Season 1, episode 14
That Damn Donna Reed
Rory and Lorelai watch old episodes of the Donna Reed Show with Dean to make fun of it. Lorelai convinces Luke to let her help him paint his diner. Rory and Dean fight because Dean doesn't find the show's values offensive. Rory has to take care of a baby bird for a school project. Lorelai names it Stella. Luke won't repaint the interior walls of his diner out of nostalgia. Rory babysits Babette's new kitten, Apricot, and roleplays as a fifties housewife on a date with Dean. Lorelai babysits Rory's school project which is a chicken, which escapes from the cage. She calls Luke to help her find it.
We meet Christopher for the first time.
Rory's study method: Flashcards.
Rory's note taking method: Paragraph notes.
Pets mentioned:
• Baby cat: Apricot
• Baby chick: Case study #12, renamed Stanley, then Stella.
Tropes:
- The '50s: Discussion of the values of this decade leads to the most feminism-themed episode yet.
- Animal Lover: Lorelai instantly bonds with and names Rory's midterm, a chicken she has to take care of for a school project. (Rory however doesn't want to bond with her midterm and pretty much forgets about the cat she's supposed to watch when her boyfriend comes over.)
- Big Eater: Donna Reid's family eat a lot, going by the amount of food she prepares.
- Blatant Lies: Luke thinks Lorelai is making up a story about a baby chick being loose in her house, but she isn't. As viewers know perfectly well, it's the truth.
- Captain Obvious: Lorelai points out that Europe is still there in the spring.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Lorelai shouts the new bird's name as though she knows she even has a name.
- Lorelai pretends to find it more worrisome that Rory wears a '50s skirt than that she had Dean come over.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Lorelai's joke about Rory ditching her Harvard dream to become a maid. Emily and Richard stare in shock that she would even say such a thing.Emily: And in front of Rory!
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Lorelai knows exactly what sort of motorcycle she's looking at even before she knows Chris is the one riding it. Later in the show she will be fairly clueless about motorized vehicles.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Rory zig-zags this by cooking canned steak and beans and forgetting to heat the frozen rolls. She gets confused when the Jello starts doing a "melty thing".
- Feminist Fantasy: Played with. Rory proves to Dean that his Donna Reid fantasy isn't something he actually wants.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Lorelai suggests they should have nicknamed Catherine the Great "Kitten" right before Babette knocks on the door to ask Rory to watch her new kitten.
- Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: Lorelai claims to love picking out colors and painting more than anything else in this world. We are two-thirds through the first season before we hear of it, and we won't see her do it again until season eight.
- Foreshadowing: Lane keeps taking aptitude tests and getting results she's unhappy with, so Rory suggests she pick a career path that will lead her to become the bass player in Foo Fighters.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: While Rory quizzes herself using flashcards, you get a shot of her notes, which seem to be ordinary sentence notes and no fancy note taking style.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Lorelai denies to both Sookie and Emily that she has feelings for Luke, or that he has feelings for her.
- Hidden Depths: Miss Patty raises chickens.
- It's a Long Story: When Lorelai is amused by the fact Rory is wearing an apron when she's housesitting for Babette (and has invited Dean over):Lorelai: Well, okay, you're 16. You have a whole house to yourself for the evening. I expect that you're going to have your boyfriend over. (starts to laugh) But what is with the apron?
Rory: It's a long story.
Lorelai: Did it involve a sharp blow to the head? - Kick the Dog: Rory invokes this trope to equate to Donna Reed's husband Alex coming late home from work. Without calling.
- Moment Killer: When Luke and Lorelai bond over a spot in the diner involving his father, it seems like they're about to kiss each other...and that's when they hear Taylor and other townspeople outside looking in as Taylor tells them yes, Luke is going to have the place painted.
- Odd Couple: Luke thinks it would be this if Lorelai were to marry her hobby of painting like she claims to want.
- Plot Parallel: Rory and Lorelai both taking care of other people's animals, inviting a man over, and losing track of the animal.
- Rule of Drama: Apparently averted by The Donna Reed Show, which has no conflict even when the husband comes late home from work without calling.Donna: You are no longer late for dinner, you are just extremely early for breakfast.
- Running Joke: The Gilmore girls keep losing animals they're supposed to be taking care of.
- Shout-Out:
- An episode-length one to The Donna Reed Show.
- When Taylor says the town has trouble, Lorelai jokes, "right here in River City!"
- A discussion about Europe's object permanence is too Lewis Carroll for Lorelai.
- Rory reads about Catherine the Great while her mother tries to sew a button of a sweater she's wearing.
- Babette suggests Rory watch Sex and the City while kitten-sitting.
- Lorelai claims Paul and Linda McCartney only spent eleven nights apart their entire relationship.
- Lorelai apologizes to the chicken for naming it Stanley when she learns it's a female chicken, and changes it to Stella because the two are married.
- Lane considers a career as keyboardist for Siouxsie and the Banshees.
- Pretty boy rock for Lane includes Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, The Wallflowers, Kate Bush.
- Lane also has Frank Sinatra.
- Rory guesses a CD is the one where William Shatner sings "Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
- Lorelai shouts "Stellaaa!" like Marlon Brando in A Street Car Named Desire.
- Lorelai asks if she should pull a Lucy Ricardo and walk like a chicken to get Stella to come to her.
- Sookie thinks Lorelai's evening sounds like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, prompting Lorelai to refer to herself as Marlin Perkins.
- Lorelai thinks Jessica Tandy did A Streetcar Named Desire better than Vivien Leigh.
- Lorelai compares Sookie's image of her to Michael Douglas.
- Lorelai calls her parents Joan and Melissa Rivers.
- Sommelier Speak: Inverted when Lorelai says "it's some kick-ass wine". Emily comments on how poetic it was.
