Season 3, episode 18
Happy Birthday, Baby
Rory tells the grandparents that she decided to go to Yale. The Independence inn is charred from the fire. Lorelai's 35th birthday is coming up. Luke traditionally gives Lorelai a few hours of handyman work for her birthday, which she plans to milk for all it's worth. Richard wants to meet Lorelai so he can give her the money from the stocks he bought in her name whose company just happened to dissolve right before her 35th birthday. Nicole wants Luke to meet her parents. Paris gets her nose pierced.
Maid of the week: Piña
Maid the week of Lorelai's birthday: Teresa
Tropes:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Michel pronounces "I have, too!" as "I have to."
- Affectionate Nickname: Pete the pizza guy calls Rory "Rorino."
- Amusing Injuries: Kirk gets covered in melted cheese when they try to lift the giant pizza.
- Artistic License – Law: How legal is it for Richard to keep it from his daughter that she owns stocks he bought in her name when she was born until she is 35? He should have told her that when she turned 18.
- Babies Make Everything Better: Nicole's mother tries to convince Luke of this, blissfully unaware that he's been raising a teenager for over a year.
- Blatant Lies:
- Emily and Richard deny ever wanting Rory to go to Yale.
- Rory tries to deny that people are still talking about the meltdown speech, but Paris sees through it.
- "Astrid from school" is so obviously made up that Lorelai sees through it at once.
- Jess keeps telling Luke he's going to school when he ditches school and goes to work at Walmart.
- Call-Back:
- Part of why she doesn't want to run a B&B is that she doesn't want to force people to mingle, like she and Rory were forced to in "Roadtrip to Harvard".
- Lorelai once again declares that she'll fling herself off a building if she doesn't get what she wants, albeit this time by denying she wants it.
- Captain Obvious: Defied by Michel when Tobin tries to explain what a band is to him.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Richard's new secretary doesn't understand that Richard's daughter Lorelai is joking when she denies having ever heard of a Richard Gilmore.
- Rory tells the pizza guys to get back to the concept of a humongous pizza, comparing their veering off into other concepts to the remake of Gangs of New York, while her concept is the original with Meryl Streep. Kirk thinks she means that they should have cast Meryl Streep in the remake.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lorelai's contractor, Tom.
- Deconstructed Trope: We find out that the biggest pizza in the world would be difficult to transport.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Rory doesn't realize that Sookie would take offense to not being asked to cook for Lorelai's birthday.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Due to this trope's aversion being ever-present in the series, let it be noted that Richard also can't cook.Emily: Because I love you, I will eat exactly three bites of this before I throw it out.
- First-Name Basis: Lorelai waits for Richard in a café for twenty minutes, which is plenty of time for enough coffee orders for the waitress to learn Lorelai's name.
- Foreshadowing: Nicole's mother drops heavy hints about Luke getting married in the future.
- Guinness Episode: Subverted. Rory initially wants to make the biggest pizza in the world for Lorelai's big 35, but after finding out how big the current record holder was, changes it to the biggest pizza in Connecticut. Then she relents on that, going down to the tri-county area. In the end it's down to "probably bigger than the record-holder in Woodbridge," but the Guinness people apparently didn't care to chronicle that.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- Rory forgets to ask Sookie and Jackson to provide the "world's largest pizza" with vegetables.
- Lorelai rudely pays back the money she owes her parents. Emily takes great offence.
- Insane Troll Logic: Luke can't understand why Lorelai would ruin Rory's happy birthday-message spelled out in cookies and repair it with a cookie from the box when she could just have gotten a cookie from the box without ruining Rory's message. Lorelai tries to explain that then she would have had to reach for cookie box on top of the cupboards, which just didn't make sense since the kitchen table was covered in cookies already.
- Insistent Terminology: Lorelai really doesn't want to run a B&B, but in the end she agrees to make breakfast included and gather everyone in the afternoon for wine, cheese and mingling.
- Ludicrous Precision: Jess knows that Yale is 22.8 miles away from Stars Hollow. Rory thinks it's sweet he looked it up, he tries to downplay it by saying he was bored.
- Made of Iron: Kirk survives getting gallons of melted cheese poured on him. He gets severe cheese burns, but all he can say is "ow."
- Meet the In-Laws: Nicole wants Luke to meet her parents.
- Metaphorgotten: When Rory compares their pizza transportation solutions to a cheap remake of Gangs of New York, Joe's takeaway is that Cameron Diaz is hot. Kirk's is that he can imagine Meryl Streep with Leonardo DiCaprio.
- Never My Fault: Paris blames Rory for her own bad decision to get her nose pierced at a mall.
- Overly Narrow Superlative:
- Lane describes Jess and Rory as a "really sweet old agoraphobic couple."
- The world's largest pizza was too big to compete with, so Rory has to settle for the biggest pizza in this area of small town Connecticut.
- Product Placement:
- Jess specifically uses the Yahoo search engine.
- Jimmy Choo shoes. Lorelai figures she can buy 150 pairs with the money her father gives her.
- Tobin consults the Time Life series.
- Luke rants about the first time you find out your child ditches school to go to Walmart. Nicole's Dad says "Walmart." like he's heard about sneaking off to the mall, but not to Walmart.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Tobin and Michel for this episode only.
- Reverse Psychology: Lorelai suggests Rory use this to get the town to buy her a convertible for her birthday.
- Running Gag:
- Rory having to downgrade Lorelai's birthday pizza from biggest in the world to biggest in Connecticut to biggest in the county, or at least bigger than any they have made in Woodbridge.
- The one about Lorelai not getting to blow out her birthday candles runs briefly and gets overtaken by Murray, the rabbit Lorelai had when she was four that she was terrified of.
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a reference to the song "Happy Happy Birthday Baby," originally by The Tune Weavers, but knowing Lorelai it's probably more to do with the Dolly Parton cover.
- Tobin claims to know Tony Randall and Renée Estevez.
- Lorelai feels that if Dick Van Dyke can sweep a chimney, then so can Luke.
- Paris has finished her essay on Emily Dickinson.
- Paris's mother's plastic surgery reminds Rory of Brazil.
- Kirk wanted Red Hot Chili Peppers to play live in the square for Lorelai's birthday.
- According to Lane, the "Macarena" looks inspired compared to the entire year 1974.
- Jess rents Almost Famous, and Rory needs extra food if she's going to watch Kate Hudson kill herself again.
- Rory watched Ed Wood for him.
- Jess insists on watching Saturday Night Fever the next day.
- Luke suggests hiring Oompa Loompa hitmen to get rid of Taylor's competition.
- Lorelai calls Luke Fifi when he suggests that she's a year older before Friday.
- Jess figures the world is coming to an end, seeing as The Eminem Show is selling pretty well.
- Lorelai gets a jacket owned by a guy from The Clash.
- Rory insists that Lorelai's birthday party is not to be half-assed like Gangs of New York with Cameron Diaz, but for real like the original one with Meryl Streep.
- Kirk can't picture Meryl Streep with Leonardo DiCaprio.
- Hamlet's Polonius would support Lorelai's decision to pay back the money she owed at the earliest opportunity.
- Sweet Baker: Fran is very nice about Rory's request to add as much frosting as possible to Lorelai's birthday cake.
- Sweet Tooth: Lorelai loves frosting. She once tried to make a cake entirely out of frosting.
- Take That!:
- The music year 1974 makes the year of Macarena look inspired, according to Lane.
- The remake of Gangs of New York with Cameron Diaz gets it.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Michel cannot stand it when colleagues he doesn't like agree with him.Tobin: I hate to admit it, but he does have a point.
Michel: Get off my side immediately.
