Season 1, episode 6
Rory's Birthday Parties
Emily and Richard instruct Rory to put post-its on anything she wants them to leave her in their will. They insist on arranging a birthday party for Rory and invite all her Chilton "friends." She has a birthday party in Stars Hollow the next day.
Tropes
- Blatant Lies: Michel will work on his excuse not to come to Rory's birthday party.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Rory gets fed up with being surrounded by her fellow students outside school and tells Emily she won't play nice anymore.
- Captain Obvious: Emily is annoyed that Lorelai asked what the pudding was if she already knew.
- Companion Cube: Sissy talked to her stuffed animals and they answered her.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Paris demands to know why Rory is at the Harvard table at the college fair. They both realize simultaneously that the other wants to go to that school.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Though the episode contains two parties, neither one is themed.
- Generation Xerox: Rory's first birthday in the Gilmore house has her turning sixteen, and Lorelai's last birthday in the Gilmore house was her sixteenth.
- Innocently Insensitive: Mitzy says and does a lot of rude things, but she swears she is working on it.
- Malicious Misnaming: Probably subverted with Emily, who can't be bothered to remember that Rory's friend is Lane, not Jane.
- Never My Fault: Emily invites Rory's bullies to her birthday party and gets mad when it's too much for Rory.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever happened at Rory's eighth birthday party that caused the cops to show up and arrest the clown, it was the best birthday party Rory ever had.
- Product Placement:
- Clorox, which Lorelai claimed paté smelled like when she was pregnant.
- Lorelai claims to have wine glasses with the Holiday inn logo on them.
- Shout-Out:
- At dinner, Lorelai turns into Jewish comedian Henny Youngman.
- Lorelai persuaded Emily to play "Like A Virgin".
- Lorelai quips that Barbra Streisand is giving another final concert on Rory's birthday.
- Both Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison will be there.
- Emily has a Vulcan death grip on Friday nights.
- Jackson has cross-polinated raspberries with qumquats, and Lorelai hopes it won't be like in The Fly (1986).
- Lorelai mocks people who think Justin Timberlake is too dreamy to marry Britney Spears.
- Emily shops for her imaginary granddaughter Barbara Hutton.
- Lorelai suggests getting Rory a t-shirt with Farrah Fawcett's face on it.
- Lorelai suggests going total Cinderella.
- Rory wonders if The Waltons ever talked about their birth experience.
- Lorelai gives Rory a Shirley Temple drink, and calls her own drink a "Shirley Temple Black" (the actress's married name), implying she has added alcohol.
- Lorelai feels they had a Freaky Friday moment when Rory gets mad at Emily on her own while Lorelai was having a civil conversation with her.
- Too Much Information: Though apparently Lorelai has told the story of giving birth to Rory on Rory's birthday for years, Rory's expression says she still wishes she didn't have to hear it.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Averted, as according to information in a later episode, Rory's birthday is October 13, which did fall on a Friday in 2000.
