Tag: Television

Teepee

CHRISTOPHER: Well, it’s actually gonna come down to whatever we can afford. It might just be a newly built place.
EMILY: With their shoddy craftsmanship? Oh, you don’t want that.
LORELAI: What does that leave them with, Mom – a teepee?

Spelled either tepee, teepee, or tipi. A conical tent, traditionally made from animal skins on wooden poles, with a smoke flap at the top. Historically used by some indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies of North America, as well as by some tribes in the Pacific North West. The word itself is from the Lakota language, and means “dwelling”. They are still used by such communities, although more often for ceremonial purposes.

In English, the word teepee was often translated as “lodge”. This is a reminder of the Black Lodge and White Lodge from Twin Peaks, set in the Pacific North West, giving yet another connection to the television show in this episode.

Home & Garden Channel

EMILY: You know historical homes are infested with mold, don’t you? … It gets inside the walls and grows out of sight and shoots off spores that slowly kill you and your family.
LORELAI: You should get a show on the Home & Garden Channel, Mom.

Home & Garden Channel, initialised to HGTV. A cable channel devoted to home and garden issues, with a primary focus on real estate reality shows where people buy, sell, or renovate homes. It was launched in 1994.

HGTV is a cheap and cheerful network which people watch to relax and be soothed. A show on the horrors of killer mould doesn’t sound like something they’d produce.

Martin Sheen

LORELAI: I think we probably would’ve met eventually.
SHERRY: Perhaps, at some function or other.
LORELAI: Yeah – you, me, Martin Sheen, all chained to the same tree.

Ramón Estévez (born 1940), award-winning actor known professionally as Martin Sheen. He first became known for his work in The Subject Was Roses (1968), and later achieved recognition for his leading role in Apocalypse Now (1979). He played President Josiah Bartlett in the television series The West Wing (1999-2006). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Martin Sheen has been active in countless non-violent acts of civil disobedience, and been arrested for protesting 66 times. He has rallied for peace, gun control, and in support of immigration, and protested against nuclear power, nuclear weapons testing, dangerous arms buildup, abuse of farmworkers, Canadian sealclubbing, the invasion of Iraq, and numerous other environmental, political, and social causes.

Lorelai jokes that the function she and Sherry might have met at could have been at an environmental protest against logging with Martin Sheen. Of course, Sherry is thinking of functions at Chilton.

“Aw shucks, Pa”

SHERRY: Mm hmm. Well, you were very poised up there, very sure of yourself, just like your dad.
CHRISTOPHER: And your mom.
LORELAI: Aw shucks, Pa.

Aw, shucks is an informal American exclamation, expressing self-deprecation or a pleased embarrassment at being praised by another, as if modestly declining the compliment. It is considered to be unsophisticated, folksy, and probably rather dated.

Lorelai’s comment sounds very much like a reference to The Andy Griffith Show, previously discussed. In the show, Opie Taylor (played by Ron Howard), is the young son of the town sheriff, Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith), who Opie called “Pa”. Many of their interactions ended with Opie saying, “Aw shucks, Pa”.

“I’ll body block the fool”

RORY: What about the upstairs?
LORELAI: I’ll body block the fool who tries to go upstairs.

A possible reference to the action adventure television series, The A-Team, broadcast from 1983 to 1987. It featured a team of four men from a commando unit, who were sent to a military prison for crimes they did not commit, but escaped to LA in order to work as soldiers of fortune while trying to clear their names.

The A-Team rated well when it was was first shown, and has achieved cult status through syndication. It helped sell a range of merchandise, and was made into a film in 2010.

The team’s strong man and mechanic is Sergeant Bosco “B.A.” Baracus, played by Mr T. The B.A. nickname stood for “Bad Attitude”, a euphemism for “Bad Ass”, which couldn’t be said on TV back then. (Mr T, a devout Christian, thought of it as “Born Again”).

Baracus tended to call people “fool”, or refer to them as “the fool”, and body blocking someone trying to get upstairs would be an easy feat for him.

“She must be a witch”

SOOKIE: Plus she’s been sitting for an hour and her dress is perfect. Not a wrinkle? How does she do that?
LORELAI: She must be a witch.

Mädchen Amick went on to play a witch named Wendy Beaumont in the 2013 television series, The Witches of East End.

Sookie mentions to Sherry how smooth her dress looks, and Sherry says it’s the fabric. Sookie responds with scepticism, as if she’s convinced that Lorelai is right, and Sherry actually is a witch.

New Belle and Sebastian Single

RORY: Lane, this is flat out stalking.
LANE: Look, I don’t have much time. I’ve already used up my five minutes of phone time so this is totally illicit, but I have to talk to you. There’s a new Belle and Sebastian single coming out today.

Belle and Sebastian, Scottish indie pop group formed in Glasgow in 1994 by Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David. After the limited release of their 1996 album Tigermilk , they recruited other musicians and singers. The band took their name from a short story Murdoch had written inspired by the television adaptation of the French novel Belle et Sébastien about a six-year-old boy and his dog.

Their 1996 album If You’re Feeling Sinister is widely considered the band’s masterpiece, while their 2000 album Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant brought mainstream success in the UK.

In fact, Belle and Sebastian didn’t release any new singles in 2002, although they brought out an album called Storytelling in June, the soundtrack to the 2001 film of the same name. Their most recent single was “I’m Waking Up to Us”, an EP put out on November 26 2001. It went to #39 in the UK and #22 in Scotland. It was #4 on the UK indie charts. I can only think this is the single Lane is referring to.

The song is about the break up of a relationship and the realisation that it would never have worked, which would fit in with Lane’s mood. Some of the lyrics include:

You know I love you here’s the irony
You’re going to walk away intact
I think you never liked me anyway …

I think I’m waking up to us
We’re a disaster
You don’t want to know me

Two Fat Ladies

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.