Season One, Episode Seven: “Kiss and Tell”

Season 1, episode 7: “Kiss and Tell”
Original air date: 16 November 2000
Directed by: Rodman Flender
Written by: Jenji Kohan

Summary: Stars Hollow prepares for the Autumn Festival. After Rory and Dean share their first kiss, Lorelai invites him to movie night, much to Rory’s chagrin.

Note: Although Thanksgiving is not mentioned by name in this episode, the motifs of the Autumn Festival make clear that Stars Hollow is preparing to celebrate it. US Thanksgiving is much too complex to summarize here, so I created a Thanksgiving page with a brief history and links to Indigenous resources.

On this page: All References in Chronological Order | References Sorted by Category | Frequent References | Image Credits | Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

All References in Chronological Order

00:40 – 🎧 feature
Miss Patty’s dance class rehearses to Violin Concerto No. 3 in F Major “Autumn/L’autunno” by Antonio Vivaldi. Lorelai and Rory pass the performers on their way to Luke’s.

• The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) “is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718-1720” (Wikipedia) and published in 1725. The one we hear is “Autumn” (Italian: “L’autunno”).

00:55 – 🪶 feature
MISS PATTY: I got pumpkins, I got Pilgrims, I got no leaves!
Miss Patty’s students are dressed as corn, gourds, Pilgrims, and stereotyped Native Americans.
02:15
LUKE: Taylor, I swear to god, if you pull those Pilgrims out of your pocket one more time…
10:45
Lane and Rory staff an Autumn Festival table dressed as Pilgrims.
12:50
LUKE: Aw, come on, are you mad at me, too? I mean, a man can’t choose whether or not he wants a picture of a fat, stupid bird on his wall? My god, that’s the reason the damn Pilgrims came here in the first place! … Sorry, just feeling a little persecuted lately.

• The Pilgrims were 17th-century Protestant Separatists who came to the Americas to escape religious persecution, economic hardship, and what they perceived as corrupting cultural influences in Europe. They regarded the so-called New World as a new Promised Land, a tabula rasa where they could establish their own theocracy without fear of repression by the powerful Church of England. Of course, this “New” World had a history of millennia and a population of millions already. Protestantism was mentioned previously in the pilot and in episode two.
• In modern representations, Pilgrims are often depicted in black-and-white outfits with metal buckles on their hats and shoes. However, such portrayals are not historically accurate.

01:25 – 🪶 mention
TAYLOR: Your shop is right across the street from the horn of plenty!

• The cornucopia, or horn of plenty, is a large, cone-shaped object overflowing with foodstuffs. It has served as a symbol of abundance and prosperity since antiquity. According to Greek and Roman myth, the goat Amalthea, or Amaltheia, was nursing an infant Zeus when he accidentally broke off one of her horns, “which then had the divine power to provide unending nourishment, as the foster mother had to the god” (Wikipedia). The word comes from the Latin cornu, for “horn,” and copia, for “abundance.” The cornucopia is a common symbol in North America, appearing in several seals and coats of arms, and is a central motif of Thanksgiving.

01:40 – 🎥 reference
TAYLOR: You have lived in Stars Hollow for a long time, young man. It’s time you became one of us.
LUKE: Sorry, I guess my pod’s defective.

• In Don Siegel’s 1956 science-fiction horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and in Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of the same name), a race of aliens invade Earth with the aim of exploiting its resources. In order to subdue the dominant native species (humans), they begin to replace people with identical, but emotionless, copies, hatched from large seed pods – hence the slang term “pod person” in reference to a conformist or unoriginal thinker. The film is based on Jack Finney’s 1955 novel of the same name.

03:35 – 🪶 reference
TAYLOR: I don’t know. It doesn’t really look like the Mayflower.
…
DEAN: So, you want to go back to the Plymouth Rock idea?

• Plymouth Rock is a site on the ancestral land of the Patuxet, an Indigenous community belonging to the Wampanoag confederacy, in modern-day Massachusetts. It is the site at which the Mayflower, an English ship, landed in 1620, bringing with it English travelers, some of them Pilgrims, who hoped to establish a society based on Protestant Separatism. The resulting Plymouth Colony was the first permanent English colony in New England, and the third in the Americas; it became symbolic of the eventual founding of the United States.

07:00 – 🏷️ feature
Lorelai talks on the phone while examining the fridge. Grocery items, including a couple of name brands like Coca-Cola and Reddi-Wip, are strewn over the floor around her.

• “Cola is a carbonated soft drink flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils, and other flavorings” (Wikipedia). Coca-Cola, or Coke, is the brand-name cola manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. It was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton as a temperance drink, an alternative to alcoholic beverages. Its name comes from two of its original ingredients: coca leaves (from which cocaine is derived) and kola nuts (the drink’s original source of caffeine). Like McDonald’s (mentioned in episodes four and six), Coca-Cola is thought to symbolize the globalization of US culture. The term “cocacolonization” emerged in post-World War II Europe to critique such globalization.
• Reddi-Wip is a US brand of whipped cream founded in 1948 and currently owned by Conagra Brands. It is sold in a pressurized can and expelled from its container by nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas). It is the second-most purchased brand of whipped topping in the United States after Cool Whip. Rory ate Reddi-Wip from the can back in episode two.

09:50 – 🎧 reference
LORELAI: Right, absolutely. Smell a rose! Got it.

• “Stop and smell the roses” is a common English-language idiom that advises the listener to savor the simple things in life. Though it is now a common phrase, it can be traced to Walter Hagen (a major figure in sports history known as the “father of professional golf”), who wrote in his 1956 memoir The Walter Hagen Story: By the Haig, Himself, “You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.” The “roses” variant was likely popularized by the 1974 song “Stop and Smell the Roses” by Mac Davis, and usage increased following the release of Ringo Starr’s “Stop and Take the Time to Smell the Roses” in 1981. Both songs were released on albums titled Stop and Smell the Roses.

11:00 – 🏷️ mention
RORY: You got kissed last weekend! Remember, you told me. That guy your parents set you up with. The one with the Lincoln Continental. What’s his name? Patrick Cho!
LANE: Okay. Let’s do a little compare and contrast here. You get kissed on the mouth by a cute, cool, sexy guy you really like! And I get kissed on the forehead by a theology major in a Members Only jacket who truly believes that rock music leads to hard drugs.

• The Lincoln Continental is a series of luxury vehicles produced by US automaker Lincoln, a division of Ford Motor Company. The Continental’s exterior originally featured “European ‘continental’ styling elements” (Wikipedia), giving it its name. “The first-generation Continental was the progenitor of an entirely new automotive segment, the personal luxury car.” The vehicle is sometimes associated with the White House due to its use as a Presidential state car (the official vehicle of the US president) from 1961 to 1977.
• Members Only is a fashion brand whose line of racer jackets became popular in the 1980s. At the time, the jackets had preppy or yuppie-ish connotations, and they fell out of favor in the following decade. They have since made a comeback with the rise of retro nostalgia, and are now sometimes associated with hipster style.

11:30 – 🗺️ reference
LANE: Dean’s from Chicago, which you know.
21:05
RORY: No kissing noises, no stories from my childhood, no referring to Chicago as Chi-Town.

• Chicago is the most populous city in the Midwestern state of Illinois, and the third-most populous city in the US. There doesn’t seem to be a concrete story behind the “Chi-Town” nickname for Chicago; it simply follows the pattern of reducing a place name to its first letter or syllable and adding the “-Town” suffix. “Chi-Town” has been in recorded use since the early 20th century. Dean first told Rory he was from Chicago, and she referenced another nickname, “the Windy City,” in the pilot episode.

11:35 – 🎧 mention
LANE: He likes Nick Drake and Liz Phair and the Sugarplastic, and he’s deathly allergic to walnuts.

• Nick Drake (born Nicholas Drake, 1948-1974) was an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist. He is a somewhat moody and mysterious figure in folk rock due to reclusiveness in life; he seldom performed live or gave interviews, and no confirmed film footage exists of him as an adult. Recognition of his work came posthumously, following his death from an overdose of antidepressants at the age of 26.
• Liz Phair (born Elizabeth Phair, 1967) is a US singer-songwriter best known for her contributions to lo-fi, indie, and alternative rock in the 1990s. Her acclaimed 1993 album Exile in Guyville (a song-by-song response to Rolling Stone’s 1972 double album Exile on Main St.) explores themes of female anger and sexuality.
• The Sugarplastic is an alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1989. They recorded a song, “Don’t Look Down,” for US animated series The Powerpuff Girls in 2001.

13:20 – 🪶 reference
RORY: Sorry, sorry, sorry.
LORELAI: Oh, hey. Save your apologies for the Indians, missy.

• Lorelai says this when Rory is dressed as a Pilgrim, thereby alluding to the age of colonization ushered in by the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Foreign diseases, broken treaties, and genocidal policies (including biological warfare) all hugely diminished Indigenous populations and disrupted Indigenous ways of life.
• “Indian” is the historical term used by Europeans to refer to the Indigenous people of North America. It originated in 1492 when Italian navigator Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean believing he had arrived in India – this error is further reflected in the term “West Indies,” used to this day to refer to the Caribbean islands. Other monolithic terms like “Native American” and “American Indian” (which differentiates Indigenous people in the US from South Asian Indians) have emerged over time. Though naming preference varies by individual, many people identify by the name(s) of the particular Indigenous nation(s) to which they belong.
• Columbus was discussed previously in the context of flat-earth belief.

14:05 – 🎥 mention
LORELAI: I was watching General Hospital the other day. And, you know, they have a new Lucky, ’cause the old Lucky went to play something where he could have a real name. So the old Lucky had this girlfriend, Liz, who thought that he died in a fire. So then they bring on this new Lucky, and you’re all like, “Okay, I know that’s not the old Lucky because the new Lucky has way more hair gel issues,” but still, Liz was so upset about his supposed death that you could not wait to see them kiss. Ya know?

• General Hospital (1963-present) is a US daytime soap opera originally set in a busy hospital in an unnamed city. The fictional city was given the name Port Charles, New York in the 1970s, and the show’s plot has since expanded beyond the hospital setting. It is the longest-running US soap opera still in production, and the second longest-running in US history after Guiding Light (1952-2009).
• Actor Jonathan Jackson originated the character of Lucky Spencer in 1993 and played him until 1999, after which Jacob Young took over the role. Lucky and his girlfriend Elizabeth “Liz” Webber (Rebecca Herbst) are a considered a General Hospital “supercouple.”

15:00 – 🎥 reference
LUKE: Not going to say you look concerned.
LORELAI: Not gonna talk about how good you’d look dressed like one of the guys from The Crucible.

• The Crucible is a 1953 play by US playwright Arthur Miller. “It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists” (Wikipedia). A film adaptation written by Miller, directed by Nicholas Hytner, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder was released in 1996.

16:20 – 📖 reference
LORELAI: That Lothario over there has wormed his way into my daughter’s heart and mouth, and for that he must die!

• “Lothario is an Italian name used as shorthand for an unscrupulous seducer of women” (Wikipedia). This implication can be traced to The Fair Penitent, a 1703 play by Nicholas Rowe in which the character Lothario “is a libertine who seduces and betrays Calista.” The name is also used in “El Curioso Impertinente” (English: “The Ill-Advised Curiosity”), a nested story within Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel Don Quixote. In that story, a nobleman convinces his friend, Lothario, to seduce the nobleman’s wife as a test of her fidelity.

17:10 – ⭐ reference
LORELAI: He reminds me of Christopher.
LUKE: Well, that’s not too surprising.
LORELAI: You gonna quote Freud to me? ‘Cause I’ll push you in front of a moving car.

• Psychoanalytic theory is a theory of personality development first proposed by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (born Sigismund Freud, 1856-1939) in the late 19th century. According to this school of thought, children undergo five stages of psychosexual development, the third of which entails an Oedipus complex: a subconscious hostility toward the same-sex parent, and sexual attraction toward the other. Rory would be considered well beyond this stage by Freud, however; he believed this phenomenon occurs between the ages of three and six.
• The Oedipus complex is named for the character Oedipus, who, in ancient Greek mythology, unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. Carl Jung, a practitioner of psychoanalysis, coined the term “Electra complex” to refer to the Oedipus complex in girls, though Freud rejected this term.

18:15 – 📖 feature
A Cosmopolitan magazine sits on the coffee table at Lorelai and Rory’s house. It’s appears again at 37:45 when Lorelai reads magazines at the kitchen table.

• Cosmopolitan (or Cosmo, for short) is a US fashion and entertainment magazine marketed toward women. It was founded in 1886, though its content has shifted over time. Today, it includes dating and relationship advice and is especially known for its explicit sex tips. It was featured briefly in the last episode.

19:10 – 🎥 reference
RORY: We weren’t making out. It was just one kiss.
LORELAI: Yeah, well, by the time that gets to Miss Patty’s, it’s a scene from 9½ Weeks.

• 9½ Weeks (dir. Adrian Lyne, 1986) is an erotic drama film about an intense sexual affair between a New York City art gallery worker and a Wall Street stock broker. The film is based on the 1978 memoir 9½ Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair by US-Austrian writer Ingeborg Day.

20:40 – 🎥 feature
LORELAI: Are you crazy? You can’t watch Willy Wonka without massive amounts of junk food. It’s not right. I won’t allow it.
22:15
CASHIER: Isn’t that the one with Gene Hackman?
DEAN: Uh, Gene Wilder.
34:55
LORELAI: Oh, oh! Oompa Loompas.
RORY: My mom has a thing for the Oompa Loompas.
Scenes from the film are featured on screen at 34:55, 36:35, 37:20, 39:15, with audio featured throughout.

• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 US musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The film follows Charlie, a poor boy who wins a tour of a fantastical candy factory owned by eccentric confectioner Willa Wonka. The factory is run by small, orange-skinned, green-haired men called Oompa Loompas. The film is based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• In addition to his role as Willy Wonka, Gene Wilder is known for The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974), and Young Frankenstein (1974), all of which are directed by Mel Brooks.

20:55 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: I am going to be so cool in there, you will mistake me for Shaft.

• Shaft is a film and television franchise “centered on a family of African-American police detectives who all share the name John Shaft” (Wikipedia). The first three films, Shaft (1971), Shaft’s Big Score! (1972), and Shaft in Africa (1973), all belong to the blaxploitation subgenre and star Richard Roundtree as the “classy and suave” John Shaft I. The fourth installment, Shaft (2000), is a crime thriller and stars Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft II.

21:05 – ⭐ reference
RORY: No kissing noises, no stories from my childhood, no referring to Chicago as Chi-Town. No James Dean jokes, no father-with-a-shotgun stares, no Nancy Walker impressions.

• James Dean (1931-1655) was a US actor and “a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement” (Wikipedia), known for films like Rebel without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955), and Giant (1956). The latter was released posthumously following Dean’s death in a car crash in 1955, at the age of 24. His last name happens to be Dean’s first name, a fact Rory suspects Lorelai might take advantage of.
• Nancy Walker (born Anna Swoyer, 1922-1992) was a US actor and comedian. She had a recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977) and its spinoff Rhoda (1974-1978) as the wisecracking mother of Moore’s character’s best friend, Rhoda. She was commemorated on Entertainment Tonight when she died in 1992.

21:25 – 🏷️ feature
Lorelai and Rory pass a prominent Tylenol display on their way into Doose’s Market.

• Tylenol (acetaminophen) is an over-the-counter drug used to reduce fever and manage mild pain. Outside the US and Canada, acetaminophen may also be known as paracetamol.

21:40 – 🏷️ reference
LORELAI: And jelly beans. And chocolate kisses. Cookie dough we have at home. Peanut butter. Ooh! Do you think they have that thing that’s like a sugar stick on one side, but then you dip it in the sugar on the other side, and then you eat it?

• Though she does not mention the brand by name, Lorelai is referring to Hershey’s Kisses: bite-sized, conical chocolate pieces that come wrapped in foil, with a printed paper plume emerging from each wrapper. The Hershey Company has produced chocolate kisses since 1907 and trademarked their design in 1924.
• The candy Lorelai is trying to think of is called Fun Dip. It consists of a stick of hard candy that is licked and dipped into a pouch of powdered candy, which then adheres to the moistened stick and is eaten this way. The candy was originally called Lik-M-Aid when it debuted in the 1940s, but was rebranded as Fun Dip in the 1970s. At the time of this episode, Fun Dip was produced by Swiss multinational corporation Nestlé under their Willy Wonka Candy Company brand.

22:15 – ⭐ reference
CASHIER: Isn’t that the one with Gene Hackman?

• Gene Hackman (born Eugene Hackman, 1930) is a retired US actor. Though he accrued 81 film credits (per IMDb) in his career of over 60 years, he is perhaps best known for his performances in The French Connection (1971), The Conversation (1974), and Unforgiven (1992). The first and third of these earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively.

23:20 – 🏷️ mention
DEAN: You forgot your Red Vines.

Packages of Red Vines were partially visible on a Doose’s Market shelf at 21:40.

• Red Vines is a brand of tube-shaped red licorice produced by the American Licorice Company since the 1950s. They are a common movie theater snack, often sold at concessions.

24:45 – 🕊️ reference
RORY: In what universe would I be happy? This isn’t Amish country. Girls and boys usually date alone.

• The Amish “are an ethnoreligious group…consisting of several Anabaptist Christian church fellowships” (Wikipedia). Over 98% of the world’s Amish population resides in the United States, with a majority living in Pennsylvania (Ohio had the largest Amish population at the time of this episode, now second largest). The rural areas in which they live may be referred to as Amish country. Amish values are typically conservative, though practices have evolved over time and vary from one community to the next. Amish youth often socialize via group activities, but none of the sources I explored mentioned chaperones during courtship. The Amish were mentioned previously in the pilot episode.

25:00 – 🗺️ reference
RORY: I’m so humiliated.
LORELAI: Wha– You’re totally overreacting! I invited him to a movie and pizza, not to Niagara Falls.

• Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls spanning the border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York. “Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls” (Wikipedia), but most attribute it to Indigenous languages. It is a major tourist site in both the US and Canada, and a popular honeymoon destination. It was featured in the 1953 film noir Niagara, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten.

25:35 – 🕊️ reference
LORELAI: I’m Emily Gilmore now? My, how the mighty have fallen!

• “How the mighty have fallen” is a phrase “used to imply the decline of a once-great person or entity” (Wiktionary). In its original Old Testament context, it is a lament by David, “a Jewish monarch of ancient Israel” (Wikipedia) over the deaths of Jonathan (with whom he had a close, possibly homoerotic relationship) and Saul (Jonathan’s father) on the field of battle. It appears, close to its current form, in the 1611 King James Bible: “The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!”

28:25 – ⭐ reference
RORY: You’re like a crazy Elsa Klensch.

• Elsa Klensch (born Elsa Aeschbacher, 1930-2022) was a US-Australian journalist and television personality, “often working in the world of fashion” (Wikipedia). She produced and hosted Style with Elsa Klensch, a weekly fashion television program that ran from 1980 to 2001 on CNN.

28:50 – 🗺️ reference
RORY: Maybe something happened. Maybe he’s not coming.
LORELAI: Maybe he’s just late, Miss German Train.

• Germany is a transport hub for the European continent due to its central location and population density; it is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia. Punctuality is considered a hallmark of German culture, giving rise to the cliché that German trains always run on schedule. While the German system may still out-perform many in the US, it does not live up to its reputation for perfect efficiency. Germany was previously mentioned in episode five.

29:05 – 🗺️ mention
BABETTE: Oh, Chicago is one of my favorite towns. Used to be a club there called– What was it called, baby?
MOREY: Uh. Mister Kelly’s.
BABETTE: You ever go there? Oh, no, you’re too young. But Morey played there a lot.

• Mister Kelly’s was a Chicago nightclub that existed from 1953 to 1975. “It was a springboard to fame for many entertainers, especially jazz singers and comedians” (Wikipedia).

29:45 – ⭐ reference
BABETTE: Oh, is he cute!
LORELAI: Yeah.
BABETTE: And that Chuck Heston chin of his!

• Charlton “Chuck” Heston (born John Charles Carter, 1923-2008) was a US actor known for his roles in The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), Planet of the Apes (1968), and Soylent Green (1973). He was also a high-profile Republican in later life and president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.

32:05 – 🎧 mention + 🏷️ mention
DEAN: How much does it suck that they used “Pink Moon” in a Volkswagen commercial?

• “Pink Moon” is the title track from Nick Drake’s third and final studio album, released in 1972. German automaker Volkswagen later used the song in television advertisements promoting their Cabriolet compact car. The advertising campaign, titled “Milky Way,” debuted on November 11, 1999.

35:15 – 🎥 reference
DEAN: Ooh, Prince Charming, huh?
RORY: It was a long time ago. And not the Cinderella one, the Sleeping Beauty one.
DEAN: ‘Cause he could dance.

• Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959) are both animated musical fantasy films adapted from folk tales by Walt Disney. Both Prince Charming of Cinderella and Prince Phillip of Sleeping Beauty dance in their respective films (Prince Charming and Cinderella meet and waltz together at a ball), but Rory and Dean are apparently more impressed by Phillip’s abilities. Cinderella was also mentioned in the last episode.

35:30 – 🎥 reference
DEAN: I have no embarrassing secrets.
…
RORY: I bet I know one.
DEAN: What?
RORY: The theme from Ice Castles makes you cry.

• Ice Castles is a 1978 US romantic drama film directed by Donald Wrye. It tells the story of a young figure skater who must overcome adversity when she loses her sight in an accident. Critic Roger Ebert chafed at the film’s sentimentality, writing, “Stories like this make me cringe,” and Common Sense Media describes it as a “schmaltzy classic skating movie for romantics.” The film’s theme song, “Through the Eyes of Love” by Melissa Manchester, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

35:40 – 🎥 reference
LORELAI: At the end of The Way We Were, you wanted Robert Redford to dump his wife and kid for Barbra Streisand.
DEAN: I’ve never seen The Way We Were.
…
LORELAI: What are you waiting for? Heartache. Laughter.
RORY: Communism.
LORELAI: All in one neat package.

• The Way We Were is a 1973 US romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack. It tracks the relationship trajectory of Katie, “a staunch Marxist Jew with strong anti-war opinions” (Wikipedia), played by Barbra Streisand, and Hubbell, “a carefree WASP with no particular political bent,” played by Robert Redford. It “is considered one of the great romantic films.” Screenwriter Arthur Laurents adapted the film from his 1972 novel of the same name. Barbra Streisand’s singing career was mentioned in the last episode.

36:10 – 🎥 reference
DEAN: I dunno, uh, Boogie Nights maybe.
RORY: You’ll never get it past Lorelai.
DEAN: Not a Marky Mark fan?
RORY: She had a bad reaction to Magnolia. She sat there screaming for three hours, “I want my life back,” and then we got kicked out of the theater.

• Mark Wahlberg (born 1971) is a US actor and former rapper. In the 1990s, he was frontman of the hip-hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, using the stage name Marky Mark. His appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997), a film about the 1970s porn industry (a very strange suggestion for a movie night with your new love interest and her mother), helped him to break away from the Marky Mark persona and cross over to acting.
• Magnolia (1999) is an epic psychological drama film also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Critic Roger Ebert described it as “a film of sadness and loss, of lifelong bitterness, of children harmed and adults destroying themselves.” The film has a runtime of just over three hours and stars a large ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Mark Wahlberg does not appear in the film, suggesting that Lorelai’s objection has more to do with Anderson than Wahlberg.

36:40 – 🏷️ feature
Lorelai carries popcorn in a brown stoneware bowl with a dark blue design, identifiable as the Pfaltzgraff Folk Art pattern.

• Pfaltzgraff is a US kitchenware brand founded in 1811 by the Pfaltzgraff family, who immigrated from Germany. The Folk Art pattern was introduced in 1980 and is still produced today.

37:00 – 📖 feature
Deciding to give Rory and Dean some time alone, Lorelai sits at the kitchen table and flips through an InStyle magazine.

• InStyle is a US monthly fashion, beauty, and lifestyle magazine published by Dotdash Meredith (formerly the Meredith Corporation) since 1994.

43:05 – 🏷️ mention
LORELAI: It’s okay, I’m fine. It’s one too many Caramello bars.

• Caramello candy bars are a US variant of the Caramilk bars sold in Canada. Both are sold under the British Cadbury brand, though the US bars are produced under license by The Hershey Company. The bars consist of a chewy caramel filling coated in chocolate.

References Sorted by Category

Jump to category: Brand Names | Famous Figures | Film, Television & Theater | Geography & Politics | History | Literature | Music | Religion

🏷️ Brand Names

• 07:00 – Coca-Cola (soft drink)
• 07:00 – Reddi-Wip (whipped cream)
• 11:00 – Lincoln Continental (automobile series)
• 11:00 – Members Only (apparel)
• 21:25 – Tylenol (over-the-counter drug)
• 21:40 – Hershey’s Kisses (candy)
• 21:40 – Fun Dip (candy)
• 23:20 – Red Vines (candy)
• 32:05 – Volkswagen (automobile)
• 36:40 – Pfaltzgraff (kitchenware)
• 43:05 – Caramello (candy)

⭐ Famous Figures

• 17:10 – Sigmund Freud (founder of psychoanalysis)
• 21:05 – James Dean (actor)
• 21:05 – Nancy Walker (actor and comedian)
• 22:15 – Gene Hackman (actor)
• 28:25 – Elsa Klensch (journalist and television host)
• 29:45 – Charlton “Chuck” Heston (actor)

🎥 Film, Television & Theater

• 01:40 – Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956/1978 films)
• 14:05 – General Hospital (television show), Lucky Spencer (character), Liz Webber (character)
• 15:00 – The Crucible (1953 stage play, 1996 film)
• 19:10 – 9½ Weeks (1986 film)
• 20:40, 22:15, 34:55 – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971 film), Gene Wilder (actor), Oompa Loompas (characters)
• 20:55 – Shaft (film and television franchise)
• 35:15 – Cinderella (1950 film)
• 35:15 – Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)
• 35:30 – Ice Castles (1978 film), “Through the Eyes of Love” by Melissa Manchester (theme song)
• 35:40 – The Way We Were (1973 film), Robert Redford (actor), Barbra Streisand (actor)
• 36:10 – Boogie Nights (1997 film), Mark Wahlberg (actor)
• 36:10 – Magnolia (1999 film)

🗺️ Geography & Politics

• 11:30, 21:00 – Chicago, Illinois (US city)
• 25:00 – Niagara Falls (geographic site and tourist destination)
• 28:50 – Germany (European country)
• 29:05 – Mister Kelly’s (nightclub)

🪶 History

• 00:55, 02:15, 10:45, 12:50 – Pilgrims
• 01:25 – horn of plenty (symbol)
• 03:35 – the Mayflower (ship)
• 03:35 – Plymouth Rock (historical site)
• 13:20 – “Save your apologies for the Indians.” (US history)

📖 Literature

• 16:20 – The Fair Penitent by Nicholas Rowe (stage play)
• 18:15, 37:45 – Cosmopolitan (magazine)
• 37:00 – InStyle (magazine)

🎧 Music

• 00:40 – Violin Concerto No. 3 in F Major “Autumn/L’autunno” by Antonio Vivaldi (classical piece)
• 09:50 – “Stop and smell the roses.” (idiom popularized through music)
  • “Stop and Smell the Roses” by Mac Davis (song)
  • “Stop and Take the Time to Smell the Roses” by Ringo Starr (song)
• 11:35 – Nick Drake (artist)
• 11:35 – Liz Phair (artist)
• 11:35 – the Sugarplastic (band)
• 32:05 – “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake (song)

🕊️ Religion

• 24:45 – the Amish (religious group)
• 25:35 – “How the mighty have fallen.” (Bible quotation and idiom)

Frequent References

A few things come up so routinely in the show, I am not going to include an entry for them every time they do. I wrote about the following people, places, and things when they first appeared or were mentioned.

• Hartford, Connecticut (US city)
• Harvard University (academic institution)
• Herman Beeftink (piano and string composer)
• Independence Inn (named for the American War of Independence)
• Jeep (automotive brand)
• Sam Phillips (series composer)
• “Travel to Historic Brazil” (poster in Rory’s bedroom)
• “Where You Lead” by Carole King and Louise Goffin (series theme)

Image Credits

Images [1], [2], [3], and [4] are all stills from the episode. Episode citation: “Kiss and Tell.” Gilmore Girls, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, cinematography by Teresa Medina, season 1, episode 7, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund/Polone, Warner Bros. Television, 2000.

The still on the television screen in image [3] comes from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Mel Stuart, cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson, Wolper Pictures, Paramount Pictures, 1971.

Indigenous Land Acknowledgment

In beginning my work on this guide, I’ve come to realize just how many references (however subtle) the show contains to the Revolutionary War and the colonial history of the United States. It is important and necessary to acknowledge the people whose lands were usurped when these events took place, though this is not a simple matter. Please visit my land acknowledgment page to view the results of my research.

Posted 9 February 2021 (updated 2 May 2024)