the Californian desert. Snoopy has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and is a mascot of the NASA space program.
Note how quick Lane is to defend Brian when Rory says something pitying about him. Lane may have only been in the band for a week or so, but she already feels protective of her band mates.
LORELAI: Did you call an exterminator?
MICHEL: Why, no, what a wonderful idea. I was actually going to fasten a large wedge of cheese to my head and lay on the ground until Mickey gets hungry and decides to crawl out and snack on my face.
Mickey Mouse, animated cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, and first voiced by Disney himself. The name “Mickey” was suggested by Walt Disney’s wife Lillian, to replace the character’s original name of Mortimer Mouse.
Mickey first appeared in the 1928 short film Plane Crazy, and made his feature film debut in Steamboat Willie, one of the first cartoons with sound. He has appeared in over 130 films, including The Band Concert (1935), The Brave Little Tailor (1938), and Fantasia (1940). In 1978, he became the first cartoon character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mickey has featured extensively in comic strips and comic books, in television series, and in other media, such as video games and merchandising, and appears as a character you can meet at Disney parks. He is one of the most recognisable fictional characters of all time.
LORELAI: I just . . . I feel like I’m never gonna have it . . . the whole package, you know? That person, that couple life, and I swear, I hate admitting it because I fancy myself Wonder Woman, but . . . I really want it – the whole package.
Wonder Woman, previously discussed as one of Lorelai’s personal feminist icons.
Here Lorelai admits that she would actually like to be in a stable, established relationship, suggesting one of the reasons she may have agreed to get engaged to Max, even knowing he wasn’t right for her.
RORY: You had another dream.
LORELAI: Yes.
RORY: The doctor is in.
In the Peanuts comic strip, previously mentioned, there is a running gag where Lucy van Pelt sets up her own psychiatry booth, in which she dispenses terrible advice for five cents. The booth has a sign on it, saying The doctor is in, when Lucy is available for consultation. Rory is having a sly joke at her own expense, as if any advice she has to offer will be similarly useless.
Women
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Enya
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Books
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Alborn
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Mourning Bride by William Congreve
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
Hansel and Gretel by The Brothers Grimm
Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm
The Iliad by Homer
The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent by Washington Irving
Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L. Mencken
The Crucible by Arthur MIller
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Last Empire by Gore Vidal
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tenneessee Williams
The Bible
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary
Comics
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Periodicals
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GQ
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The New York Times
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Films
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The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
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Footloose
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Glitter
The Godfather series
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Heathers
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How the Grinch Stole Christmas
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers
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Mary Poppins
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Monty Python and The Holy Grail
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Say It Isn’t So
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Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story
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Albums
Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) – XTC
Songs
What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong; Joey Ramone
I Can’t Get Started – Ella Fitzgerald
Someone to Watch Over Me – Rickie Lee Jones; Marty and Elayne
Where You Lead – Carole King
It’s a Small World After All – Richard and Robert Sherman
We Are Family – Sister Sledge
Teach Me Tonight – Dinah Washington
My Little Corner of the World – Yo La Tengo
Television
All in the Family
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The Twilight Zone
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Wheel of Fortune
Wonder Woman
LORELAI: You’re pulling a Mr. Freeze on me.
Mr Freeze (Dr Victor Fries) is a supervillain from the Batman comics, created by Dave Wood and Sheldon Moldoff in 1959, and originally called Mr Zero. Mr Freeze was a rogue scientist whose design for an ice gun backfired, spilling cryogenic chemicals on himself, so he needed sub-zero temperatures to survive. The Batman television series gave him a more sympathetic back story, making him a complex, tragic character. He was portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1997 Batman film.
Another example of Lorelai using comic books as a reference point.