Euell Gibbons

LORELAI: So, are you a healthy eater like Luke?
JESS: No. No one’s a healthy eater like Luke. Euell Gibbons wasn’t a healthy eater like Luke … Many parts of a pine tree are edible.

Euell Gibbons (1911-1975), outdoorsman and early health food advocate. He promoted eating wild food during the 1960s, having begun foraging for food as a teenager to supplement the family diet. His books on wild food were instant successes, and he became a celebrity, appearing on TV shows such as The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and The Carol Burnett Show, often good-naturedly sending himself up by pretending to eat wooden plaques and so on.

A 1974 television commercial for Grape-Nuts cereal featured Gibbons asking viewers “Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.” While he recommended eating Grape Nuts over eating pine trees (Grape Nuts’ taste “reminds me of wild hickory nuts”), the quote caught the public’s imagination and fuelled his celebrity status.

How Jess knows about Euell Gibbons and the advertisement, which was broadcast ten years before Jess was born, is a mystery. Teenagers seem to have an amazing knowledge of 1960s and 1970s pop culture in the Gilmore Girls world.

Maybelline Fresh Lash Mascara

LORELAI: Sorry, it’s just . . . so excited about the ducks that, uh . . . do you want something to drink? You have good timing ‘cause we shopped yesterday, and in addition to a case of Maybelline Fresh Lash Mascara, I also bought some of that new, uh, freaky Coke with the lemon in it.

Maybelline is a multinational cosmetics company, founded in Chicago in 1914, and now based in New York. Since 1996, it has been a subsidiary of L’Oreal, previously discussed.

Maybelline’s Fresh Lash Mascara has now been replaced with Great Lash Mascara. In 1981, their Fresh Lash Mascara was advertised on television by Lynda Carter, who played superhero Wonder Woman, previously discussed as one of Lorelai’s favourites. I can imagine young Lorelai buying the mascara because of the face of the brand and remaining loyal to it.

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.

Rockefeller

LORELAI: We needed our rain gutters cleaned.
RORY: Yeah, well, hire somebody.
LORELAI: Oh, well, aren’t we suddenly a Rockefeller.

The Rockefeller family owns one of the world’s largest fortunes. Brothers John D. Rockefeller and William A. Rockefeller made their money in the petroleum industry in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, mostly through Standard Oil, which became ExxonMobil, and the Chevron Corporation. The family had a long association and control of Chase Manhattan Bank, previously mentioned. By the 1970s, they were considered one of the most powerful families in American history.

[Photo shows John D. Rockefeller and his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr.]

The Barrymores

CHRISTOPHER: So, quaint evening of theater last night.
LORELAI: Ah yes, the Gilmore family players rival the Barrymores for their sophisticated dramatic productions.

The Barrymores are a famous family in the acting profession. The patriarch of the family was Herbert Blythe, known professionally as Maurice Barrymore (1849-1905), a British stage actor. His children were Lionel (1878-1954), Ethel (1879-1959), and John Barrymore (1882-1942), who all became famous American actors of stage, screen, and radio. All three were inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and Ethel’s six decades on stage earned her the title “The First Lady of American Theatre”.

John Barrymore is the grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore (born 1975). The Drew family after whom she is named are related to Maurice’s wife Georgiana Drew, and they also have strong acting traditions.

[Picture shows Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore circa 1930s]

Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller, Producers

RORY: Yeah. Oh, and later I pictured you marrying Matthew Broderick, and we lived in New York in this great apartment in the village and we would talk about his Ferris Bueller days.
LORELAI: Just think how easy Producers tickets would be to get.

Matthew Broderick (born 1962), actor who began his career in theatre in the 1980s, winning a Tony Award for his role in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs. His first starring role in a hit film came in the 1983 WarGames, where he had the lead role as a teenage hacker.

Broderick had the lead role as the charming school truant in the 1986 teen comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off [pictured]. Directed by John Hughes, the film is a joyful love letter to the city of Chicago, and about three teenagers seeking the best “day off” from school ever devised. It was the #10 film of 1986, and praised by critics. It is considered one of the greatest teen movies of all time.

The Producers is a musical with music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, adapted from Brooks’ 1967 film of the same name. It is about two theatrical producers who plan to get rich by fraudulently overselling interests in a Broadway flop. Their scheme becomes complicated when their play is an unexpected success. The Producers opened on Broadway in 2001 and closed in 2007. Lorelai is apparently having trouble getting tickets for the musical. It went on tour in the US in September 2002, arriving at the Bushnell Theatre in Hartford in August 2004, but Matthew Broderick was not in the touring version.

Rory imagines living in New York in the village with her mother and Matthew Broderick. In 1997, Broderick married actress Sarah Jessica Parker. They live in the West Village in New York City, suggesting that it was after this date that Rory fantasised about Matthew Broderick as her stepfather, so around the age of 14-15. (Broderick and Parker actually spend more time at their second home in Ireland).

Rory’s imaginary stepfathers include a man-child who lives in a fantasy world, and an actor famous for playing both a slacker and a scammer. Not very different from her real father, then …

Pee-Wee Herman

RORY: I also pictured you with Pee-Wee Herman.
LORELAI: Wow.
RORY: Yeah. We lived in his playhouse and we’d be talking to Chairry and Captain Carl would be walking by.

Pee-Wee Herman, fictional character portrayed by comedian Paul Reubens (born Paul Reubenfeld 1952). The child-like Pee-Wee Herman developed as a stage act and then appeared in a feature film before becoming the host of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, an Emmy-winning children’s show that was broadcast from 1985 to 1991.

Chairry was a puppet armchair, voiced by Alison Mork, which would hug Pee-Wee when he sat down in her. Captain Carl was one of a host of human characters in the show; he was a sea captain played by Saturday Night Live comedian and actor, Phil Hartman (1948-1998). The show had a lot of big stars on it, and guest appearances by a host of celebrities.

Rory would have watched the show as a preschooler, apparently looking to the child-like Pee-Wee Herman for a possible father substitute.

Ricki Lake Show

RORY: I feel like I’m on the Ricki Lake show.
LORELAI: Go Rory, go Rory.

Ricki Lake, popular daytime talk show which aired from 1993 to 2004, hosted by actress Ricki Lake, who had first gained fame appearing in John Waters’ films such as Hairspray. The show, aimed at a Gen-X audience (like Lorelai), focused on guest’s personal problems and “true confession” style interviews.

Rory feels as if she’s being interviewed about her feelings about her father as if on Ricki Lake. Lorelai chants, “Go Rory, go Rory”, because the audience would chant “Go Ricki, go Ricki” to encourage the host. Lorelai and Rory seem to be fans of this trashy TV show.

Bruce Springsteen

LORELAI: What’s her music taste?
RORY: Big Bruce Springsteen fan. Seen him like twenty times.
LORELAI: Blue collar roots or is she just slumming?
RORY: Oh, her father owned a shoe store and her mom taught kindergarten.

Bruce Springsteen (born 1949), singer, songwriter, and musician. He has released twenty studio albums, many of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is one of the originators of the heartland rock style of music, combining mainstream rock musical style with narrative songs about working class American life.

During a career that has spanned five decades, Springsteen has become known for his poetic, socially conscious lyrics and energetic stage performances, sometimes lasting up to four hours in length. He is nicknamed “the Boss”.

Springsteen had a lengthy, top-grossing tour over 1999 and 2000, the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion Tour. He played five concert dates in Boston in August 1999, giving Sherry several recent opportunities to see her favourite singer live. In 2002, Springsteen began his The Rising Tour, performing in Boston twice in October of that year. Sherry has probably already bought tickets.

Martin Sheen

LORELAI: I think we probably would’ve met eventually.
SHERRY: Perhaps, at some function or other.
LORELAI: Yeah – you, me, Martin Sheen, all chained to the same tree.

Ramón Estévez (born 1940), award-winning actor known professionally as Martin Sheen. He first became known for his work in The Subject Was Roses (1968), and later achieved recognition for his leading role in Apocalypse Now (1979). He played President Josiah Bartlett in the television series The West Wing (1999-2006). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Martin Sheen has been active in countless non-violent acts of civil disobedience, and been arrested for protesting 66 times. He has rallied for peace, gun control, and in support of immigration, and protested against nuclear power, nuclear weapons testing, dangerous arms buildup, abuse of farmworkers, Canadian sealclubbing, the invasion of Iraq, and numerous other environmental, political, and social causes.

Lorelai jokes that the function she and Sherry might have met at could have been at an environmental protest against logging with Martin Sheen. Of course, Sherry is thinking of functions at Chilton.