Tag: Reality Check

Jayne Mansfield

LORELAI: The cork fell off my hook and Jayne Mansfield over here bit … Not the brightest fish in the pond, but she’s awfully pretty.

Jayne Mansfield, born Vera Palmer (1933-1967), actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her personal life and publicity stunts. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a 1956 Theatre World Award for Will Sucess Spoil Rock Hunter?, and a 1957 Golden Globe Award for The Girl Can’t Help It [pictured].

Mansfield was married three times, including to Mickey Hargitay, previously discussed. She is the mother of actress Mariska Hargitay. When Jayne was killed in a car accident at the age of 34, Mariska was one of three children asleep in the back seat, who survived with minor injuries.

Although Lorelai has called the fish Jayne because she’s not very bright, Jayne Mansfield had a reported IQ of 149, received solid if unspectacular grades at school, attended acting classes at several universities, and spoke five languages.

Elks Lodge

MRS. KIM: Reception at Elks Lodge. Two hundred guests. Food goes fast. Let’s move.

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (often known as the Elks Lodge or simply The Elks) is an American fraternal order founded in 1868, originally as a social club in New York City which borrowed rites and practices from Freemasonry. They focus on social activities, charitable causes, and patriotic events. Until 1973 they were an all-white orgnisation, and they only admitted women in 1995.

In real life, there are numerous Elks Lodges in Connecticut, including one in Hartford [pictured] – which you really can hire for weddings. I think this one is meant to be in Stars Hollow, which maybe seems a little small to have an Elks Lodge.

Ave Maria

This is the song at James’ wedding, performed by Dave Rygalski, and sung by Ho Kyung.

Composed by Franz Schubert in 1825, it was originally part of his 1825 Op. 52 a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott’s 1810 popular narrative poem The Lady of the Lake, loosely translated into German, where it is known as “Ellens dritter Gesang” (Ellen’s Third Song, in English).

It is often performed and recorded by many singers under the title “Ave Maria” (the Latin name of the prayer Hail Mary, and also the opening words and refrain of Ellen’s song, a song which is itself a prayer to the Virgin Mary), in musically simplified arrangements and with various lyrics that commonly differ from the original context of the poem. It was arranged in three versions for piano by Franz Liszt.

One of Schubert’s most popular works, it has become a fixture at weddings. Although an overtly Catholic song, it is sometimes performed at Seventh Day Adventist weddings, although with a certain amount of disapproval from strict quarters. Apparently Mrs Kim is not as strict in her religion as you might think – perhaps she simply loves beautiful music.

I presume that the pastor performing the wedding service is “Reverend” Melmin (he would actually be a pastor), previously mentioned as helping Mrs Kim select a suitable college for Lane to attend.

Shahaela Lodge and Spa

ALEX: Uh huh. I made lunch reservations at the Shahaela Lodge and Spa afterward. Think she’ll like that?
RORY: She’ll love that.

A fictional inn and spa near one of the lakes around Stars Hollow. In real life, there are a couple of spas on lake shores in Connecticut, although not very close to the general location of where Stars Hollow is meant to be. It feels like another fictional version of the Mayflower Inn and Spa in Washington Depot.

Peru and the Surgeon General

ALEX: Ready to try another? I hear there’s one from Peru that comes with a Surgeon’s General warning.

Peru, a country on the west coast of South America. Despite Alex’s warning, Peruvian coffee is said to be mild and light in flavour.

The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. The US surgeon general is nominated by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

In 2003, the Surgeon General of the US was Richard Carmona (born 1949); he was in the post from 2002 to 2006. In 2014 he wrote a book called 30 Days to a Better Brain, where he actually promoted coffee as a healthy drink that could improve mood and memory.

Office Depot

TAYLOR: Luke, this is business. It needs to be done properly and legally.
LUKE: It’s a standard lease form, Taylor. I bought it at Office Depot.

Office Depot, office supply company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. It was founded in 1986 and has 1400 retail outlets and annual sales of over $11 billion.

There was an Office Depot in West Hartford in 2003, and others in surrounding towns where Luke could have bought the lease forms – the store really does sell them.

OzzFest

RORY: It was a bat, wasn’t it?
LORELAI: Wearing an OzzFest T-shirt, I believe.

Ozzfest, music festival tour of the US (sometimes Europe and later Japan), featuring performances by heavy metal and hard rock musical groups. It was founded by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and was held almost annually between 1996 and 2018 before being revived in 2022. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath played the tour several times over the years.

At the most recent OzzFest relative to this episode, the tour was in Hartford on July 13. As Lorelai is a heavy metal fan, and at a very loose end over the summer, is it possible she went to it, and really does have a tee-shirt? Or, if she meant the bat was wearing a tee shirt already in the garage, she (and maybe Rory) could have gone to OzzFest 1999 [1999 tee shirt pictured], which was in Hartford on June 19. If so, it means Lorelai bought her Jeep later that year.

Lorelai connects a bat to the OzzFest musical festival because in 1982, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat at a concert in Des Moines. Stories vary as to whether the bat was alive, dead, or made of rubber, but Osbourne said the bat was alive, and gave him rabies. In 2019 Osbourne commemorated the anniversary of the bat incident by offering a toy bat with detachable head for sale on his personal web-store. The site claimed the first batch of toys sold out within hours.

“Four years”

LORELAI: What? It has not been four years since we’ve stepped foot inside our own garage.
RORY: It was when we got the Jeep.
LORELAI: That wasn’t . . . yes, it was.

This is the first scene we’ve ever had of Lorelai’s garage, which has never been mentioned before. The show explains that’s because Lorelai and Rory haven’t been near it since 1999 – and even then they only got in the door, then ran away when a bat flew out. These two really don’t handle nature very well.

Later in this very scene this version of events is contradicted when Rory says that two years ago, in 2001, she boxed up items from the attic and put them in the garage. They were meant to be collected by a charity, but Lorelai couldn’t be bothered waiting for them, so the boxes remain there.

According to their recollection, Lorelai bought the Jeep in 1999. It’s actually a 2000 model.

Fencing Class

In this episode, Rory, Paris, Louise, and Madeline have a fencing class. This may remind the viewer that Richard Gilmore was a keen fencing athlete when he was at Yale – something which Emily found very attractive about him.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the James Bond film Die Another Day had come out the previous year, in 2002, directed by Lee Tamahori, and starring Pierce Brosnan as the title character.

It has a notable fencing scene in it [pictured], where James Bond has an unexpectedly aggressive fencing bout with the villain, Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens. The fencing instructor in the film is played by Madonna, one of Lorelei’s favourite celebrities (she also sings the film’s theme song). Less than a month after this movie’s release, UK fencing clubs saw an increase in the number of people interested in taking up the activity.

Die Another Day was a box-office smash, and the #6 film of 2002. It received reasonable reviews at the time, but is now considered one of the worst of the films in the series. It was heavily criticised by Pierce Brosnan.

The fencing instructor at Chilton is played by Teigh McDonough, whose background was in the Chicago theatre scene.