Footnotes to the TV series
RICHARD: It’s chaos here. The second maid called in sick, the first is busy with dinner, and your poor mother is at the hospital. Her DAR group suffered a surfeit of strokes this week.
Richard and Emily started out with a cook and a maid, then the maid seemed to do the cooking as well … now they have two maids. Perhaps one of the maids does all the cooking, and nothing has changed.
PARIS: Hey, I was trying to give the kid some human contact. He’s been talking to nothing but a cow for a year and a half.
BRAD: There was a person inside that cow, I’ve told you that!
The role of Milky White the cow in the 2002 Broadway production of Into the Woods was played by actor and singer Chad Kimball [pictured], who was also the understudy for Adam Wylie’s role of Jack. He has been in a few other Broadway shows, and several regional theatre productions.
Paris says Brad was in Into the Woods for a year and a half, but it was only about a year – perhaps she is counting rehearsal periods. However, Brad seems to have been missing from Chilton for around eleven months.
MADELINE: How do you leave the house every morning and not have a piano fall on your head?
BRAD: Well, I make a left on Federal and then –
Federal Street is in West Hartford, suggesting that Chilton (and Rory’s grandparents) may be located near here as well. This makes much more sense than the idea it is in Newington.
LORELAI: Three more salads – who needs three more salads?
RORY: One was enough.
Rory says that the one salad on Luke’s original menu was plenty. However, when Emily ordered lunch at Luke’s in “Haunted Leg”, she chose between the Cobb salad and the Caesar salad, so there were at least two salads on the menu only a few months ago. Perhaps Rory never noticed the second salad option.
Note that Nicole’s love of salad means that she’s one of those women who eat healthily, unlike Lorelai and Rory, making her really uncool and probably a terrible person. In the world of Gilmore Girls, at least.
EMILY: Of course, I haven’t the faintest idea of where to find a slide projector. I feel like I’m going insane.
Emily must have forgotten that Lorelai showed her photos of their trip to Harvard using a slide projector. Lorelai reminds her that she owns one, and will bring it with her.
RORY: [reads button] “Stars Hollow Hockey, 2003 semifinalists. Go Minutemen. The future is yours. Bring this button to Doose’s for fifty percent off your next purchase of Stove Top Stuffing.”
Stove Top is a brand of stuffing introduced by General Foods in 1972. It is a quick cooking (“instant”) stuffing that is available in supermarkets. Unlike traditional stuffing, Stove Top can be prepared on the stove, in a pot, and can also be prepared in a microwave oven. It is used as a side dish for meals as well as a medium in which some meats (pork, chicken) can be baked. It is sold in boxes and canisters.
There is a slight retcon or continuity error here, because in “Secrets and Loans”, the Minutemen were the school’s basketball team, not their hockey team. Unless all the sports teams have the same name???
EMILY: And then she just brushed me off with a wave of her regal hand. Not even a word, just a . . . like I’m her cabana boy. Next thing you know, instead of just walking out of the room, she’ll make me bow and back out. Imperious attitude, she never gives it a rest. I schlepped her to the doctor the other day – by command, not request – and the elevator operator there greeted us nice and friendly. Her doctor’s on the second floor and by the time we got there, that operator was in tears.
In North America, a cabana is a hut, cabin, or shelter at beach or swimming pool, often part of a resort. They can be quite elaborate or luxurious. The word comes from the Spanish for “hut, cabin”. A cabana boy [pictured] is a young male attendant who serves guests from the cabana – typically, these young men are treated like servants by the wealthy, and will be willing to do many little tasks for them in the hopes of receiving tips or favours in return.
Schlepped: Informal American English, meaning “walked or proceeded somewhere in a reluctant manner, typically in the fulfilment of some unwanted burden or duty”. It is from the Yiddish shlepn, meaning “pull, drag”.
Trix moved back to her house in Hartford in January 2003, citing health concerns. It’s only early February, and she is already driving Emily up the wall, treating her like a servant.
Note that Trix had a doctor’s appointment, as a reminder that her health needs monitoring. By the way, Trix previously said that she couldn’t abide women driving, so how did Emily transport her to the doctor’s office?
MAUREEN: Listen, I know the invitation said that we were all gathering at the C-section next week, but Sherry just went into labor … She screwed up, she’s in labor, and she wanted me to call all the girls and beg them to get down to the hospital ASAP.
Sherry’s best friend Maureen calls Rory while she’s in the middle of a meeting for the school newspaper. Rory is back to having a cell phone again, and is able to take the call. Maybe she used a pager in between these two calls because her phone was charging.
Maureen tells Rory that “Sherry screwed up” by going into labour a week before her C-section is scheduled, a phrase that gets repeated again and again. It’s meant to underline how hopelessly ignorant Sherry’s friends are about childbirth, that they don’t understand that babies don’t necessarily arrive on schedule. How they can not know this? It’s in movies and on TV shows (like this one!). You can see that Sherry will receive little or no support from her friends after having Georgia.
Because this is the week before February 7th, we know the main events of this episode take place on Friday 31st January 2003.
During the call, Maureen refers to Rory as a “child”, something which Rory never confirms nor denies. In fact, although she is still at school, she is 18 (turning 19 that year) and an adult now.
PARIS: At the beginning of this year, when we were sworn in as your government representatives, we placed our hand on a bible and we took an oath.
We saw the student council sworn in, and they actually swore on the Chilton student handbook, not the Bible. It’s possible Paris considers the handbook of equal standing to the Bible.
The educational toy shown is a Hugg-a-Planet, a globe of the world made into a soft squashy comfort pillow. They have been manufactured since 1982.
Rory says this is dirty old faded childhood toy has been in the garage for years, but we saw it, looking new and clean, in the living room in “A Tisket-a-Tasket”. I suppose it’s possible she bought a new “Hug-a-World” in the meantime, but then why does she want to wash and keep the old one?
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 