Carson Daly and Cheney

PARIS: I mean, why not just send Carson Daly over to the Middle East next time Cheney goes, huh?

Carson Daly (born 1973), radio and television personality. He was a VJ on MTV’s Total Request Live, and a DJ for the southern Californian radio station 106.7 KROQ-FM. In 2002, he joined NBC as the host and producer of late night talk show Last Call With Carson Daly.

Richard “Dick” Cheney (born 1941) [pictured], politician and businessman who served as the 46^th vice president of the US from 2001 to 2009 under president George W. Bush. Cheney, often cited as the most powerful vice president in American history, ended his tenure as an unpopular figure in American politics, partly due to an incident where he accidentally shot an acquaintance while hunting. In 2007, the Taliban claimed an assassination attempt on Cheney while he was visiting Afghanistan. Dick Cheney, a Yale alumnus, is currently the oldest living former US vice president.

Woodward, Bernstein, Harry Thomason

PARIS: [sleep talking in background] Woodward . . . Bernstein . . . Harry Thomason.
LORELAI: Is that Paris?

RORY: Yeah, she talks in her sleep . . . long in-depth arguments.

Paris references Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, previously mentioned, the journalists who broke the story of Richard Nixon and Watergate.

Harry Thomason (born 1940) [pictured], film and television director and producer, best known for the sitcom Designing Women (1986-1993). Thomason and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, are close friends with former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, the former Secretary of State, playing a major role in President Clinton’s election campaign. He produced a glowing biographical film called The Man From Hope, the centrepiece of the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Thomason served as co-chairman of the 1992 Presidential Inauguration Committee.

It is not completely clear whether Paris is arguing with Woodward, Bernstein, and Thomason in her dreams, or if she is quoting them in support of her dream arguments. I think the second?

Bill Maher

LORELAI: You’re gone and the house is quiet and Bill Maher’s canceled. The name of the show was Politically Incorrect for God’s sake. Didn’t anybody read the title? He was supposed to say those things, dammit!

William “Bill” Maher (born 1956), comedian, actor, political commentator, and television host. He is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary, and his activism in support of animal rights and the legalisation of cannabis.

He hosted the award-winning late-night political talk show Politically Incorrect from 1993 to 2002; it was cancelled in June, with the final episode airing on July 5^th. Many traced the show’s demise to comments Maher had made about the 9/11 attacks, where he disputed President George W. Bush’s claim that the attackers were cowards. Maher suggested that it was rather US policymakers who were the cowards. After this the show struggled to gain sponsorship. The show was replaced with Live! With Jimmy Kimmel.

In February 2003, Bill Maher began hosting a similar late-night show called Real Time with Bill Maher, which is still ongoing, so Lorelai only has six months before she can start watching this show instead.

Connie Chung

LUKE: I’ll be home early, anything besides the Q-Tips?

LORELAI: Um, cotton balls, world peace, Connie Chung’s original face back.

Constance “Connie” Chung (born 1946), journalist who has been an anchor and reporter with many major news networks. In June 2002 she began hosting her own show on CNN, called Connie Chung Tonight. Although it had moderate ratings, it was cancelled the following year when the Iraq War broke out, and Chung was needed as a reporter.

Presumably Lorelai has been watching the show over the summer in her lonely hours, and dislikes the amount of cosmetic interventions Connie Chung has had done since she last noticed her. There were numerous references in the show to Lorelai not approving of cosmetic surgery – which in retrospect seem rather ironic after watching Lauren Graham in A Year in the Life.

People and Works Referenced More Than Once in Gilmore Girls (Up to Season Two)

Women

Christiane Amanpour

Pamela Anderson

Jane Austen

Simone de Beauvoir

Bjork

Anita Bryant

Mariah Carey

Cher

Colette

Joan Crawford

Emily Dickinson

Celine Dion

Enya

Ella Fitzgerald

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Judy Garland

P.J. Harvey

Lillian Hellman

Barbara Hutton

Carole King

Ricki Lake

Jennifer Lopez

Courtney Love

Madonna

Carmen Miranda

Marilyn Monroe

Nico

Yoko Ono

Dorothy Parker

Sam Phillips

Sylvia Plath

Emily Post

Dawn Powell

Britney Spears

Meryl Streep

Martha Stewart

Barbra Streisand

Elizabeth Taylor

The Virgin Mary

Barbara Walters

Eudora Welty

Virginia Woolf

Men

Abbot and Costello

Woody Allen

Kevin Bacon

Beck

Matthew Broderick

Mel Brooks

Charles Bukowski

Chang and Eng Bunker

George Clooney

Elvis Costello

Kevin Costner

James Dean

Charles Dickens

Fyodor Dostoevsky

William Faulkner

Sigmund Freud

William Randolph Hearst

King Henry VIII

William Holden

Hubert Humphrey

Michael Jackson

Henry James

Jesus Christ

Pope John-Paul II

James Joyce

Ted Kaczynski

John F. Kennedy

Stephen King

John Lennon

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb

Baz Luhrman

David Lynch

Barry Manilow

Charles Manson

Arthur Miller

Benito Mussolini

Paul Newman

Richard Nixon

Charlie Parker

Sean Penn

Regis Philbin

Grant Lee Phillips

Brad Pitt

Iggy Pop

Elvis Presley

Prince

Paul Revere

J.D. Salinger

William Shakespeare

Frank Sinatra

Steven Spielberg

Sylvester Stallone

Hunter S. Thompson

John Travolta

Mark Twain

Tom Waits

Books

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Alborn

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Mourning Bride by William Congreve

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

Hansel and Gretel by The Brothers Grimm

Rapunzel by The Brothers Grimm

The Iliad by Homer

The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent by Washington Irving

Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Mencken Chrestomathy by H.L. Mencken

The Crucible by Arthur MIller

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Last Empire by Gore Vidal

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tenneessee Williams

The Bible

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary

Comics

Peanuts

Superman

Periodicals

Cosmopolitan

InStyle

Jane

The New York Times

The New Yorker

The Wall Street Journal

The Washington Post

Films

Babe

Bambi

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

Cinderella

David and Lisa

The Deer Hunter

Dr Dolittle

Fatal Attraction

Footloose

Frankenstein

Fried Green Tomatoes

Funny Girl

Ghostbusters

Glitter

The Godfather series

Grease

Heathers

The Horse Whisperer

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The Little Rascals

Mary Poppins

The Matrix

Midnight Express

The Miracle Worker

Monty Python and The Holy Grail

Oklahoma!

The Outsiders

Rebel Without a Cause

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Rosemary’s Baby

Say It Isn’t So

The Shining

Sixteen Candles

Sleeping Beauty

Stalag 17

Star Wars

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tears and Laughter: The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story

West Side Story

The Wizard of Oz

The Yearling

Bands

98°

Ash

B-52s

The Bangles

The Beatles

The Bee Gees

Belle and Sebastian

Black Sabbath

Blondie

The Cure

Duran Duran

Foo Fighters

The Go-Go’s

Grandaddy

Grant Lee Buffalo

Metallica

Motley Crue

NSYNC

Pixies

Rolling Stones

The Sex Pistols

The Spice Girls

Steely Dan

Van Halen

The Velvet Underground

Wilco

XTC

Albums

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) – XTC

Songs

What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong; Joey Ramone

I Can’t Get Started – Ella Fitzgerald

Someone to Watch Over Me – Rickie Lee Jones; Marty and Elayne

Where You Lead – Carole King

It’s a Small World After All – Richard and Robert Sherman

We Are Family – Sister Sledge

Teach Me Tonight – Dinah Washington

My Little Corner of the World – Yo La Tengo

Television

All in the Family

The Andy Griffith Show

BattleBots

The Brady Bunch

Charlie’s Angels

The Facts of Life

Get Smart

Happy Days

I Love Lucy

Jeopardy

Joanie Loves Chachi

Lassie

Looney Tunes

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom

The Odd Couple

The Oprah Winfrey Show

The Powerpuff Girls

Saved By the Bell

Star Trek

This Old House

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

The Twilight Zone

Twin Peaks

Wheel of Fortune

Wonder Woman

Television Referenced in Season Two

Drama/Adventure

77 Sunset Strip

The A-Team

Days of Our Lives

Fame

Kung Fu

Lassie

The Lone Ranger

M*A*S*H*

Mission: Impossible

Murder She Wrote

The Singing Detective

The Sopranos

Taxi

Twin Peaks

Comedy

The Abbot and Costello Show

Absolutely Fabulous

All in the Family

The Andy Griffith Show

Bewitched

The Brady Bunch

Def Comedy Jam

Diff’rent Strokes

Doogie Howser, MD

The Facts of Life

Get Smart

Gomer Pyle, USMC

Happy Days

The Honeymooners

I Dream of Jeannie

I Love Lucy

Leave It to Beaver

Lost in Space

Martin

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Monkees

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

The Munsters

The Odd Couple

Saved By the Bell

Who’s the Boss?

Science Fiction

ElectraWoman and DynaGirl

The Outer Limits

Star Trek

The Twilight Zone

News

20/20

Talk Shows

Charlie Rose

Inside the Actors’ Studio

Live! With Regis and Kelly

The Late Show With David Letterman

Ricki Lake

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Variety Shows

The Sonny and Cher Show

Game Shows

BattleBots

The Dating Game

Jeopardy!

Wheel of Fortune

Children’s/Educational

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse

Schoolhouse Rock!

Xuxa

Music

Behind the Music

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

Your Hit Parade

Infotainment

Martha Stewart Living

Mysteries and Scandals

This Old House

Two Fat Ladies

Animation

Beany and Cecil

The Bugs Bunny Show

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

Looney Tunes

The Powerpuff Girls

The Ren & Stimpy Show

Speed Racer

The Yogi Bear Show

Walkin’ After Midnight

The song sung by Kirk at the wedding. It’s a country pop song, written by Alan Block and Don Hecht in 1954, first recorded by Lynn Howard with The Accents in 1956.

It is best known for the version sung by country music artist Patsy Cline, first performed in 1957 on the television show, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Despite Cline not liking the song, she won first place in the TV contest, and there was such a strong audience response to the song that it was rushed out as a single within a month.

“Walkin’ After Midnight” became Patsy Cline’s first major hit, selling over a million copies, and reaching #12 on the charts, #2 on the country music charts.

The song is about someone so lonely after a breakup that they go for long walks in the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep for the misery. It’s a suitable choice for Kirk, who had earlier confessed his loneliness to Luke.

Animal Planet

KIRK: I read an article in the paper recently that said that weddings are an excellent place to meet women.

LUKE: Well, if it was in the paper, it must be true.

KIRK: I hope so, ’cause I’m so damn lonely not even Animal Planet does it for me anymore.

Animal Planet, a multinational pay television channel owned by Warner Bros Discovery, originally a joint venture with BBC Worldwide, launched in 1996. It’s primarily focused on nature documentaries. It is ambiguous whether Kirk is using the channel as company, or pornography – the phrasing suggests the latter.

Brad and Jen

LORELAI: So, guess who’s in the process of breaking up?

RORY: Brad and Jen?

Actor Brad Pitt, previously discussed, and his first wife, actress Jennifer Aniston (born 1969), who rose to fame starring as Rachel Green on the sitcom Friends (1994-2004), and is often considered one of the world’s most beautiful women.

The couple began dating in 1998, and were married in 2000. Their relationship was highly publicised, and their marriage often considered a rare success in Hollywood, but they did actually divorce in 2005, a few years after this episode aired.

Garfield

LUKE: Read your note … It was very well-written … I also enjoyed the Garfield stationery. That’s one funny cat.

Garfield, a comic strip created by Jim Davis featuring a lazy, fat, cynical orange tabby cat named Garfield, noted for his love of lasagne, coffee, and sleeping. Originally published as Jon (the name of Garfield’s owner) in 1976, it was syndicated nationally from 1978. It holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most syndicated comic strip, being published in more than 2000 newspapers and journals.

Garfield has been turned into comic books, TV shows, films, and video games, and been used for merchandise (such as the stationery) which earns up to $1 billion per year.