Title: The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton

They’re both named Lorelai, and they are both overwhelmed on their first day at Chilton. It’s very self-explanatory. But they do duplicate this title when Rory goes to Yale (Season 4, Episode 2). I appreciate the consistency.

Paige’s Summary: Lorelai’s fuzzy clock doesn’t purr and she wears Daisy Dukes. Chaos ensues. Rory becomes a Mary. Paris is our new perfectionist obsession. The Gilmore’s get DSL so now there is no time for sandwiches. Lorelai thinks Luke is cute.

LANE: Guys, guys! New CD – XTC, Apple Venus Volume 2.

XTC was an English rock band. They never really found success because they didn’t fit into people’s close-minded ideas about music genres – were they punk? pop? new wave? They did survive time though, starting touring in the 70s and releasing a couple new albums in the late 90s, including this one Lane brings over (which was regarded as one of their worst, unfortunately). They actually had kind of a bad time from nervous breakdowns, to bad record deals, and bad managers. But they survived. And you’d think that their name was drug-related, but no. Boring.

RORY: I remember it being smaller. LORELAI: Yeah. And less… RORY: Off with their heads.

You probably think this comes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), the Queen of Hearts’ most favorite punishment for her insubordinates.  This may have been where it first became a popular phrase but Carroll was actually quoting Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part III (1592), see below. I had no idea! Seems fairly fitting for the welcome Rory is about to get inside Chilton.

QUEEN MARGARET:
Off with his head, and set it on York gates;
So York may overlook the town of York.

RORY: What are you looking at? LORELAI: I’m just trying to see if there’s a hunchback up in that bell tower.

Poor Quasimodo, he will forever be in clock towers everywhere. Quasimodo is the titular character of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a novel by Victor Hugo and repeated in many other media formats over the years. This reference makes an appearance several other times including the Great Turkey Fry of 2002 (S3E9) and Gran’s second visit to Emily’s nightmares (S3E10).

LORELAI: No, I look like that chick from the Dukes of Hazzard.

Probably for everyone born before 1985, this reference is to the Dukes of Hazzard TV show starring Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke. But for those of us raised in a post 9/11 world, our Daisy Duke is none other than the queen of tuna herself – Jessica Simpson. The remake of Dukes of Hazzard in 2005 was Simpson’s acting debut but also featured Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame, one of my personal guilty pleasures (don’t judge me!). So Lorelai is definitely referring to Catherine Bach here, as it was pre-remake. But rerun watchers are probably picturing Jessica’s cutoffs.

And as far as I can find, there is no relation between Catherine Bach and Sebastian Bach, who we will get to know and love as Gil in Seasons 4-7. These are both stage names as far as I can tell, though the hair bears some resemblance.

RORY: I was in the German Club for a while, but there were only three of us, and then two left for the French Club after seeing Schindler’s List, so…

One of the world’s best films and the punchline to many a German or Jewish joke, unfortunately. For those who haven’t see it, the film follows Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II. Liam Neeson is in true good-guy form as Schindler and Ralph Fiennes (ya know, VOLDEMORT) as the bad German SS officer Amon Goth. It’s a very true story and was actually proposed as a film as early as 1963 by some of the Schindlerjuden, the 1,200 people saved by Schindler’s intervention.

HEADMASTER: On your way to being… RORY: Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane Amanpour is a British-Iranian journalist who is known for great work as an international correspondent for CNN. Amanpour had covered every major war and historical event for the last thirty years – the fall of European communism and the Berlin Wall, the Bosnian War, conflict in Kuwait, the Iraq-Iran War, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina. She is truly remarkable and a noble role model for Rory. Sigh, but we know how things turn out for our girl… damn A Year in the Life.

HEADMASTER: Really? RORY: Yes. HEADMASTER: Not Cokie Roberts? RORY: No.
HEADMASTER: Not Oprah, Rosie, or one of the women from The View?

This is a dated reference now but so timely in 2000 when this episode aired. Cokie Roberts hosted the popular ABC News Sunday morning show This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts from 1996 to 2002. But she was hardly fluffy, talking politics and news – not gossip and entertainment. Headmaster Charleston is kind of picking on her right here.

Oprah, Rosie, and the women from The View were all talk show hosts though, so I’ll give him the comparison here. Oprah needs no introduction but Rosie O’Donnell was the host of the aptly named The Rosie O’Donnell Show, famous for the Koosh balls she’d throw into the audience. That’s a pretty 90s reference too. There’s another great Rosie O’Donnell mention when Lorelai watches Riding the Bus with My Sister. (S6E4) 

The View is a long-running talk show on ABC that’s been running for 21 years and has included 21 different hosts including Miss Koosh Ball herself Rosie O’Donnell. It’s nearly always female hosts but sometimes they let guys on – Guy Day Friday. HA!

LOUISE: Ooh, a dixie chick.

I think Louise is specifically referring to the Dixie Chicks, a badass girl band who helped bring a new wave of popular country music to the 90s. Their 1998 album Wide Open Spaces was super popular, especially to teen girls (guilty!). But in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War, lead singer Natalie Mains spoke out against the war at a concert in London saying “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas”. It was a huuuuge deal, even though this seems like pretty tame criticism to me. They were subsequently boycotted for the rest of the Bush years from all the major networks. Radio DJs were even suspended for playing their songs months later. But the Dixie Chicks stood by what they said and released a song called Not Ready to Make Nice. Pretty punk rock if you ask me.

MISS PATTY: Oh, ladies, what do I see? Naked girls. No, no, keep those leotards on. This is not Brazil.

Nude beaches? Naked showgirls? This is anyone’s guess. But Brazil just seems like a pretty naked place I guess.

MISS PATTY: Now, walk smooth. That’s the new Harry Potter on your heads. If they should drop, Harry will die, and there won’t be any more books.

What a cruel threat, this would have definitely worked on me. Pottermania was in full force in 2000 when this episode aired, so everyone watching knew how big of a deal this threat was. For those so sadly out-of-the-know, Harry Potter is the center of a magical world we “Muggles” can’t see and he must avenge the death of his parents and save the world from a dark wizard named Voldemort. The novels/movies have something for everyone – good vs. evil, romance, British accents, racial/political undertones, and lots of death. For some, I’d say Harry Potter gets the coveted title of “It’s a lifestyle, It’s a religion.” (S1E14)

LORELAI: Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, do a little dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there’s no dancing, no walking, and we’d starve. It’d be all work and no play. Have you not seen The Shining, Mom?

So true! I miss the days when I could dance around and make a sandwich while my dial-up did the ba bup ba bup bup bup bup kwwaaaaaaaaaaaaa eeeeeuuuueeuuueeuuuu noise. All this work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. The Shining is a classic horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick (of A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey fame), based on the novel by Stephen King. It tells the story of Jack Torrance and his family who move to an old hotel to be the caretakers. A lot of spooky stuff ensues, including premonitions, hallucinations, creepy twins, waves of blood, and a creepy time loop. Its meanings have been argued over time and again. And the Girls seem to love the film as well, referencing it 5 times throughout the series.

Lorelai: Do you want me to talk to anybody? A parent, a teacher, a big guy named Moose?

Moose, or should I say Marmaduke “Moose” Mason, is a burly, lumbering, dimwitted character from the Archie Comics. This is kind of the stereotype Jess attributes to Dean, especially obvious in the episode where they all go to the Winter Carnival (S3E10).