Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Rory, you have to do something bad when Mommy’s out of town … . how about a floating craps game or something?
Craps is a dice game where players wage bets based on the outcome of rolling a pair of dice. A “floating craps game” is an illegal operation, so called because operators use portable tables and equipment to quickly move the game’s location, thus staying ahead of legal authorities. The 1950 musical Guys and Dolls features a floating craps game.
The title for this episode comes from the phrase, “there’s the rub”, to mean that there is a problem or contradiction which is difficult or impossible to resolve. It’s also a pun, because Lorelai and Emily are going to a spa to receive massages, or to be “rubbed”.
The phrase is believed to have originated from the sport of lawn bowls, played since ancient times, and known in England since at least the 13th century. A ball (known as a bowl) is rolled toward a smaller stationary ball, called a jack. The object is to roll one’s bowls so that they come to rest nearer to the jack than those of an opponent. A rub is a flaw in the playing surface that interferes with the ball’s trajectory.
The saying was popularised by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In the soliloquy scene, as Hamlet is contemplating suicide, he says, “To sleep; perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub: for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?”.
LORELAI: I mean, I could answer the door wrapped in cellophane but unless I was wearing a Yankees cap . . . ugh, he wouldn’t even notice.
LUKE: Geez.
LORELAI: Oh, don’t be embarrassed Snuffy, I’m just teasing. It’d be a Mets cap.
The New York Yankees and the New York Mets are the only two major league baseball teams in New York City – The Yankees are based in The Bronx, and the Mets in Queens.
Lorelai really is teasing – Luke always wears a Yankees cap, because Scott Patterson played for The New York Yankees. They are by far the more successful team as well, being quite possibly the most successful US professional sports team of all time.
[Picture shows a vintage navy blue Yankees cap, similar to Luke’s].
LORELAI: What did you say?
RORY: That I had a rash and that I had to take it off until it healed.
LORELAI: Nice save, Gretzky.
Wayne Gretzky (born 1961), Canadian former ice hockey player and coach. Nicknamed “The Great One”, he is regarded in many quarters as the greatest hockey player of all time. He is the leading goal scorer and point scorer in the US National Hockey League, and upon his retirement in 1999, was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
In ice hockey, a goaltender is credited with a “save” when they prevent the opposing team from scoring, so Lorelai is comparing Rory’s move to Gretzky’s ability to save goals. Gretzky was actually a centerman, not a goaltender. Lorelai frequently gets sports references a bit wrong.
LANE: Bible class has been moved an hour later, all to accommodate the reverend’s handball schedule.
In America, handball is a sport where players use their hands to hit a small rubber ball against a wall; it is sometimes called wallball. The idea is to hit the wall with the ball in such a way that your opponent is unable to do the same without hitting the ground twice, or hitting it out of bounds. The game is played on a small court, similar to a squash court. It is possible that the high school gym is used for handball in Stars Hollow.
The first historical record of someone hitting a ball against a wall with their hand is from Scotland in 1427, when King James I was a keen player. The game in America may go back to the American Revolution, but the earliest mention of the modern game is from San Francisco in 1873.
In the next season, we discover the Seventh Day Adventist pastor is named Reverend Melmim, although in real life, Seventh Day Adventist pastors aren’t actually addressed as “Reverend”.
It seems that even though Lane is grounded so badly she isn’t allowed to leave home, even to attend school, she is allowed to go to Bible class with her mother (and presumably, church). Later in the episode, we discover Bible class is on Saturday morning.
As Mrs Kim told Stars Hollow High that Lane had an infectious disease and was too sick to go to school, letting her out to attend Bible class seems like something the school would get to hear about.
LORELAI: There’s always something on. Uh! Struck gold!
RORY: Not Two Fat Ladies again.
LORELAI: Why not? They’re brilliant.
Two Fat Ladies, British cooking show originally broadcast on BBC2 from 1996 to 1999. The show centred on the titular ladies, Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson, travelling around the UK on a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle – registration N88 TFL (88 is “two fat ladies” in bingo calling, the origin of the show’s name) – and a Watsonian Jubilee GP-700 “doublewide” sidecar. Paterson was the one driving the motorcycle, with Dickson Wright in the sidecar.
Two Fat Ladies was frequently repeated in the US on the Food Network, and the Cooking Channel. The show came to an end, because as Lorelai notes, one of them passed away. This was Jennifer Paterson, who died of lung cancer in 1999, one month after diagnosis. Clarissa Dickson Wright died in 2014, from pneumonia.
Rory, who is apparently tired of watching all of the repeats of the show pleads, “Can’t we find some other really fat people to watch?”, to which Lorelai responds, “Wow, that sounded a little insensitive” (really, Lorelai? But you’ve got the sweetest kid in the world!).
Fat jokes? Insensitive comments? Without even looking, I knew this episode must have been written by Daniel Palladino.
LORELAI: Schmitty’s over the hill, he’s washed up, put him in Cooperstown.
Cooperstown is a historic village in New York state of less than 2000 people. It is best known as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened in 1944 on farmland which had once belonged to James Fenimore Cooper (his father William Cooper was the town’s founder). The name Cooperstown is now synonymous with the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Cooperstown once laid claim to being the birthplace of baseball, but this was universally discounted by baseball historians. Nevertheless, it is a twin town of Windsor in Canada, which lays claim to being the birthplace of ice hockey.
Mike Schmidt (“Schmitty”) did get elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, several years after his career ended.
Even though Lorelai was playing bagel hockey and choosing a goalie, she has switched metaphors as if playing baseball. This is no doubt because Scott Patterson, who plays Luke, is a former baseball player.
LORELAI: Goalie for the bagel hockey team?
RORY: And bump Schmitty?
LORELAI: Schmitty’s over the hill, he’s washed up …
If Rory is referring to a real person named Schmitty, rather than an imaginary one, it can only be former baseball star Mike Schmidt (born Michael Schmidt in 1949), often referred to as “Schmitty”. He played 18 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies between 1972 and 1989. A twelve-time All-Star and three-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. Sporting News named him Player of the Decade for the 1980s.
I feel as if Rory made up an imaginary Schmitty, but Lorelai recognised it as the name of a baseball player, hence why Lorelai rapidly jumps to baseball references.
LORELAI: Hey, let’s sit at the counter.
RORY: Nah, the counter, those are not the power seats.
LORELAI: Yes, but with no one here we can sit at either end and play bagel hockey.
In North America, “hockey” nearly always refers to ice hockey. Hockey is usually called “field hockey” in North America.
Bagel Hockey appears to use a bagel as the puck – the little disc that is pushed across the ice with hockey sticks in an attempt to get it into the goal.
LORELAI: Yes! Ha, ha, sorry guys, don’t feel bad. I’m totally into Dungeons & Dragons.
Dungeons & Dragons (often abbreviated to D&D or DnD) is a multi award-winning fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally designed by Gray Gygax and Dave Arneson. First published in 1974 by Tactical Studio Rules Inc, in 1997 it was published by Wizards of the Coast (now owned by Hasbro).
Dungeons & Dragons was developed from miniature wargames, but instead of working in military formation, each player creates their own character to embark on imaginary adventures in a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master serves as a referee and storyteller. The characters form a party who interact with the world and each other by solving problems, engaging in battle, exploring, gathering treasure, and gaining knowledge. In doing so, characters gain Experience Points, becoming increasingly powerful.
Dungeons & Dragons was the first modern role-playing game, and remains the best known and best selling in the US, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game, and more than $1 billion in sales.
Lorelai tells the guys that they’ve had a lucky escape, because she’s into Dungeons & Dragons (and must therefore be a hopeless nerd). However, today the games have become more popular than ever, and are actually quite fashionable.
[Picture shows the original game].
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 