Cujo

MAX: She’s [Lorelai’s] right there with you isn’t she?
RORY: What? No.
MAX: No, I thought I heard her bark.
RORY: No, that’s just a wild jackal that hangs out here sometimes.
MAX: Mm hmm. Put Cujo on the phone please.

Cujo is a 1983 horror film, directed by Lewis Teague and based on the 1981 Stephen King novel of the same name. It is about a rabid St. Bernard dog named Cujo who traps a mother and son in a car without food or water during a heat wave. Cujo was a modest success, and despite receiving mixed reviews not only has a cult following, but is one of Stephen King’s favourite adaptations of his own work.

“You’re gonna be a Sadie”

SOOKIE: You’re gonna be a Sadie.
LORELAI: A what?
SOOKIE: A Sadie. [sings] “Sadie, Sadie, married lady. Meet a mortgagee.”
LORELAI: Funny Girl!
SOOKIE: Streisand!
LORELAI: Love it!

Sookie sings from Sadie, Sadie – the song which gives this episode its title. As Sookie and Lorelai’s dialogue makes clear, it’s from the musical film Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand, and previously discussed. Lorelai and Rory have both called each other “funny girl”, and here Lorelai confirms that she loves the film.

In the movie, this song is sung when Fanny Brice, the comedienne and Ziegfield Follies star who is the subject of the film, marries her husband Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif). What Sookie and Lorelai do not acknowledge is that the marriage was a mistake: Nick was a gambler and criminal, and he and Fanny separated after he was sent to prison.

Almost every reference to marriage in this episode, while Lorelai is deciding whether to marry Max, is negative in tone, with a focus on marriages that don’t last. Lorelai doesn’t seem to take notice of these many hints.

Fame

MICHEL: I figure if I stay alive long enough, these scientists, they will be able to cure anything including death, therefore ensuring my indefinite existence.
SOOKIE: So you’re gonna live forever, like on Fame?

Fame is a 1980 teen musical drama film directed by Alan Parker, and inspired in part by the musical A Chorus Line. It follows the lives of students attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York (now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School), from their auditions through four years of high school.

The movie’s theme song, Fame, has a chorus which begins, “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly high”. It’s sung by Irene Cara, who had the lead role of Coco Hernandez in the film. The song reached #4 in the charts, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, while the entire movie score won another Academy Award.

The movie was successful and well-received critically. It has become a franchise with several television series (one in the early 1980s that Lorelai and Sookie would remember very well), a stage musical, and a remake.

Ranger Bob

LORELAI: Everything about me repulses that man [Luke]. My coffee drinking, my eating habits. Remember when I called him Ranger Bob last week? He hated that!

Lorelai may be referring to Forest Ranger Bob Erickson (Jack De Mave) from the family television series Lassie, which follows the adventures of a long-coated collie dog, and aired from 1954 to 1973.

The show was inspired by the 1943 movie Lassie Come Home, about a dog who travels from Scotland to Yorkshire to be reunited with the boy she loves (Roddy McDowall), based on the 1940 novel of the same name by Eric Knight. Sequels followed, and so did appearances by Pal, the dog who played Lassie, at fairs and rodeos throughout the US in the 1950s. All the subsequent Lassies were played by Pal’s descendants, and like Pal, they were all male.

Ranger Bob was from the years between 1964 and 1970 where Lassie helped the US Forest Service, with Bob Erickson becoming part of the show in 1968 as one of Lassie’s carers. Ranger Bob worked alongside Forest Ranger Scott Turner (Jed Allen), but it would be perhaps too self-referential for Lorelai to call Luke “Ranger Scott”, as Luke is played by Scott Patterson. Calling Luke “Ranger Bob” may have been referencing his healthy outdoor lifestyle and love of camping.

Reruns of Lassie were shown on Nickelodeon from 1984 to 1996, and the show is still on American television today.

“Sally Field movie”

LANE: It’s gonna be just like that Sally Field movie when her husband took them to Iran and wouldn’t let them come back, except that I won’t have to keep my head covered.
RORY: Okay, calm down.

Lane is referring to the 1991 drama film Not Without My Daughter, directed by Brian Gilbert, and based on the book of the same name by Betty Mahmoody. It stars Sally Field as an American woman whose Iranian husband took she and their young daughter to Iran for a short holiday, but refused to let them return. The movie was a box office bomb and poorly received, strongly criticised for its stereotyped portrayal of Iranian Muslims and their culture.

There are a number of hints and references to marriage going wrong in this episode, and this is one of them.

Films Referenced in Season One

Films

2001: A Space Odyssey

9 1/2 Weeks

An Affair to Remember

Alive

The Amityville Horror

Anywhere But Here

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Bambi

Beethoven

Boogie Nights

Bright Eyes

Cabaret (1972)

Carrie (1976)

Casablanca

The Champ

Child’s Play

Christine

Cinderella (1950)

Citizen Kane

The Crucible

The Deer Hunter

Dick Tracy

Double Indemnity

Everest (1998)

Fiddler on the Roof

Flashdance

The Fly (1958)

Footloose

Forrest Gump

Frankenstein (1931)

Freaky Friday (1976)

Fried Green Tomatoes

Funny Girl

Gaslight (1944)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

G.I. Jane

Glengarry Glen Ross

The Godfather

The Goonies

The Great Santini

Grease (1978)

Heathers

House of Horrors

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Ice Castles (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Ishtar

Kiss and Tell

Lady and the Tramp

The Little Rascals

The Lost Weekend

Love Story

Lovers and Other Strangers

Magnolia

The Man With the X-Ray Eyes

Mary Poppins

Mask

The Matrix

Midnight Express

The Miracle Worker (1962)

Misery

Miss Congeniality

Mommie Dearest

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Music Man

Old Yeller

The Omen (1976)

Out of Africa

The Outsiders

Paris is Burning

Patton

Pinocchio

Psycho (1960)

Pure Country

Queen of Outer Space

Rebecca (1940)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Return of the Jedi

Saving Private Ryan

Schindler’s List

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Shaft (1971)

Shall We Dance? (1937)

The Shining

The Silence of the Lambs

Sixteen Candles

The Sixth Sense

Sleeping Beauty

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Stalag 17

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

The Thing from Another World

Valley of the Dolls

West Side Story

What’s Up, Doc? (1972)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A Wild Hare

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Working Girl

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Television Movies

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows

Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story

Actors

Antonio Banderas

Maurice Chevalier

George Clooney

Billy Crudup

James Dean

Johnny Depp

Errol Flynn

Hugh Grant

Gene Hackman

Charlton Heston

Angelina Jolie

Jennifer Lopez

The Marx Brothers

Sean Penn

Michelle Pfeiffer

Brad Pitt

Billy Bob Thornton

Catherine Zeta-Jones

“Have a really good summer”

PARIS: Too bad I already filled the spot for music coverage. You know, record reviewing and such. You’d have been perfect for it. I gave the job to Louise.
RORY: Louise owns two CDs.
PARIS: Yeah. Well, gotta go. Have a really good summer.

Paris makes it sound as if it is now the last day of the school year, which I guess it could be if the episode covered more than a month, but that doesn’t explain how Rory is back at school again later in the episode (and doesn’t fit with how this episode is dated in a future season). More likely she means the summer vacation is very soon, or perhaps that regular classes are about to end to make way for the final exams schedule.

As Rory looks back at Paris, Madeline, Louise, who began the school year as her enemies, became her friends, and are now suddenly enemies again at the end of the school year, they stand on the steps in a manner reminiscent of an iconic scene in the film Heathers, previously discussed. It’s a clear sign that they are back to being a gang of “mean girls” again.

Anywhere But Here

LUKE: It’s just like all the other times Rachel. You’re the anywhere but here girl, you’re restless, you’re bored, it is what it is.
RACHEL: That’s not it.

A possible reference to the 1999 comedy-drama film Anywhere But Here, directed by Wayne Wang, and based on the prize-winning novel of the same name by Mona Simpson. The story is about an eccentric mother and her practical teenage daughter, with Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman in the main roles. The film was successful and received good reviews.

It seems a bit unlikely as a film that Luke would go to see, but fits in with the timeline and themes of Gilmore Girls. If would certainly be very interesting if Luke had made an effort to see a film about a mother and teenage daughter.

“Crossed over into the dark side”

LORELAI: You have crossed over into the dark side, Luke.

An obvious joking reference to the Star Wars science-fiction movie franchise, which has Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) as one its major protagonists, and “the dark side” as the forces of evil. More specifically, it is a reference to the 1983 Return of the Jedi; in the movie’s final fight scene, Luke is tempted by the Emperor to kill his father and cross over to the dark side.

Return of the Jedi was the #1 film of 1983, and received mostly positive reviews. It won a Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects at the Academy Awards.

Fans of the films may find Lorelai’s comment amusing (or thought-provoking) in light of the more recent films in the franchise.

Judy Garland and Courtney Love

MADELINE: So I’ve decided I’m now completely into Judy Garland. Did you see the TV movie? Pretty intense.
LOUISE: I think they used my mother’s medicine cabinet in that.
MADELINE: She was the Courtney Love of her day.

Judy Garland, born Frances Gumm (1922-1969) was an American singer, actress, and television hostess. She began performing in vaudeville as a child, and signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer as a teenager; she made more than two dozen movies with them, including The Wizard of Oz in 1939, where she starred as Dorothy Gale.

After being released from her contract, she went on to have a highly successful career as a singer, and hosted The Judy Garland Show. She received numerous accolades, including a Juvenile Academy Award, a Cecil B. Mille Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Despite her great success as a performer, the pressure of becoming a star so early in life affected her physical and mental health, and her self-image was poor as she had received so much criticism from movie executives, who thought she was unattractive. As an adult, she suffered from alcohol and substance abuse, as well as financial instability. She died of an accidental dose of sleeping pills, aged 47.

The “TV movie” that Madeline mentions is probably Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, a two-part, four-hour miniseries directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, and based on the 1998 book Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, written by Lorna Luft, Garland’s daughter. The miniseries starred Judy Davis as the adult Judy Garland, and Davis received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her performance. The miniseries was first shown on TV in late February 2001, so Madeline has been “completely into” Judy Garland for around two months.

Louise’s comment suggests that her mother, the mysterious adulteress, also has a problem with addiction to prescription medication.

Courtney Love (born Courtney Harrison in 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and artist. She gained recognition as the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band Hole, formed in 1989, and is perhaps best known for her personal life following her marriage to Kurt Cobain, front man for the grunge rock band Nirvana. She has been very open about her struggles with drug addiction, including to heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, and prescription drugs such as Rohypnol.

Apart from both having problems with substance abuse, there is no comparison between the lifetime as a major star that Judy Garland had, and Courtney Love’s career, which makes Madeline’s comment seem ignorant, and disrespectful to Garland, that she’s supposedly “completely into”.

Furthermore, Love’s numerous addictions have led to several legal cases, often including assaulting others or disorderly conduct, while Garland’s substance abuse brought more personal misery. Love has declared herself clean since 2007.