This is the first song which is performed on The Brady Bunch Hour, sung by The Brady Bunch, which you can hear at the start of the episode.
“Baby Face” is a popular Tin Pan Alley jazz song from 1926, with music by Harry Askt, and lyrics by Benny Davis. The first recording was by Jan Garber and his Orchestra, with Benny Davis signing the chorus only. It was a #1 hit in 1926. The same year, the song was recorded in its entirety by “Whispering” Jack Smith, with Arthur Johnston on piano.
It has been covered numerous times, perhaps most notably by Little Richard, who went to #41 with his version of the song in 1958 – it went to #2 in the UK, his highest-charting single in Britain.
This is the show Rory and Lorelai are watching on television when Rory’s college application from Harvard is delivered by the mailman during the cold open.
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is a variety show featuring sketches and songs, a spin-off from The Brady Bunch sitcom, previously discussed. It features the same cast as the original show, with the exception of Eve Plumb, who played Jan, previously mentioned. She was replaced with Geri Reischl, forever to be known as “Fake Jan”.
The premise of the show is that the Brady Bunch family have been chosen to star in a new variety television show, and moved to southern California. It was originally going to be a one-off one-hour special in November 1976, but high ratings meant it was extended for nine episodes and aired sporadically over six months, ending in May 1977.
There were many problems filming the show, and the erratic scheduling affected ratings. It’s considered an unmitigated disaster, and as this episode says, TV Guide rates it as #4 on the list of worst shows of all time.
Lorelai and Rory are watching the first episode (the pilot) of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.
LORELAI: You know, you need a mask and a horse when you do that.
Lorelai refers to masked heroes who ride a horse, such as The Lone Ranger, previously discussed, who rides a white horse named Silver.
Emily redeems herself in this episode when she orders Christopher to leave her house. She may have been pushing Lorelai to get back with Christopher by any means, but when she sees that Lorelai and Rory really don’t want Christopher there, she does her best to protect them from him (she’s good at setting boundaries when she wants to, the way she wishes Lorelai had done for her when she needed rescuing from a man).
Lorelai doesn’t often call Emily her hero, but this is a rare example when she does.
FRANCIE: She’s gonna support the hemline issue, and any other issue that I bring up for the rest of the year. Otherwise I’ll make her so ineffectual, she’ll make Jimmy Carter look like Martin Sheen – do you get me?
James “Jimmy” Carter Jr (born 1924), 39th president of the US from 1977 to 1981 for the Democratic Party. He is generally seen as an ineffectual president, the end of his presidency marked by emergencies such as the Iran hostage crisis, the energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the Nicaraguan Revolution. His post-presidential activities are rated higher – he has worked with Habitat for Humanity, and set up a centre for improving human rights, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 (after the events of this episode, but announced around the time of its broadcast). Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived American president, the oldest living president, the one with the longest post-presidency period, and the longest-married president, as he and his wife Rosalynn have been married for 76 years.
Martin Sheen, previously discussed, the actor who played President Josiah “Jed” Bartlett on political drama series The West Wing (1999-2006), created by Aaron Sorkin (at one point, there was a rumour going around that Gilmore Girls was actually written by Aaron Sorkin, using Amy Sherman-Palladino as a pseudonym!). Jed Bartlett was an amalgam of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton – Clinton was a friend of Sheen, who often visited the White House.
Jed Bartlett was an outstanding president in the series – brilliantly intellectual, quick-witted, compassionate, stoic, and driven by integrity. He is regarded as one of the greatest fictional American presidents of all time, and Sheen won a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for the role.
Francie is saying that unless she gets her way on everything, she’ll shut Paris down until she becomes so ineffectual that in comparison, the low-rated Jimmy Carter will seem as brilliant as fictional president Bartlett.
Liza Weil, who plays Paris Geller, was in an episode of The West Wing in January 2000, the same year Gilmore Girls began airing. Dakin Matthews, who plays Headmaster Charleston, was in the same episode.
MICHEL: Why, no, what a wonderful idea. I was actually going to fasten a large wedge of cheese to my head and lay on the ground until Mickey gets hungry and decides to crawl out and snack on my face.
Mickey Mouse, animated cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, and first voiced by Disney himself. The name “Mickey” was suggested by Walt Disney’s wife Lillian, to replace the character’s original name of Mortimer Mouse.
Mickey first appeared in the 1928 short film Plane Crazy, and made his feature film debut in Steamboat Willie, one of the first cartoons with sound. He has appeared in over 130 films, including The Band Concert (1935), The Brave Little Tailor (1938), and Fantasia (1940). In 1978, he became the first cartoon character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Mickey has featured extensively in comic strips and comic books, in television series, and in other media, such as video games and merchandising, and appears as a character you can meet at Disney parks. He is one of the most recognisable fictional characters of all time.
LORELAI: I just . . . I feel like I’m never gonna have it . . . the whole package, you know? That person, that couple life, and I swear, I hate admitting it because I fancy myself Wonder Woman, but . . . I really want it – the whole package.
Here Lorelai admits that she would actually like to be in a stable, established relationship, suggesting one of the reasons she may have agreed to get engaged to Max, even knowing he wasn’t right for her.
LORELAI: I always thought if he could just get it together, grow up – maybe we could do it. Maybe we could really be a family, in the stupid, traditional ‘Dan Quayle, golden retriever, grow old together, wear matching jogging suits’ kind of way.
James Danforth “Dan” Quayle (born 1947), the 44th US vice-president from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. He sought the Republican nomination for president in 2000, but was unsuccessful.
Dan Quayle was outspoken on “family values”, and was notorious for citing sitcom Murphy Brown, which had an intelligent, professional single mother as the protagonist, as an example of how popular culture was eroding those values, in 1993. Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of her own show about a single mother, seems to be having a little dig at Quayle here.
RORY: Hm, not quite sure. Last time I saw her, she was beating the will to live out of our nation’s representatives.
JAMIE: She is a hammer, isn’t she?
RORY: Actually, she’s the entire toolbox.
In this episode we meet Jamie, who becomes Paris’ boyfriend. Paris thinks of herself as unappealing to the opposite sex, and her crush on former classmate Tristan was not reciprocated. But it is Jamie who pursues Paris, and on paper at least, he looks like her dream man. Attractive, intelligent, ambitious, and sharing her passion for aggressive debating techniques, Jamie isn’t scared off by Paris’ strength and outspokenness – in fact, that’s what draws him to her.
Paris is so unused to anyone being interested to her that she gets asked on her first date by Jamie (a victory dinner after their debate together) and accepts before realising what’s happened when Rory explains it to her. Paris predictably has a meltdown before the date, just like the one she had before her date with Tristan, and becomes so insecure that she makes Rory hide in the closet just in case a glimpse of Rory will make Jamie change his mind. Rory points out that Jamie has already seen her, and isn’t interested, but Paris is in no mood for logic.
Even though Paris only asks Rory to step into the closet for a moment while Jamie is there to pick Paris up, Rory gets in with a flashlight and a book, as if she’s planning to spend the whole evening there!
Jamie is at Princeton, meaning that the Young Leaders program is for college students as well as high school students (something which probably wouldn’t happen in real life). He is presumably two or three years older than Paris, because if he was one year older, he wouldn’t have started at Princeton yet.
Jamie is played by Brandon Barash, in his first television role. He has gone on to have roles in The West Wing, 24, NCIS, Bones, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives.
JAMIE: So, in your opinion, how was our nation’s capital?
RORY: Well, I got to see Archie Bunker’s chair at the Smithsonian Museum, so it was a big thumbs up for me.
Archie Bunker, played by Carroll O’Connor, from the popular sitcom All in the Family, previously discussed.
The Smithsonian Institution, a group of museums and education and research centres, the largest such complex in the world. It was founded in 1846 by the US government, named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. Known as “the nation’s attic”, it has 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and a zoo, mostly located in the Washington DC area. It receives 30 million visitors each year, and entry is free.
Archie Bunker’s chair really is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC, donated by the makers of the television show in 1978. It was originally bought by the show from a Goodwill thrift store in southern California for $8.
PARIS: Or hey, hook up Freddie Prinze Jr. with Colin Powell …
Frederick “Freddie” Prinze Jr (born 1976), actor, television and film producer, and screenwriter. He has starred in films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), She’s All That (1999), and Scooby-Doo (2002). He had a role in sitcomFriends in 2002, and later had his own sitcom called Freddie (2005-06). He is the son of comedian and actor Freddie Prinze, and is married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Colin Powell (1937-2021) [pictured], politician, statesman, diplomat, and army officer who served as the 65th US Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State. A popular figure, Powell was sometimes considered as a potential candidate for the presidency. In later life, he turned against the Republican Party, and supported Hillary Clinton‘s and President Biden’s presidential campaigns, disavowing himself from the party completely after the attacks on the Capitol in 2021.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 