David Cassidy (1950-2017), actor, singer, and guitarist, and Shaun’s older half-brother. He played Keith Partridge on the 1970s musical sitcom, The Partridge Family.
Deciding whether you preferred Shaun or David Cassidy was a common pastime in the 1970s. The option to “marry” Shaun and er, “cheat” with David may have been a common solution to this dilemma.
[Picture shows David on the left and Shaun on the right]
PARIS: Now Louise, poke John Williams over there and tell her she can cut the score, we’re moving on.
John Williams (born 1932), composer, conductor and pianist. In a career spanning seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognisable and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history, including that of Star Wars. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, seven BAFTAs, five Oscars and four Golden Globe Awards. With 52 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. His compositions are considered the epitome of film music and he is considered among the greatest composers in the history of cinema.
Paris says this because Madeline is humming so that she doesn’t hear the word “blood”, which frightens her.
PARIS: Any questions, Mr. Christian? I mean, Mr. Hunter.
Paris refers to Fletcher Christian (1764-1793), master’s mate on board HMS Bounty during Lieutenant William Bligh’s voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789. In the mutiny on the Bounty, Christian seized command of the ship from Bligh on 28 April 1789. Some of the mutineers were left on Tahiti, while Christian, eight other mutineers, six Tahitian men and eleven Tahitian women settled on isolated Pitcairn Island, and Bounty was burned.
Fletcher Christian was portrayed by Clark Gable [pictured] in the 1935 film version and Marlon Brando in the 1962 film version, both adpated from the 1932 novel, Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.
Paris is saying that Mr Hunter was mutinous in his support of Francine.
PARIS: Well, there was no way I was letting the class gift be a stupid tree just so Ginger Spice can have her Barbie dream prom.
Geraldine “Geri” Horner, nee Halliwell (born 1972), British singer, songwriter, author, and actress. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of the girl group the Spice Girls. Their slogan “girl power” was most closely associated with Halliwell, and her Union Jack dress from the 1997 Brit Awards also became an enduring symbol. Halliwell left the Spice Girls in 1998, citing exhaustion and creative differences, but rejoined when they reunited in 2007.
PARIS: Why does one pinhead always have to vote for Jerry Garcia?
Jerome “Jerry” Garcia (1942-1995), musician best known for being the principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 1960s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead.
He had already passed away at this stage, so the votes for him as commencement speaker were definitely jokes.
Joan Didion (1934-2021), journalist and author, considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with such figures as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Didion’s career began in the 1950s when she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue.
Her writing in the 1960s and ’70s focused on the counterculture, Hollywood lifestyle, and Californian culture and history. In the 1980s and ’90s, her writing concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five, previously discussed, were innocent.
She won the 2005 National Book Award for her memoir about the year following the death of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking. In premiered as a Broadway play in 2007. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.
At this time, Didion had just won the St Louis Literary Prize in 2002, and had recently released her 2001 book of essays, Political Fictions. Her essays on the history and culture of California, Where I Was From, was due to be published in September 2003.
Joan Didion was the first woman to give the commencement address at the University of California in 1975, which is presumably why Paris thinks of her. Her address began with a few charming anecdotes about her own youth, before she launched into a blistering attack on her generation in the 1960s, and its refusal to face up to reality.
A quote from the speech that I think Paris would have warmed to:
“Planting a tree can be a useful and pleasant thing to do. Planting a tree is not a way of life. Planting a tree as a philosophical mode is just not good enough.”
There is no record of her giving a speech at Choate at any time, so it seems as if they didn’t get her after all.
Phillip McGraw (born 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, television personality and author, best known for hosting the talk show, Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice psychology in 2006.
McGraw rose to fame with appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in the late 1990s. Oprah Winfrey then helped McGraw launch his own program in 2002.
Dr Phil has been a commencement speaker at the University of North Texas.
PARIS: Are the [votes] for Princess Diana’s butler jokes or real?
Paris refers to Paul Burrell (born 1958), English former servant of the British Royal Household, and Princess Diana‘s butler from 1987 until her death in 1997.
In 2003 he released a memoir called A Royal Duty, detailing his life as a royal servant, and in particular focusing on Princess Diana, who he claimed had called him “the only man she ever trusted”. Princess Diana’s sons, Princes William and Harry, accused Burrell of betraying their mother’s confidences, and called the book, “a cold and overt betrayal”.
The book didn’t come out until October, but pre-publicity probably went on for a long time before that, as reviewers called it “the long-awaited” memoir. Burrell had also been in the news in November 2002, in court for theft of Diana’s possessions. The case collapsed when he was granted immunity from prosecution by the Crown.
LORELAI: Jackson brought pea tendrils instead of Brussels sprouts. MICHEL: Well, aren’t we Evel Knievel?
Robert “Evel” Knievel (1938-2007), stunt performer and entertainer, who was especially popular in the 1970s. Over the course of his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps. Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.
As a point of interest, a biographical TV series called Evel starring Milo Ventigmiglia as Evel Knievel is currently searching for a TV network.
LORELAI: How’d it finally end with Cheech & Chong?
Cheech & Chong, comedy duo consisting of Richard “Cheech” Marin (born 1946) and Thomas “Tommy” Chong (born 1938). They found commercial and cultural success in the 1970s and 1980s with their stand-up routines, studio recordings, and low-budget feature films, which were based on the hippie and free love era, and especially drug and counterculture movements, most notably their love for cannabis.
Their 1978 buddy stoner comedy film Up in Smoke was poorly reviewed but a huge commercial success, becoming a cult classic and kicking off the entire genre of stoner movies. Their characters are a pair of drug-addled idiots who get into one ridiculous slapstick situation after another, so Lorelai seems to be saying that Jess and Dean are likewise a pair of comedic idiots.
The real Cheech & Chong broke up in the 1980s after an acrimonious falling out and didn’t reunite until 2008 – Lorelai may also be referring to that (not that she knows Cheech & Chong will get back together at this point).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 