Tag: Television

Nietzsche and Dawson

LOUISE: Those who simply wait for information to find them, spend a lot of time sitting by the phone. Those who go out and find it themselves, have something to say when it rings.
RORY: Nietzsche?
LOUISE: Dawson.

Rory is referring to Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), a German philosopher whose work has been profoundly influential on Western philosophy. Since the 1960s his work has been a major focus in existentialism, postmodernism, art, literature, psychology, politics, and popular culture.

Louise is referring to Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek), the central character on the teen drama series Dawson’s Creek, which aired on television between 1998 and 2003. I cannot verify if Louise’s quote is genuinely from the show, but it sounds like the sort of thing Dawson might have said.

This is a rather unsubtle example of how much more intellectual Rory is compared to Louise.

“The fish flies at night”

EMILY: [on phone] I need the hat rack.
LORELAI: [whispers mysteriously] The fish flies at night.

A parody of the messages given in code in spy films, such as the James Bond and Mission Impossible series. Lorelai decides her mother’s comment sounds like a code sign, so she jokingly gives the “countersign”. Get Smart often used ridiculous signs and countersigns like this.

It’s rather similar to an exchange in the sitcom Murphy Brown, where Murphy tells someone she’s pregnant by saying in shock, “The stick turned blue!”. The other person thinks it must be code for something, and mutters back, “The dog barks at midnight”.

“Grumpy McFarland”

RORY: Grandpa says I remind him of her [Richard’s mother].
LORELAI: That is the biggest compliment that can be wrenched out of Grumpy McFarland, believe me.

I think Lorelai is making a play on Spanky McFarland, one of the characters from the Little Rascals movies, earlier discussed. He was played by George McFarland, and in the earliest movies when he just a toddler, did have a rather grumpy demeanour.

Avon Lady

MAX: I mean I don’t see you for months and then all of a sudden –
LORELAI: Ding-dong, Avon lady.

Avon is an American cosmetics company founded in 1886, a direct selling multi-level marketing company which is one of the largest in the world. It uses door-to-door salespeople to advertise its products, otherwise known as Avon Ladies.

Avon’s television commercials in the 1950s and ’60s featured a doorbell going “Ding-dong”, and then the catchphrase, “Avon calling”; it’s one of the longest-running and most successful advertisements ever. Lorelai humorously likens her visit to Max with an Avon lady calling.

Madame Curie and Jennifer Lopez

PARIS: Yeah well, I doubt highly that Madam Curie was voted most likely to dress like Jennifer Lopez.

Marie Curie, born Maria Skłodowska (1867-1934) [pictured] was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person and only woman to win it twice, and the only person to win it in two different sciences. The Curie family, including Marie, her husband Pierre, daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and son-in-law Henri Labouisse, has won more Nobel Prizes than any other family. She was the first woman to become a Professor at the University of Paris, and the first woman to be entombed at The Panthéon in Paris on her own merits.

Jennifer Lopez (born 1969) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and fashion designer. She began her career in 1991 as a dancer on television before branching into acting in 1993 (although she’d made her film debut as a teenager in a low-budget film). Her first starring role was in Selena (1997); she went on to star in other films in the 1990s, becoming the highest-paid Latina actress in Hollywood. She ventured into the music industry in 1999, with her debut album On the 6, which had two Top Ten singles. In January 2001, a few weeks before the events of this episode, she brought out her second album, J.Lo, around the same time as the release of her romantic comedy, The Wedding Planner, becoming the first woman to have a #1 album and #1 film in the same week.

We learn here that Paris’ ambition is to work in medical research toward the better understanding and treatment of cancer. It apparently doesn’t work out that way. Oddly enough, Liza Weil, who plays Paris, would later play a character who dies from cancer on medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

Sesame Street

RORY: You know I bet you can tell a lot about people from their garbage … It talks about their eating habits, what they read, do they go to concerts, are they responsible, do they pay bills on time?
LORELAI: Yeah, you do know honey, that garbage doesn’t actually talk at all unless it’s on Sesame Street.

Sesame Street is an educational children’s television program for preschoolers which has been broadcast since 1969, and combines sketch comedy, short films, and puppetry using Jim Henson’s Muppets; humour and pop cultural references are used to help communicate its messages. One of the most popular and widely-watched children’s shows, it has won multiple awards, including more than a hundred Emmys and several Grammys – more than any other children’s program.

Lorelai is most likely referring to Oscar the Grouch, a green Muppet who lives in a trash can and periodically pops up to complain about something, usually ending by telling everyone to leave him alone and get lost.

Audiovisual Club

RORY: I mean, Harvard is hard to get into, and I don’t know why I even spend my time thinking about anything else.
LORELAI: Because you have a pulse, and you are not the president of the Audiovisual Club.

An Audiovisual Club was one in American high schools where children learned how to become proficient in using microphones, film, slide projectors, VCRs, and other audiovisual devices, often becoming assistants to library and teaching staff when they needed that equipment.

They’ve become more or less obsolete since the 1980s, or evolved into IT Clubs or Media Clubs, but the stereotype remains of an Audiovisual Club being made up of extremely geeky students who belong to the A.V. Club, often as a way of hiding from bullies. They feature in TV series set in the 1980s, such as Freaks and Geeks [pictured] and Stranger Things.

Lorelai is remembering back to her own school days in the 1980s. Rory is perhaps too diplomatic or too depressed to tell her mother that her school doesn’t have an A.V. Club.

Kreskin

CHASE: No no, Lorelai! I’d have to feed the information into a computer to get the answer. I’m no Kreskin!

The Amazing Kreskin (born George Kresge in 1935) is a mentalist who became popular on American television in the 1970s, and is still performing. Kreskin’s main act is to make correct predictions, although he bills himself an an entertainer working with suggestions, not a psychic.

“Game show with your name on it”

LORELAI: Mom, he’s not my type.
EMILY: Why not? Because I like him?
LORELAI: You know, I swear, I don’t know which one, but there is a game show out there with your name on it.

Lorelai is referring to the award-winning game show Jeopardy!, which was created by Merv Griffin and debuted in 1964; it is still in production. It is a quiz show where contestants are given general knowledge clues in the form of answers, while they have to offer the correct question to match it – very much like Lorelai and Emily’s responses to each other.